Stupidity in Comments

I recently had a conversation with my good friend Mike about the stupidity of comments throughout the internet. The bulk of the conversation was that Mike seems unable to avoid reading the through the idiocracy of people, while I find myself generally avoiding them without concern.

I learned long ago not to bother, but Mike describes comments as being like watching a train wreck in action, something you can't tear your eyes away from.The bottom line, though, was that we both agree that stupid people seem to think they should be their opinion should be known, all while people who are, if only slightly, less stupid call them out on it. Whether it's some 12 year kid that thinks Nazis are cool and get a bad rap, or some ignorant guy determined that everything is some kind of conspiracy. And all of this is coupled with spelling and grammar errors, which many try to cover up with 'text speak'.

While I try to avoid them, scrolling down on this page I found the comments had sneaked up on me. In this case, it's classic "didn't bother to read" syndrome. On average, most people on the internet skim their way around, only taking in a small fraction of every story they encounter. The problem is that they then still feel to comment with only part of the information, without comprehending the story they just read (or watched).An example: From the article:

"The ginormous ball, of which the Burj Dubai has nine, was installed on in-place from 41 discrete steel plates because the combined weight of 730 tons would have been too heavy to lift by crane."

This is a pretty straight forward statement. Yet we find comments like this:

"Mfumbi at 12:17 PM on 06/24/08*Does anyone know how a 730 ton ball is lifted to the top of a 101 story building? Do they use cranes? Is it airlifted?"

I also love smart-ass remarks like this:

"MFlick at 10:16 AM on 06/24/08*I would say let them all try to sit on it and swing a 730 ton (1,460,000 pound) ball... It would take every single person in china to do it."

Which doesn't make a lot of sense, something pointed out by this poster:

"wild homes has... at 10:20 AM on 06/24/08*@MFlick: If China's got a population of a billion people-- which it does-- and if the average person weighs 100 pounds-- which, accounting for children, I'd expect they certainly meet, if not exceed-- then we're at 100,000,000,000 pounds. Which I'd guess would have to be more than enough to move the ball. So it would definitely take less than the entire population of China to move the ball."

It's actually more like 1.3 billion, but I don't want to nitpick. Further, you find so many posts regarding the fact that it's an article about a large ball and therefore must have a variety of testicle jokes. Now, this is just one example, and to be honest, this is a mild example at best. Sites like Youtube.com and MySpace.com are frequented by many more idiots than Gizmodo.

As an example, here we have the comments from the first YouTube video I clicked (that wasn't completely NSFW, even if the comments technically are). Enjoy the stupidity.


Of course, as with so many videos on YouTube, I wonder why people even bother to comment. Then I usually wonder why the video is there in the first place.