You have probably been on YouTube before. I don’t know what it is that you do. You may even have a YouTube account. Heck, you may comment on YouTube videos. And if you do, in a sick and twisted way, I thank you and also am baffled by you — here’s why.
Internet comment forums are, for lack of a better word, a hellscape. You’re told that your mother has somehow been intimate with just about everyone on the internet. You see the nastiest string of curse words strung together by humanity and just a general bit of ignorance in the echo chamber that is the hollow void of internet comments.
But let’s take a quick investigation into the comments on Justin Bieber’s “Baby” music video. With about 1.7 billion views, it’s one of the most-watched YouTube videos of all time. And with more than a billion views comes more than 4.5 million comments. Here are just a few I was able to stomach:
•“Likr comment if you think this song is very touching ans awesome” – by user funny finder.
•“This Girl looks like my girlfriend She's beautiful ☺☺☺” – by user DG 4z #MCPE
•“Halo is coming for u .. s--- i mean Star Wars ... OMG I MEAN THE COD S---” – by user HeRoZ HuNTeR
None of that is coherent. None of it sparks any sort of discussion. There are more I can’t really include because they just cross a line of vulgarity my grandmother would be disappointed in me for copy and pasting into this. Those fearless commenters spend hours a day liking, commenting, replying and whatever else-ing on videos throughout the internet. There is no real gain from it other than putting your embarrassing username out there for the world to see.
However, those commenters offer a glimpse into unfiltered modern discourse. No one knows who you really are on the internet, and those people — they could be robots — are able to reveal their true beliefs behind the shield of their usernames. In that, we are able to see how twisted, unfiltered and complex the power of anonymity gives its bearer.
In a typical discussion, few people would toss out some terrible insult directed toward my mother, but on the internet, it’s a quick rebuttal for when someone disagrees with you. Or they call you a cuck, a word that was archaic until 2016, when it was brought back by angry white men on Twitter.
So you see this discourse, and it helps remind you that not everyone is as civil as you think — and a lot of civil unrest takes place in the comments sections of Justin Bieber music videos.
Whether someone said you’re a cuck or they took your mother on a nice date the night before even though you know she didn’t leave the house, these people are a reminder that we should be thankful for discourse that takes place in places that aren’t the internet. And that we can use our words for meaningful conversation.
But hey, I’m an idiot posting this to a website with a comments section, so berate me.
Chuck Greenlee is a junior studying communication studies at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you comment on YouTube videos or mediocre opinion columns? Let Chuck know by tweeting him @chuck_greenlee.
