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OUR SADLY DECLINING RULES OF CIVILITY

  • ONLINE COMMENTERS ARE GENERALLY STUPID AND RUDE: Virginia Heffernan looks at comments on the Washington Post and finds their authors uninformed, mean-spirited, and unwilling to engage in anything resembling an adult argument. Thank you, Wonkette Commentariat, for at least being stupid and rude in a fun way. [New York Times]


9:31 AM on Mon April 27 2009
By Sara K. Smith
1278 Views

  1. ManchuCandidate says at 9:34 am, April 27th, 2009

    You’re welcome.

    To WaPo: Duh.

  2. vitira says at 9:35 am, April 27th, 2009

    Sara Smith is a libtard fool and probably only says this because she is Jewish.

  3. raysmuckles says at 9:35 am, April 27th, 2009

    She was so shocked that the monocle fell right off her face! That’s how rude they were!

  4. ihasasad says at 9:35 am, April 27th, 2009

    Three cheers for the Wonketteers!
    Hip Hip
    wink wink
    nudge nudge

  5. Mr Blifil says at 9:43 am, April 27th, 2009

    I will be back later with a more serious point by point rebuttal of this post after I whack off a few times.

  6. bored with gravity says at 9:45 am, April 27th, 2009

    It’s hard to go wrong when commenting on Trucknutz and buttsecks.

  7. My, what an interesting expose into something that is in no way obvious or widely known! For a follow-up, she’ll reveal that Wonkette commenters are sarcastic and like TruckNutz.

  8. hobospacejunkie says at 9:49 am, April 27th, 2009

    Hey Virginia, Queen Victoria called. She wants her uptight, ‘we are not amused’ era of unwarranted deference and sharply delineated social classes where the unwashed rabble knew their place back.

  9. Sussemilch says at 9:50 am, April 27th, 2009

    Damn you Virgin Heifer. I was going to type something original and eloquent, but instead decided to let my ass cheeks do the typing: jmkjmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmcjkcxjmkckc k There you have it, sincerely from the heart of my bottom.

  10. Schadenfried says at 9:51 am, April 27th, 2009

    vitira: Sara K. Smith is really Sarahh Palin! The stupidity was all an act!

  11. ManchuCandidate says at 9:51 am, April 27th, 2009

    vitira:
    ?

  12. rachelv says at 9:54 am, April 27th, 2009

    Just another day in PG county.

  13. I can’t wait to see the comments on THIS WaPo article.

  14. SmutBoffin says at 9:56 am, April 27th, 2009

    Being a choad on the interwebs is every Amurrican’s right, privilege, and obligation.

  15. Holy Cow!! says at 9:57 am, April 27th, 2009

    If she thinks that’s bad, she should check out Yahoo Answers Politics section.

  16. So what does this say about Twitter users? At least on Wonkette, I can ramble on for paragraphs not making any sense. On twitter u have to break it down to the size of one SMS. Therefore it is clearly a higher level of discourse. And Denby is prophet.

  17. fishandvodka says at 9:58 am, April 27th, 2009

    <—– On a separate note, who sees Wolf-billy PAC ad replaced with Help Re-Elect John McCain ad? For a second, I thought I woke up in alternate universe where he is a president and running for reelection. Whew.

    He has a primary challenger now, minutemen founder/anti-messican crusader.

  18. Big Liver says at 9:58 am, April 27th, 2009

    Hey, maybe a “Keyboards for Guns” program could work?

  19. jagorev says at 10:03 am, April 27th, 2009

    HEY SKS YOU LIBTARD WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE THIS COUNTRY IF YOU’RE OPPOSED TO FREE SPEECH

  20. Canuckledragger says at 10:04 am, April 27th, 2009

    “Virginia Heffernan looks at comments on the Washington Post and finds their authors uninformed, mean-spirited, and unwilling to engage in anything resembling an adult argument.”

    Sometime soon, Virginia needs to read the content of the WaPo, where she will likewise encounter authors who are “uninformed, mean-spirited, and unwilling to engage in anything resembling an adult argument.”

    Next stop, This Weak with George Staphylococcus, where Virginia will likewise encounter talking heads like George Will who are, to a person, “uninformed, mean-spirited, and unwilling to engage in anything resembling an adult argument.”

    When will these flibbergibbets ever realize the distinctions they parse between online and the real world are figments of their imagination?

  21. Wet Work says at 10:08 am, April 27th, 2009

    Fuckin fuck and fuck and fuck and shit. Also.

