“So do the words used to represent the thoughts this person is expressing. So does that blog. The internet is a space and a post is a person’s property. And by leaving a vicious and useless anonymous comment, you’re vandalizing it.”

What an absolutely perfect way to characterize this kind of stuff. I’ve tried to come up with an analogy that would work on my own a few times and not even come close to this. Thanks for posting it to begin with.

Because of the nature of what I write about, I, too, experience a lot of this kind of stuff. Fortunately, most of it goes to the mod queue and I get it before it hits the public. But it is problematic to deal with on a personal level. It does have such an air of immaturity about it.

OMG, Alexas last blog post: Reflections on a Blowbang

Let me start with Julia Allison. Of course we want to hate her. She’s shallow and greedy and getting way more attention than she deserves, but I can’t hate her because she’s not pretending to be anything else.

Comment threads with Julia are basically:

Commenter: You’re a fame whore!

Julia: Yup. What else you got?

Julia is guilty of many things, but I don’t see any hypocrisy in her. People hate her because she’s a stereotype, but she’s also just real enough that you can’t write her off.

That combination is profoundly frustrating. If she was just a bit meaner, just a bit dumber, or just a little more calculating, we could hate her. But she’s right on the line and never quite crosses over.

Even worse, she’s willing to laugh at herself, to make fun of her own image and go into incredibly hostile environments and confront her critics head on.

I can’t hate someone who does that. I just can’t.

OMG, Michael Duffs last blog post: Is snark killing the web?

I don’t want to end up in a position to defend most of these people, as I’m sure I would dislike and disagree with most of them. However, I have to say from my own experiences there is a lot to be said for someone who unabashedly attacks me from the get go if the alternative is to befriend those who comport themselves in a polite manner hiding their condescending contempt for me and my views. The former we can at least write off without time and effort wasted.

There is one other positive of this “anonymous” society. The scourge to free speech and thought that is political correctness has encouraged people to be dishonest. Also, those who don’t normally share their thoughts in real life, the dark thoughts and hatreds they’re hiding behind a seemingly harmless exterior, now remind us what’s so often really behind the smiles. In the comfort of their own home and hiding behind the internet, we can see how many people really feel.

Sadly, we don’t usually have vindication on the big, wide web. In previous incarnations of my website, I had a separate journal section of the page that I did not allow comments on – it was my section to write about whatever, and I didn’t want feedback. The blog page allowed as many comments as they would like to leave, and I even had a nice little tag board for folks to spam (they could even upload pictures! amazing!). Someone decided they didn’t like my writing and to this day I remember the email, spam comments, tags, and guestbook entries which all read something about my “psychobabybabble” – did they have to read my site? No. The IP that left the comment hit my website multiple times a day (I had a webcam back in the days of college dorm life and it was pretty…exciting) until finally I blocked them via my .htaccess file because they were obsessing and starting to scare me.

Also, I agree – va-jay-jay? I clump that in with morons who say “hoohoo” – I too have a cunt, and am embarrassed for people who can’t seem to use cunt, vagina, etc. You just KNOW they have a terrible sex life…

OMG, Sidneys last blog post: Mischief, 9/2007-9/2008

Wow, that’s scathing. No wait, that’s just silly. I’m sorry, but I can’t take anyone who utters the term “va-jay-jay” seriously.

OMG, Gretchens last blog post: Little Things