A Preface to Lunch Comments on comments

Author: James O'Brien

As finals approach and campus stress levels are spiking, I'd like to examine one of the possibilities for stress release that the internet provides: anonymously commenting about articles, videos, and music. Though not nearly as popular as pornography Web sites and fantasy football leagues, commenting on online articles seems to be oddly prominent. The same forces behind our compulsive status updates on Facebook seem to be driving this drive to let our opinions loose. Any video on YouTube is inevitably followed by a never-ending string of comments, most of which make me feel worse about myself and the whole human race.

Looking at reader comments on www.middleburycampus.com always makes me sad. I am debating whether or not to start a movement - complete with a fund-raising march and the hundreds of fliers that are necessary to create a "movement" - to remove the option to comment online on Middlebury Campus articles, or any other articles, for that matter. Although there are rare compliments on articles, the majority of comments are frightenly spiteful. I wonder if these online commentators ever heard that old adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Or, more likely, it is because they follow this rule in their real lives that they feel the need to break it anonymously. I suppose it could be argued that negatively commenting on articles or YouTube videos provides an outlet for otherwise destructive emotions, but it also creates a cycle of discontentment. Arguments between Loverboy143 and JerseyGalxxx over the merits of T-Pain's vocal talent should be eliminated.

Comments regarding an article called "Orientating back to school" from the 9/12/07 edition of The Campus should prove my point. Someone calling themselves "anon" posted on 9/25/08 @ 2:56 PM EST: "I believe the word you were searching for is 'ORIENTING.' not 'ORIENTATING.' kind of embarrassing." In my opinion, it is more embarrassing that this anonymous person felt the need to comment on a 50 word article that was written a year earlier.

Online comments like the "anon" one put more negativity out into the world via the Internet. It doesn't seem that "anon" is attempting to make any sort of constructive criticism, but instead would like us to realize that he/she is more intelligent than the editors of The Campus. This is a seemingly useless endeavor since the anonymous nature of the comment ensures that "anon" will never receive full credit for his/her brilliant observation.

So why is this type of commenting so popular?

In a way, it's a result of the same type of drive that leads us to do things like study for forty-eight straight hours without sleeping. It's not necessarily a good idea, but it makes us feel like we're accomplishing something.

When commenting on articles or message boards, we show that we're not content to allow thoughts to exist only in our heads. It speaks to our obsession with productivity that we feel it necessary to justify the time we've taken to read and think by producing something tangible, even if it is something as inane as commenting on (or writing) a Campus article. We want to be able to see or feel how we've spent our time, to perceive some progress. In accordance with our culture, spending time without any sort of tangible result makes us nervous. If we're not actively consuming or producing, we feel useless.

Please, relax, consumers and producers. I know that when someone tells you to relax, it usually just makes you more upset, but just give it a shot. Understand that just by breathing we are consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide. So really, we are always being productive - excluding those times when we are engaged in breath-holding contests.

And please, don't read the online version of The Campus. Leave your room and go to the dining hall where you can read the environmentally unfriendly version of the newspaper. This allows you to drink some tea, leave newspaper irresponsibly strewn about the dining hall, and share some opinions without being anonymous. Breathe in, breathe out, and smile, because the difference between orienting and orientating just isn't that important.