I have to say that, providing I am in good humour, I thoroughly enjoy the comments you find online underneath articles, blogs, and video clips. Generally speaking they are funny and I have more than once laughed aloud in great merriment. This is not because they are meant to be funny. In fact I have noticed that the majority of people who make comments online are incredibly serious about the points that they wish to make. Indeed, I enjoy reading comments (especially on YouTube) because of their absolute stupidity.
This is not a blog about poor grammar, so don't run and hide your poor spelling from the grammar Nazis. Although the online grammar issue is a sore spot with me, I am content to allow the world to fall into a pit of poor punctuation. This way my own works appear similar to that of an elevated scholar, which is fine by me. The humorous comments that I am talking about today are the not-always-obvious 'duh' moments that go unremarked upon out of pity and sometimes concern for the obvious brain fart that has occurred.
Case in point, today I noticed a comment under a subtitled video that asked:
"i would like to know if this epi is from spain"
The up-loader kindly replied:
"This is a Catalan show." (Note the proper use of capitals and punctuation - kudos up-loader!)
To which our stunningly intelligent inquirer responded:
"Catalan? Where is that from?" (Again I note punctuation. At least the kid is learning something!)
Don't take me to be some grammar-obsessed cartographer who takes personal offence at the slightest geographical question, but there is a bit of humour in that one has to admit. Even so, this is not where I find the question most amusing. Granted I think it should be obvious that Catalan programming would be from Catalonia (or "Catalunya" as our ever-so-patient up-loader replied). But if geography is not your strong point and you have never heard of such a place as Catalonia, then I have to wonder why you feel it necessary to ask such questions through the medium that is the YouTube comment channel when there is a Google search engine at your fingertips!
If you can watch a YouTube video and leave a comment, then you can use a search engine. I don't think that I am overstepping my abilities in making that assumption. The best part of these questions is that they are being asked to begin with. The internet is a powerful tool, yet it appears that its myriad of uses are being ignored by many members of the general public. These comment-writers, instead of properly utilizing said tool, appear to be turning it upside down, smelling it, and concluding that it must only exist to provide pretty colours and images rather than have a functional use.
Of course painfully obvious questions and moments of temporary loss of brain function are both funny and forgivable. My friends have learned not to get me started on those individuals who choose to make comments based upon their own particular political, religious, or ethnic worldview. In my opinion these people should keep comments to themselves. However, it would be overly hypocritical of me to challenge the value of free speech in an online blog so I will just leave such a topic alone. It's probably for the best anyway.
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