My Top 5 YouTube Comments

If you ever want to weep for humanity, read the comments section of pretty much anything ever posted on YouTube. Everyone who has ever posted a comment on YouTube is a numbskull at best, a drain on society at worst. If Marilyn Vos Savant were to post a comment on YouTube, her IQ would spontaneously drop to somewhere around seventy.

Yesterday I posted a trailer for one of my films on this horrifying site, in preparation for a mini-launch of sorts, and I realized I hadn't logged in and read my comments in a few months. What happy months those were!

I'd like to share with you my favorite five YouTube comments I've ever received. The very essence of YouTube, the quintessential YouTube comments, if you will. The ones I'll leave behind for future generations as evidence of what all this was about, as if to say, look upon our comments, ye mighty, and despair.

In reverse order:

(5) "fag"

It's a strange thing about YouTube and homosexuality-as-an-insult. How did this term, once used as a weapon by jocks and irate fundamentalists, slip into the digital fists of technonerd shut-ins who use their computers to watch online video clips all day? Those are two completely different parts of society that, historically, despise each other. If the insecure name-calling towel-snapping football player met the loudmouth basement-dwelling Internet kiddie-cum-erstwhile-tough-guy, he would call him a fag, beat him up and take his lunch money. Where is the middle ground?

Anyway, it was a tossup between "GAY" and "fag" for slot #5, but this one just seemed more iconic. The curious thing is, it was posted in response to a video of a gorgeous girl coyly playing the object of male desire. I'm not entirely certain what I could have done to please this poster.

(4) "fuck i hate u i just want to die now"

Elegant in its simplicity. The lowercase recalls the thought-provoking minimalism of e.e. cummings, and the speech was very persuasive in that such comments actually make me want to die, although not for the author's intended reason.

(3) "LOl wtf is this?"

'LOl', I presume, means laughing out sort-of-loud, because it's not loud enough to capitalize the second L. What I like about this comment is that it could be interpreted as positive or negative. I envision the poster kicking back and laughing at the absurdity of it all, before bending in his chair, the rolls of fat on his abdomen folding and collecting obscenely, as he weeps in the darkness.

(2) "what the fuck? I don't even undrstand what's happening!"

I wish I could say this was posted in response to some thought-provoking experiment. Something in the vein of the emotionally rocky films of John Cassavetes, perhaps, or an Andy Warhol intersection of high art and low culture. Perhaps the untamed, uncomfortable stylistic strangenesses on the order of a Robert Bresson piece, or the surrealist walking dreams of Peter Greenaway.

Unfortunately, this comment was posted on the trailer for a mainstream romantic comedy.

Mainstream romantic comedies are designed to be comprehended and enjoyed by someone with the intellect of a twelve-year-old girl. Advertising is designed to be comprehended by the absolute stupidest bastard on the entire planet. In effect, this commenter has admitted that they are in the most literal sense too stupid to grasp something specially prepared to entice even the most thick-headed media consumer currently plugged into society. An entire culture of marketing and consumption built around targeting the lowest common denominator has failed to sufficiently coddle this individual. This is the kind of person who eats the 'Do Not Eat' packets you sometimes find in packages. This is the kind of fucking failure who ensures every single day that decent people like you and I are deprived of one human life's worth of resources better allotted to worthy causes or at least the fabrication of amusing hats.

(1) "what the fuck is this useless and pointless shit doing on here on youtube"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

This commenter has looked into the abyss, but cannot bring himself to name the nameless fear within; he is of privy to a private pain of passion, a tribe of the lost-- for they have looked into the mirror only to see a face they cannot face.

One day, their beloved YouTube will be clear of useless and pointless shit. One day, when we are all dead, and this planet has been purged of a failed experiment called the human race.

Until then, I've got big plans. For one thing, I'm planning to show my newest YouTube upload around...