More than ever lately, I have found myself coming in contact with perspectives and things other people say that make me just so angry. I have found this in several situations, but I guess what prompted this is comments that go on YouTube. So many times I have watched videos that have had the most narky comments put on them that make me so angry and depressed at the same time. Often I will go to reply, to try and put people in their place, and half way through I realise that people - certainly over YouTube - don't want to have their points of view challenged.
Why do people go and comment on these things? Why do they come across as so bitchy? There are some possible answers for these questions. Hmm, perhaps they will fuel my honours thesis...
Why do people comment on these things?
I believe most people who comment on videos on YouTube are using the site as a space to shout out in a situation where they normally wouldn't. It's rather cowardly in my opinion, but many people behave the way they do online because they have the ability to remain effectively anonymous. Historically, "avatars" were the physical forms that gods in Mesopotamian took when they came to earth, and interestingly this metaphor seems to extend not just to the idea of a identity that enables you to exist online - but also to the attitude. Certainly many people - like those who troll forums - don't necessarily care about what they are talking about, or care about contributing anything valuable to the debate but rather get excited about stirring up other people... Dionysos anyone?
Of course there are people who comment because they think they are adding something valuable. On YouTube this seems to be people who are trying to correct or analyse the views of others. My perspective? Don't bother. You are reasoning with people who are marinating in a sense of self-importance when they do this. A comment on a video about Bikram Yoga - a practice that I thoroughly enjoy - declared "beware of this capitalist McYoga". This person didn't want their point of view changed, they just wanted to shout out and feel important.
Why Do They Come Across As So Bitchy?
Well I think it is because of the inability of the medium to convey the massive range of communication that humans are capable of. The ability to convey feelings and attitudes is a skill that takes years to cultivate - unless of course you have a freakish talent for it initially - but for the rest of us, the ability to really communicate via text is a honed skill. YouTube's commenting facility is open to everyone - including those who don't care about the semiotics of language or even know what it is - and those people would be finding it very hard to convey meaning though a medium that is devoid of body language, facial expressions, and vocal tones. Hence the introduction of smileys and abbreviations like "jks", "lol" etc to try and encourage people to understand the intention of the phrase. This then leads on to the second point, which is that intention only goes so far. If the person reading it doesn't want to care then they interpret what they want to hear. The only difference between online interaction and offline interaction in this instance is that in the offline world it is hard to ignore and get away with misinterpreting signals as overt as a frown or a smiling laugh. Online, you can just ignore it and by the time people have replied to explain what they really meant the damage is already done and the original point of the comment is sacrificed in place of arguing about what it was that the person meant to say.
So that is my rant. I preferred to do it here rather than on YouTube where you only have 300 words to make you point and make it well, and correct people who aren't interested in being corrected, and where it would inevitably spill over into a back and forth about what he/she./it wanted to say in the first place. We're all gods on the internet, which means that no one is.
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