  22. Mild Midwesterner says at 10:09 am, April 27th, 2009

    Call my trucknutz, but I think this article is just another way for NYT readers to call WaPo readers a bunch of backwards hillbillies.

  23. whenPUMAsattack says at 10:13 am, April 27th, 2009

    Lulz.

    I’ve said this for years. WaPo doesn’t moderate, doesn’t filter and doesn’t use a karma system. what the fuck do they expect?

    didn’t Wonkette have a funny story on some WaPo columnist who got all butthurt because folks commenting on his whiny article weren’t universally warm and welcoming? Must dig around the google for that one.

  24. WadISay says at 10:16 am, April 27th, 2009

    fishandvodka: If there are any out-of-work media buyers out there, they might think of applying to the “Help Re-elect John McCain” campaign. The “Journey into the Mind of Madness” guy, on the other hand, is hitting on all 8 cylinders.

  25. ihasasad says at 10:18 am, April 27th, 2009

    vitira: haven’t you caught sarah’s “hard-to-miss hints that she celebrates Christian holidays?”

  26. Larry McAwful says at 10:18 am, April 27th, 2009

    I’d like to say that ever since my shrink tripled my antidepressant prescription that I’ve been funnier than ever, but shrink jokes went out decades ago and joking about antidepressants is so 1990s. And anyway, I’m really not that funny.

    If this post offends anyone, then I’m sorry and recommend that you go to Dairy Queen to drown your sorrows in a Prozac Blizzard.

  27. loquaciousmusic says at 10:26 am, April 27th, 2009

    Vagina Huffer-man can lick my taint.

  28. Vartan84 says at 10:29 am, April 27th, 2009

    Yeayyyy Virginia Heffernan!
    I was mentioned in one of her articles in the past month! I am not kidding! I love Wonkette but I also love Virginia Heffernan!

  29. Harvey Birdman says at 10:30 am, April 27th, 2009

    [farts]

  30. snideinplainsight says at 10:32 am, April 27th, 2009

    Absolutely snark-free, let me just say, God Bless Jimmy Carter. He’s in the Times today.

    Every time I read something from that man, I get misty.

    Sorry, I’ll try to be snarkier later -

  31. snideinplainsight says at 10:33 am, April 27th, 2009

    Oh, and yeah, commenters in the WashPo are an astonishing bunch of botards and freakasaurs, sure. No argument there.

  32. Wet Work says at 10:34 am, April 27th, 2009

    ihasasad: Don’t mean she ain’t a joo.

  33. queeraselvis v 2.0 says at 10:38 am, April 27th, 2009

    Boo. Heffernan killed the funny.

  34. slavojzizek says at 10:46 am, April 27th, 2009

    Canuckledragger: She’s worse than you think. She actually emphasizes what a genius, master literary stylist she thinks Post columnist Anne Applebaum is. In real life, Anne Applebaum is so dull that I can’t even remember Wonkette ever making fun of her.

  35. The Cold Sea says at 11:01 am, April 27th, 2009

    Making nasty in the comments on teh Washington Post dot com is replacing road rage as the sub-urbanites’ favorite past time.

  36. bitchincamaro says at 11:03 am, April 27th, 2009

    I’ll concede the rude part but, anyone who can educate himself on vital news like this by navigating to WaPo via the NYT while snarking on teh Wonkette must has brane skillz!

  37. hobospacejunkie says at 11:08 am, April 27th, 2009

    slavojzizek: Every Applebaum column can be easily summarized thusly: Soviets bad, US America/capitalism good. Her hatred of the now 20-years-defunct commie paradise has blinded her to the wider world. She probably shouts “Fuck you, Stalin” when she cums. Annoying yes, but dull? A thousand times yes. Yawn.

  38. MarieDeGournay says at 11:08 am, April 27th, 2009

    *throws Masters out the window and drools*

  39. Monsieur Grumpe says at 11:15 am, April 27th, 2009

    My middle is extended and facing NY. Also! My pants are down, my underwear is missing and my butt is pointed in your general direction. Plbbbbbbbbbbb!

  40. CorkPopper says at 11:18 am, April 27th, 2009

    Canuckledragger: Like those thousand words of steaming diarrhea deposited on the editorial page yesterday by Michael Scheuer on why Obama wants to have buttsecks with the terrorists because he won’t waterboard them. But the “NOBAMA THINKS SINGING KUMBAYA WILL KEEP US SAFE” comments are massively outnumbered by reasoned, thoughtful arguments about the Constitution and the rule of law and how people who are being tortured lie and such. Better treatment than Scheuer deserves, since an article like that should really just result in an invitation to eat a truckload of dicks (with trucknutz).

