19 Comments

1.   Wah (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 2:57 pm) # 

   In Australia, online newspaper website comments have become a refuge for Howard loving fucktards who can’t accept that they no longer make up the pitiful 51 per cent of prime Australian cunt - that sent our country backwards.

   
   
2.   Bron (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 3:01 pm) # 

   They (the prime Australian cunts you refer to) certainly seemed to become more and more shrill and angsty when it became obvious Howard couldn’t land a blow on Rudd.

   And they say teh leftards are whiners!

   Piffle.

   
   
3.   The Editor (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 3:23 pm) # 

   This pretty much explains it all.

   “I think the main difference between Andrew Bolt and most of his opponents is that Andrew just looks at the facts and gathers his opinion from them. Many of his opponents would probably have a moral cause and then would find facts to suit that cause. This is what makes Bolt quite logical.”

   
   
4.   Tim (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 3:28 pm) # 

   Well, letters to the editor pages have always attracted society’s more vocal loonies, some of whom become serial offenders. Comment threads simply speed up the process.

   
   
5.   Wah (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 3:38 pm) # 

   Tim is spot on. At least with newspapers it’s much easier to bin the looney letters and not print them.
   With online comments anything gets through unless it’s offensive of defamatory.

   
   
6.   EC (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 3:53 pm) # 

   Nah dudes ‘hlabadie’ from the Washington Post comments nails it -

   “It’s The Secret Givernment Experiments, Man
   They’re beaming stuff into our heads through the Internets, man. When we log on, the stuff just pours in, like electricity, man. We don’t have any thoughts of our won. It all comes in through the Internet. If you have broadband or DSL it’s worse. WiFi gets you when you aren’t even logged on, man. They’re in our hedas, telling us what to think and what to write. I can’t control my won fingers.”

   Soz Bron, no theory of my own. Too busy trying to construct a weapon out of a WYD backpack.

   
   
7.   Tobias Ziegler (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 4:32 pm) # 

   I blame the Internet. Did you know that there are instructions for making bombs on the internet that make people blow things up? I’ll bet somewhere on the Internet there are instructions for being a crazy newspaper web site commenter, and that people read them and then become a crazy newspaper commenter.

   If we banned the Internet then people wouldn’t be able to find instructions on how to be a crazy commenter. Plus, there wouldn’t be newspaper web sites for them to post crazy comments to. And if removing the Internet removes the problem, then obviously the Internet is causing the problem in the first place. QED.

   
   
8.   Bron (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 4:36 pm) # 

   Hmm, yeah, you’re right Tobias. And with no internet, there would be no jibbering Blairite acolytes flying to your blog on Blair’s not-so-subtle-orders.

   
   
9.   Tobias Ziegler (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 4:45 pm) # 

   The monkeys have been fun :) In fact, I suspect Tim’s blog is exactly the kind of crazy commenter instructional web site I had in mind.

   On a more serious note, I don’t have a solid theory on the causes of the newspaper comment syndrome, but I am interested in the implications. Is the end result going to be that allowing comments ends up undermining the credibility of the paper itself?

   I’ve noticed this week that The Australian has cut most of its opinion columnists off the “blogs” section of their site, so that it looks like most future columns won’t be open to comments. Given that the responses to people like Shanahan became just a long line of mockery, it can’t have been a good look for the paper (setting aside the dubious content of Shanahan’s own writing). While opening the comment process up might have seemed like a good idea when papers first moved online (and tried to figure out how to react to the rise of blogging), the fact that we have reached the point of theorising about why the comments are so wacky suggests they might be due for a rethink.

   
   
10.   brokenleftleg (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 6:05 pm) # 

    Yes folks, but loonies make the net world go round. My favourite wackos are the redneck conspiracy theorists. do any of these fuckers actually have jobs? They usually post at 4 AM and 3PM. Night night and wake up time.
    It seems that these pricks bitch and moan at the govt while suckling treasury’s generous boob at the same time. At least the net keeps em out of the pub for a while.
    But i have rambled like a mad mad.
    Time to go walk the chook.

    
    
11.   Mikey (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 6:28 pm) # 

    I think it’s the anonymity. It’s not that they don’t believe it, or are shit stirring. It’s just that they do believe it and they can say what they really think without society thinking poorly of them.

    Like a fuckwit at a dinner party who prefaces their views on Aboriginal Australia with ‘I’m not racist but …’ - except on the internet they don’t have to bother with the polite front bit.

    
    
12.   Shane (Wednesday 16 July 2008, 7:17 pm) # 

    These things mentioned so far all factor in. It’s all part of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

    
    
13.   Dam Buster of Preston (Thursday 17 July 2008, 11:25 am) # 

    You mean the internet can be used for things other than downloading porn?

    
    
14.   Bron (Thursday 17 July 2008, 11:41 am) # 

    Yeah, I was surprised too when I realised that, Dam Buster.

    
    
15.   skeptic (Thursday 17 July 2008, 12:05 pm) # 

    Isn’t it because Al Gore is fat?

    
    
16.   Dam Buster of Preston (Thursday 17 July 2008, 1:58 pm) # 

    Jeremy has it covered in the little cartoon on his blog. the guy saying he wont come to bed as someone is wrong on the internet.

    Basically the immediate access and ability to reply has made people react without thinking. You see something on line and react with all guns blazing. If you were to send a letter you would have to consider what you wrote, and by the time you finished you would think it not worthwhile and put it in the drawer.

    Also you can sit at umm err work and look extremely busy as you type away pondering why everyone else is wrong except you. The only issue is that there are only a few nut jobs out there who get paid to do it.

    Why do crazies do it more? probably because most people would read it, agree or disagree, but would not feel strongly enough (should that be un-hinged enough) to reply.

    
    
17.   Bron (Thursday 17 July 2008, 2:49 pm) # 

    Good points, Dam Buster. Many times when I was at uni, I’d start preparing for an essay, already thinking I have an opinion on the issue, only to find that by the end of writing the essay, my opinions had completely changed or evolved or was simply no longer a black and white, clear-cut opinion but many shades of grey.

    I love that cartoon on Jeremy’s blog. It’s just perfect.

    
    
18.   Dam Buster of Preston (Thursday 17 July 2008, 3:02 pm) # 

    The true lunatics, as per the article, are those who can ‘maintain the rage’ without resorting to trolling, name calling or constant repeating.

    We all know some of them who are quite skilled in the art of blog arguments and would consider them expert digital debaters. There are however others who are ‘one trick ponies’ who twist any relevant argument back to their pet topic. An example of this would be those who resort to Godwin’s Law.

    Why more lunatics now? It has to be the instant easy access to reply. As Bron stated with writing essays, even in long winded replies I have found myself changing tact or changing the slant of the piece after doing further reading. Still I do wish I could just tell them all to get fucked.

    
    
19.   Bron (Thursday 17 July 2008, 3:28 pm) # 

    How much more gratifying it would be to simply tell them to go and get fucked, eh?

    
    

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