Found on 4chan - a site entirely devoted to anonymous commentating
We do it all the time. When you write on your friend’s Facebook wall. When you review a restaurant you just dined at. Or when you do your homework for this class.
It’s Internet Commentating.
It is a digital imprint of an idea or opinion. Out there for the whole world to see. Why do we feel the need to share our thoughts about breaking news stories, captivating pictures, interesting blogs, or even a Facebook status change?
Moreover, how has this form of user-generated content enhanced your internet experience. How has it affected your real-life experiences? These are the questions I want to answer. And to do this, I plan on exploring a handful of social networking sites. Particularly, ones with a dedicated community of commentators to learn about why people congregate to these sites? Why do they feel motivated to post? What do they get out of it? And whatever else irks my curiosity along the way.
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3 Comments
Interesting. I like that you’re looking at this because I’ve always wondered myself why people on YouTube leave such trivial comments that don’t really amount to anything. If you don’t have anything worth contributing, why open your mouth (or type) at all?
This reminds me of an article about online rights, and how Obama is facing the age of feedback, where people absolutely love to comment. People want him to run a “two-way presidency.” The question is, when everyone comments, should some comments be counted and others discounted? Here’s the link:
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/magazine/17-02/ff_obama
An interesting aspect of this would be the notion of a “troll;” someone who comes in and purposefully messes with an established community in order to disturb their equlibrium. The commenters often react quite strongly to this intrusion on their sheltered space. Here’s a NYT magazine article on trolls:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html
Great comments guys
Well I think the cue you should take from both these comments is that rather than looking at commenting as a whole, you should investigate the cultureS of commenting as different cultures. 4chan, Youtube, Facebook and this blog all sport very different commenting cultures. What would be considered trolling one one might be totally normal on the other. Commenting reveals the culture of an online community and the way it interacts. It’s under that notion that I think you should investigate further into your travelogue.