I was talking with someone recently--Mr Indemnity, was it you?--about how the most consistently jaw-droppingly weird comments/replies you could ever think to read are on, of all places, boston.com. It doesn't seem to matter what I read over there, any dip into the commentary is just head-spinning. And I have no idea why. Are these all the same people who used to write crank nutty letters to the editor back in the day when people didn't read the newspaper all online?
Today, for example, I accidentally came across the following (in reply to a question about "Facebook cheating"):
Make no mistake, this is the day and age of the restless married woman. I know 14 men (including myself) between the ages of 38-45 (all with multiple children under the age of 10) and all going through the same mess. We're all married to selfish women who looked in the mirror one morning, saw a few wrinkles and scared themselves into believing there was something better out there - and it seems to be contageous. Forget about respect for themselves or their families, they feel it's better to lie and betray rather than deal with their feelings in a responsible PAXIL FREE way. They have no regard for the real victims - THEIR KIDS. My recommendation - launch her, focus on you and your kids and most of all - move because she's beneath you.
Really, dude? Really??!???
You know *13* other guys who are being cheated on? And have told you about it? Do you belong to some kind of club or support group or something? Or do you just live in the World of Massive Over-share? Maybe I'd believe it more if these mythical lying hussies didn't *all* have multiple children under the age of ten, 'cause that tends to suck the life out of most people's sex drives, n'est pas?, as well as taking up enormous amounts of time that might otherwise be spent on whoring around. And then there's the hilarious all-capped apparent rant against antidepressants. Tom Cruise, is that you? Besides which, Paxil--excuse me, PAXIL--will pretty much suck the life out of most people's sex drives, too, so I don't really imagine all fourteen cheating sluts are on it anyway.
Hoo boy.
But, as god is my witness, this is a wholly typical and representative comment in that venue. Maybe the powers-that-be ought to dose the Quabbin with some prophylactic PAXIL and calm down most of the state.
xoxo
4 comments:
It was indeed me and I think you actually picked one of the less obnoxious examples. Boston.com commentors are just nasty and vicious to everybody about everything. I have the feeling that there's a major overlap between them and the Rush Limbaugh/Mike Savage audience of far right, hating everyone and everything shutins.
They seem to get their jollies waiting for a new story on boston.com and then spewing raw venom and hatred for no apparent reason except just that they can.
'Course if the NYTimes allowed comments on most of their stories, it'd probably be even worse. And then I'd be too embarrassed to send you important NYT links about shearing sheep and the like.
But the sheep are probably PAXIL FREE, so that's all right then.
hahaha
You know it's not the political/whatever extremists or the people you know who post vitriol just to get other people lathered up that I'm even talking about--because those people are all over the interwebs--so much as the prevalence of just downright *weird* comments on there.
Like most of the commenters are That Guy that you pray to god you don't get seated next to on the flight to the west coast because you're gonna spend the next three hours listening to their one obsessive crackpot theory that they just can't shut up about.
Probably himself and his other 13 personalities.
Thinking about shut-in situations with unacknowledged wackos. Back before cell phones, a young woman who worked for me (a native New Yorker)said that she made a habit of talking randomly out loud to herself and sometimes rolling her eyes and/or head whenever she was walking alone. Never had a lick of trouble. Some variation on that might work in unpleasant airline situations...or even on the prison bus.
I've always wished I had the balls to counter That Guy with a straight-faced recitation of an even more bizarre theory, like how the aliens from Alpha Centauri *really* caused the collapse of the stock market or how fluoride in the drinking water is responsible for OMG Teh Obesity Crisis. But, sadly, I do not.
Post a Comment