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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Meta-Post: Comments of the Whatever

I've been meaning to do this for a while because, let's face it, the commenters on this blog are funnier, more insightful, and smarter than I am.

But I just never got around to doing it...

Anyway, on no specific basis (timing or otherwise) I am going to excerpt my favorites comments or comment snippets and post them up in the right hand corner there.

Just a small token of my appreciation for the fact that you guys make the blog worth reading.

9 comments:

Michael Foley said...

My favorite quote of the moment is from the most vitriolic of anonymous trolls:

"REST ASSURED, no one gives a shit what you think. Also, try to remember, admitting you're an ASSHOLE is the first step."

Michael Foley said...

Sorry for pasting in the salty language, but just imagining some guy seething and mumbling while typing 6th-grade level insults amuses me to no end.

Michael Foley said...

Anyway, I like your idea of the quote of the moment, DaveyK.

Anonymous said...

Michael:
Thanks for reminding me. I enjoyed writing this and I remember to whom it was directed. It was much deserved.

"REST ASSURED, no one gives a shit what you think. Also, try to remember, admitting you're an ASSHOLE is the first step."As for you...the person who is apparently turned on by BT's drawings of a cartoon duck who does not wear pants.
No additional comment is warranted. Wait, sorry…douchebag is additional, and warranted.

Michael Foley said...

Uh, yeah.

Anyway, signing up for a blogger account is free and easy. You should do it!

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Really? Anonymous chickenshit keeps mental files on what pseudonym it's slinging random grade-school insults at? And, further, it's PROUD of its braindead insults? Jeez, it's even more pathetic than I could possibly have imagined. Now I almost feel bad about making fun of it. But not quite.

rewinn said...

We are given only X minutes of life to live. We don't know what X will be for any of us, but we know it is finite (...and usually, too small.)

And when we're gone, all that lives after us is some DNA and some data. Until recently, that data was a few old photos, tattered letters to forgotten lovers, for a few some mention in a newspaper or a book published. Of the tens of billions who ever lived, maybe a few million rate even a wikipedia article. The rest: forgotten like tears in rain.

BUT: thanks to the internet (as preserved by google and the NSA) our data can survive as long as there is human life, perhaps longer. We still have only X minutes, but our thoughts, dreams and silly jokes survive us, to inform and perhaps amuse our successors. That most of it is trivia doesn't really matter; of all the millions of books and newspaper articles ever printed, most are junk too. But there is some immortality in writing even the most trivial comment on Duck and Cover ... IF you sign your work.

We who sign our work (typically by pseudonym or handle) are creating the cyberself that lives on after us. While we are here primarily to amuse ourselves, we have sufficient pride in ourself to take ownership of what we write. Bad or good, and mostly trivial, it is OUR work by golly! And it's just a little bit punchier because of it.

Anonymous trolling, OTOH, is a complete waste of time. This is not only because no-one respects the opinion of a troll, and certainly no-one changes their opinion on any subject of importance because an anonymous coward called someone a naughty word. Because their content adds nothing to the discussion, they are waste of time; but they are an even greater waste of time because they are anonymous. No-one can lay claim to them; no-one can present them to the next generation and say, "See? For better or worse, for good or bad, I lived and I created: here it is."The time and place for anonymity is when the writer has reason to fear retribution. The crime informant, the spy, the battered child all need anonymity. But on a blog commenting on cartoons and politics, anonymity is merely pitiable.

Anonymous Coward is pitiable, not because his writing is weak and angry. Weak and angry people can be creative too! Rather, we pity Anonymous Coward because he is wasting his limited time on earth.

Anonymous Coward is pissing away his X.

12xuser said...

I really appreciate this blog. Before I found it, I couldn't read Mallard Fillmore because it was so stupid and so wrong that I couldn't get a handle on how to begin to think about it. The fact that someone could make such a stupid comic and get it printed in the comics page on my local paper was just too infuriating.

Now, it's just a matter of choosing what to pick on today. Is it the crappy artwork, the phony analogy, the strawman of the week, the faulty logic, or just the general overall incoherence of the thing? Pretty simple.

With regard to trolls, I still think the best policy is to ignore them. It can be hard to do, when they present such inviting targets, and I've indulged in a little troll-baiting myself, but it's probably the best way to make them go away.