Jump to content
DanJW

Internet Message Boards to Not Read

Recommended Posts

I'm posting this here as a kind of note-to-self, but also just general advice to the world at large. Most of you probably already know about these, from tragic personal experience. Generally I'm good, but now and again I'll think "that looks like an interesting discussion title" and I go in... and then shortly after I am filled with anger and frustration and I feel like logging out... of the human species.

Warning: while most the sites below are excellent resources that can and should be used safely, do not under any circumstances read their user comments or message boards, at risk of damage to your brain and sociomental machinery.

1. Youtube user comments

2. IMDB forums

3. BBC News 'Have Your Say'

That's the top 3. Anyone have any others to add? Are the Kotaku comment threads still similarly toxic?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm, the comment threads I want to avoid tend to be on sites I do avoid, like gadget blogs, Joystiq, Kotaku, etc.

There's a little known forum called NaliCity: Other Stuff, which used to be quite a good hangout for Unreal mappers. It went from having some incredibly clever people there to, well, youtube commenters talking about how AMERICA WON VIETNAM ASSHOLE SO STFU EURPEON YOU DONT UNDERSTAND NETHING.

Also:

http://xkcd.com/202/ :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Reading Digg comments absolutely winds the hell up out of me, because you've basically got people talking absolute shit about things I'm interested in and thus clicked on (hence seeing the comments in the first place).

The reason it annoys me is because I invariably see these Digg articles like a day after they've been posted, so about a million comments have been posted since the retarded one(s) and thus it'd be a waste of time replying with some kind of 'FFS!'-orientated comment.

So I just close the page feeling slightly irritated. Then open another article and get the same again. :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

reddit, gamefaqs, GAF, gamespot, just about any forum with the word "Game" in it (WE ARE SAFE!)

But YouTube takes the cake. :deranged:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The (Dutch) Aniway forums I read are ocassionally noxious as hell. Because they're filled with self-absorbed teenage otaku. I honestly don't know why I bother to look there (apart from writing for the magazine). I really should just leave the damn place.

For some strange, unfathomable reason, while typing the first sentence of this point, I was suddenly overtaken by a powerful urge to read Deathtrap Dungeon. I do not know why.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

YouTube is the worst. You might be watching a video of, say, a hamster farting, and then you scroll down to the comments section and inevitably the thread that once started about hamster farts months ago somehow turned into someone calling all liberals blind and ignorant, or claiming that Bush is gay. It's incredible.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
YouTube is the worst. You might be watching a video of, say, a hamster farting, and then you scroll down to the comments section and inevitably the thread that once started about hamster farts months ago somehow turned into someone calling all liberals blind and ignorant, or claiming that Bush is gay. It's incredible.

Fake.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was really surprised how bad the comments are at The Guardian and The Times. You'd think that the average reader of those papers would be fairly intelligent, but the political stories seem to bring out all the wackos and generally every comment is either written so badly you'd think it was by a 7-year old, or utterly contemptuous of and venomous towards the (often very well-respected) journalist.

My favourite was a recent piece written as a sort of 'open letter' to his fellow journalists for some common sense in reporting the Madeleine McCann story. Really thoughtfully written with several good points about the importance of only reporting when there is actually news and how the story isn't actually more important than Iraq or Darfur. The first comment was something to the effect of "OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU MADDIE!!"

Edit: This is much the same problem as the BBC 'have your say' feature Dan mentions.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It proves that the world is full of idiots, only before they were not bothering anyone because they were watching TV.

I see it as positive that these people are now expressing themselves on the internets though. Maybe they'll slowly get better at it. Maybe, now that their idiocy is publicly accessible instead of contained within their own house or neighbourhood, it'll have a chance of being gradually challenged or corrected. Anything that improves literacy and common sense if only by miniscule percentages is a good thing, and I'm hoping that's what comments on the internet are doing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It proves that the world is full of idiots, only before they were not bothering anyone because they were watching TV.

Don't forget voting. Idiots also vote :frown:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd post this poll here but the sample would be biased and ikkle:

Q1: Is the world full of idiots?

Q2: Are you an idiot?

Saw it posted somewhere with a lot of traffic once. It only showed the second question after the first had been answered. Results: Roughly 80/20 yes/no for Q1, the reverse for Q2 :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I find yours an interesting and very positive thought, Marek, but I don't think it's necessarily correct that the people who post shit like that are simply well-meaning oafs in real life. I think the nature of the internet invites normal, decent people to erupt in stupidity under the banner of anonymity. I'd love it if there were some mysterious didactic force at work that slowly turns every troll into a well-spirited dialectic genius, but I'm afraid that feeling is spread very thin in me and for the longest time all I'll be doing is being supremely irritated at all the stupidity around these here internettian parts.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I find yours an interesting and very positive thought, Marek, but I don't think it's necessarily correct that the people who post shit like that are simply well-meaning oafs in real life. I think the nature of the internet invites normal, decent people to erupt in stupidity under the banner of anonymity. I'd love it if there were some mysterious didactic force at work that slowly turns every troll into a well-spirited dialectic genius, but I'm afraid that feeling is spread very thin in me and for the longest time all I'll be doing is being supremely irritated at all the stupidity around these here internettian parts.

From Penny Arcade:

yhst-34640480252896_1975_1270667

Edit: updated link

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't buy into the myth that people who post stupid shit on the internet are normal intelligent people in their real lives, as if they're acting like an entirely different person just because they can be anonymous. More likely the internet just allows them to be more like the dickwads they already are, instead of the internet magically transforming them into dickwads. It's a subtle but key difference.

I think it works more like this really:

internet.jpg

Let me put it in a different way: if a dickwad talks in meatspace and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

I don't know what I just wrote.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, it's like people that write in the the Daily Mail, or who buy it every day without irony. There must be thousands of them out there, but you never seem to meet one face-to-face. And for that we should be incredibly thankful.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This theory I'm buying into, Marek, though I am still sceptical about these Dickwads learning proper behaviour out of possible exposure to normal people.

There are enough Dickwads out there to create selfsustaining Dickwaddery.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I found a use for Gamefaqs!!! I'd heard that three new songs were coming down the pipe for Guitar Hero 2 on Thursday. I hadn't heard of the bands, but fuck it. It's new songs. I don't really care what they are as long as they're decently fun. Problem is, they still wouldn't show up on my system when I went to look to download them. I started checking various forums to see if other people weren't able to get them either or if the problem was on my end. After an hour or so of no luck, I gave up and went to the Gamefaqs board. Lo and behold, page after page of whiny little shits bitching about the content not showing up when it was supposed to. Now that I know the content is actually delayed, I can get back to keeping an eye on when it's actually released rather than worrying if my live account has some problem. Thanks, entitled-feeling GH-addicted 13 year olds!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Great list, I totally agree. At times in the past I've forgotten not to get involved on those forums... and my goodness, how they have sapped my energy and any positive feelings I have about the world, but then I remember: These people are total fuckwits... with no brains!

I remember one YouTube video showing a severely disabled boy and his father. The boy was some DJ or some rapper or something, and he'd actually had a "big up" (or whatever) from some respected people in the industry. The video was a lovely heart-warming moment, but the comments told a different story:

"I hope this fucking gay fag and his asshole father get fucking killed. Stupid fucking retard."

Nice :tup:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×