‘Please Read the Comments’: Commenting Cultures Across Platforms

Abstract

An old adage about the internet goes “Don’t Read The Comments”. It is a cynical word of caution from supposedly more experienced and savvy internet users, against a slew of negative, abusive, and unhelpful comments that are usually rampant online, stemming from trolling behaviour (Phillips 2015). “Don’t Read The Comments” has become an internet meme. Alongside parody websites (i.e. @AvoidComments n.d.), trawling through the comments section in search of ludicrosity has become an internet genre in and of itself. This comprises the likes of meme factory ‘The Straits Times Comment Section’ which collates absurd comments from users on a specific newspaper’s Facebook page (STcomments n.d.), as well as internet celebrity troll commentators like ‘American Ken’ M (Know Your Meme n.d.) and Singaporean ‘Peter Tan’ (Yeoh 2018), who post comments on a network of social media and fora in stealthily satirical ways that have even been co-opted for advertorials (Vox 2016). Such vernacular practice has in turn provoked a counter-genre of memes known as “I’m just Here For The Comments” (Tenor n.d.), in which users closely follow social media posts mainly for the resulting discussion and engagement in the comments section rather than the actual post itself. It is on this point of departure that this panel turns its focus to commenting cultures across platforms.

Content analysis of responses to The Line, an Australian primary prevention of violence against women campaign on Facebook

“…Given the data collection method via NCapture, this study did not include non‐English comments or comments using emoji, images, or tags linking other Facebook users. This may have excluded other forms of dialogue on the page including reaction gifs or memes, that no doubt contribute to how young people communicate about PVAW 48,49 . Further, the influence of campaign moderators who may have contributed to discussions or modified comments (eg, deleted comments or banned users) was also absent.…”

“…This may have excluded other forms of dialogue on the page including reaction gifs or memes, that no doubt contribute to how young people communicate about PVAW. 48 , 49 Further, the influence of campaign moderators who may have contributed to discussions or modified comments (eg, deleted comments or banned users) was also absent. As emerging research highlights, moderation practices in online spaces by peers, experts or community stakeholders attempt to circumvent backlash.…”

Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump's deselection

“…First, in making sense of the absurdity and ephemerality of ‘cursing’, we showcase how its improvised yet formalized dynamics inspired the social media theatre of Trump's false electoral victory declaration. Second, we draw attention to the productivity of digital methods in and for cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand networked commenting cultures (Abidin, 2020; Barnes, 2018; Murthy and Sharma, 2018) deemed spammy, trollish, or, indeed, ‘cursed’. We argue that the cursing event resists simple demarcation as either critique, mockery, trolling, or spam, since it is rife with ambiguity.…”

No TikTok do seu coração: do jabá às trends. Estratégias e manipulação algorítmica na produção do sucesso musical.

“…Para a facilitação da obtenção desses objetivos, além do uso algorítmico, diferentes affordances do aplicativo foram criadas e disponibilizadas para direcionarem ações de criação e publicação de novos microvídeos, como stitching e duetting (KAYE et al, 2021a;2021bABIDIN et al, 2020). A opção Stitch foi adicionada em outubro de 2020 e permite que os TikTokers recortem e se apropriem de pequenos segmentos de um vídeo de outros frequentadores da plataforma e produzam suas comun.…”