Syl Jones: Online comments: An art form

By SYL JONES

Last update: June 8, 2009 - 7:46 PM

Look, let's get something straight: I don't need no stinkin' Internet police wearing a badge of civility imposing on my freedom. Here, I get to say what I really think, even if it's not too deep. Here, I get to yell and lecture and force my point of view on everyone else and if I do it in the most violent and irresponsible way imaginable, who cares? It's a free country.

Nothing's going to stop me from humiliating the opposition. I don't actually write a blog but blog-responding is my game. I speak for a lot of other people, most of whom dummy up because they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Not me. Bring it on. I'll speak for the silent ones and I'll speak with a vengeance. I even physically threaten people here -- in fact, I do it regularly just so those creeps understand that I don't take no crap from nobody.

It's great to be anonymous on the blogosphere. We don't need no rules, no names, and no real accountability, neither. It's great. This is just like it was in the Wild West. It's a virtual democracy. People can vote verbally in this marketplace of ideas. What's on sale in this marketplace? Mostly rage, I guess, but it comes in all varieties and it's really, really hot. It's like porn without the pictures. People calling each other names and swearing at each other, making accusations they couldn't possibly back up with facts. It's the opposite of journalism.

Doesn't matter what the topic is, there's always something to moan and gripe about in a way that I can make my own. Take the thing between Obama and Cheney or the Supreme Court kerfuffle or O'Reilly versus Olberman. Hey, I got things to say.

Something else I noticed is how this whole Internet intimidation thing improves my ability to argue with people at work and other parts of real life. I'm a lot keener at looking for the political edge at staff meetings now, and I can smell it when somebody from the opposition walks into the room. This gives me an advantage in dismissing their ideas.

Of course, unlike the important work I'm doing on the Internet, I don't use e-mail to rip my co-workers a new one. If I couldn't hide my identity from the world like I can on the Internet, there might be consequences. People might think I was some kind of creep. Or jerk. Or Neanderthal. I might even lose my job and that would not be cool. I already have too much time on my hands.

We professional Internet responders represent Americana at its best and we don't want anybody sanitizing it. We want it raw. Heck, in the olden days, before TV and stuff, people said a lot worse things to each other in the newspapers. Just imagine how much better the Lincoln-Douglass debates would have been if we'd had the Internet:

Lincoln: Slavery is an abomination.

Douglas: So is your mama.

Cool, huh?

You know, I could spell check this submission, but why bother? What difference does a few mispelled words make in an otherwise great peace of propoganda?

Take my advice: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the furnace. I've got a constitutional right to say what I wanna say any old way I wanna say it, and I'm coming out blazing.

Syl Jones, of Minnetonka, is a journalist, playwright and communications consultant.

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