Having not posted in quite some time… I would like to address the massive amount of commenting and general conversations, in word form, that take place through out the internets.

I was reminded by this when I looked over at Little Green Footballs comments to date and they number into the 5,000,000.  That is insane, as some would say.

Who can process such a mass of largely unintelligible syntax?  Taking it a bit further, I don’t think people realize the scope to which commenting exists, a couple thousand comments on LGF a week, a couple thousand at Daily KOS, and probably far beyond a couple thousand on YouTube (minus the spam).  The effect it has and better yet could have on our society should be well studied.  For example, what does commenting achieve?

Comments that appear on Hot Air (HA), to my knowledge, have shown up in news media, both print and television.  So, to say that they aren’t read or paid attention to would be wrong, and those comments that have struck a chord do obviously achieve something.  However, looking at Little Green Footballs (LFG), where each post could garner upwards of 400 comments, one has to ask how many comments does it take before it doesn’t matter anymore?  The amount of comments on any given post at HA are anywhere between 20 to around 100, and sometimes they reach the levels of LGF,  therein it may be much more manageable to read through HA’s relatively light volume of comments then it is to go through LGF or even the venerable Daily KOS.

Looking through all the comments, one usually finds they are just a mishmash of one line retorts, usually denigrating what the post itself is already denigrating (which begs another question of why the posts with the most comments are always denigrating).  On YouTube, the comments are largely for or against the content of the video; I’d venture to guess that, at best, 5% of the comments are constructive while the rest are either amusing or downright vile, though, apart from the 5%, a fair amount of the comments are appropriately thankful.  One conclusion that could be drawn from the propensity of useless comments is that the entire commenting system is nothing more then a place in time and space where an individual can express their most primal senses.  Taking the Huffington Post for example, one can’t very well go around expressing their wish for “Bush to Die.”  Whilst this phrase is carried throughout the hearts of hard line liberals and anarchists alike, they have no fit in society and even the Huffington Post recognizes such primal slurs, and deletes them when they can, or feel like it.

Another more drawn out conclusion would be that, comments allow a form of expression that people are not able to carry out in daily life.  Apart from the vile comments, the large volume of comments of quipper (is that a word?) remarks could carry through a book of thousands upon thousands of pages.  What would such a book read like?  Imagine if you will, the collective thoughts of millions of comments across the spectrum of blogs all compiled into one work.  None of the comments would be attached to posts, none would have any more meaning then that which is contained in the words they are writ.  Would a book of comments and comments alone be anything more then what we have now?