  41. thefrontpage says at 11:20 am, April 27th, 2009

    Hey, Virginia: Go to hell! Blow it!

    Ah, hahahahahahaha!

    I went to Harvard, by the way. And so did many of the commenters at the Post and Wonkette.

    And Yale, too.

    What do you make of that?

    This is the United States of America. If someone wants to make an outrageous comment on a web site, then let them. It’s called freedom of speech.

    Who’s this Virginia person, anyways? Who cares?!! Where the hell did she go to school?

    Let’s see what Virginia thinks about this post.

  42. Bill_TX says at 11:28 am, April 27th, 2009

    Who cares about that Anna Applebees lady. Now Peggy
    Noonan, that’s a real columnist.

  43. Mr Blifil says at 11:41 am, April 27th, 2009

    CorkPopper: That’s what you say. Who’s to conclude you didn’t make up all those “reasoned” comments in your head? Virginia Heffernan didn’t notice those comments, she found a lot of people saying POOP. She’s out there working it, shaking her moneymaker, LIVING THE DREAM. Plus her army of factcheckers and editors would clearly have noticed evidence of reasoned analysis in online comments, like the ones you IMAGINED IN YOUR MIND, and helpfully pointed them out to her, because journalism is all about integrity and collaboration. THERE IS NO “I” IN TEAM

    This proves you must be some kind of a Jew.

  44. snideinplainsight says at 11:41 am, April 27th, 2009

    Geez, WashPo front page NSFW today - bikini-clad sad-girls all talking at me without even so much as a rollover,WTFFFF? Don’t those sad-girls know they are pouting all over ‘the paper of record of the federal government’?

  45. CorkPopper says at 11:52 am, April 27th, 2009

    Mr Blifil: This proves you must be some kind of a Jew.

    Only if you count Jewish by injection. That’s some sort, I suppose.

  46. Mr Blifil says at 11:56 am, April 27th, 2009

    CorkPopper: Couldn’t possibly be a pork injection, though, could it?

  47. CorkPopper says at 11:59 am, April 27th, 2009

    Mr Blifil: Well since hubby doesn’t keep kosher, sure.

  48. I would like to thank all the little people who made this possible.

  49. so the nytimes really is intent on congratulating themselves out of existence? ok, but if they were as smart as they think they would probably try something else.

    i can’t wait for the investigative journalism that shows: “our copy editors spell better than you”.

  50. This is something that I’ve seen before and it continually amazes me.

    Newspaper website comment sections, without exception as far as I’ve ever seen, are sewers. Everyone knows this.

    The newspapers themselves are painfully unaware of this.

    So occasionally you’ll see a newspaper (in this case the NYT) look at the website for a newspaper (in this case the Washington Post), observe it is a sewer, and write a clever commentary noting “ah-ha! internet comment sections are a sewer!”.

    Not exactly, you just suck at it.

  51. vitira says at 2:32 pm, April 27th, 2009

    ManchuCandidate: It wouldn’t be anything in the linked article, now would it? Let’s see…

    “Not long ago, a poster named jbburrows pronounced Applebaum a “liberal fool.””

    “Themes persist nonetheless. One is that the columnist, whatever her topic, is a “Zionist stooge liar” … conspiracy-minded commenters insist that she’s Jewish and that her Jewishness determines her politics.”

    SKS is the same obvi.

  52. Mr Blifil says at 2:37 pm, April 27th, 2009

    mcc: They’ll barely pay for proofreaders anymore, you think they’re going to pay, even as an intern, some sad sack to monitor the comments area? Well, maybe David Brooks I guess…

  53. Czn939 says at 2:38 pm, April 27th, 2009

    Just go read any comments on any Youtubez of FOX News or any other political-themed video.
    By the time you’re done reading you’ll be considering the good side of mass-extinction.

  54. SocialistMuslin says at 3:56 pm, April 27th, 2009

    “This is something that I’ve seen before and it continually amazes me.

    Newspaper website comment sections, without exception as far as I’ve ever seen, are sewers. Everyone knows this.

    The newspapers themselves are painfully unaware of this.”

    This is because media elites don’t like paying attention to the icky “commoners” that actually read their papers and justify their paychecks. I mean Ew! How gauch is that?

  55. arclight says at 4:17 pm, April 27th, 2009

    YES! Free buttslaps for all of my fellow Wonkette commenters!!!!

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