Commenting: How is it different?

Growing up in this digital age I am no stranger to commenting. Starting off with Myspace culture late in high school (I refused to join for a long time) as well as participating in and running a series of forums I have had my fair share of comments written and read. Now that we have Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, and comment boxes on practically every site we go to it seems almost impossible not to find yourself commenting on something or another.

Sometimes commenting can be done in different voices. Although I don’t like to admit it I would say I have a much different voice commenting on something like a New York Times article then when I am commenting on one of my friends Facebook status.  I’d like to say that I try to keep my voice consistent across the internet but, realistically I am dropping the “dudes,” “sweets,” and, “Fuck Yeahs!” when I am trying to come of as a serious contributing member of society. I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could be taken seriously without having to modify myself. Unfortunately some 20 something skaterat who wants to talk about art and music isn’t exactly the norm when it comes to professional commentary. Too bad.

In an assignment for my Journalism as Conversation class I was instructed to write six comments over the course of the week. Three were to be written on Facebook and the others on different blogs. I actually had a hard time with this. Since the recent “update” of Facebook I have been trying to stay away from it (I say as Facebook is sitting open in another tab…) Okay well I keep looking at it but, I don’t like it and it makes it harder for me to find things that I would actually comment on. I don’t like using Facebook for much besides sharing pictures with friends and staying in contact with close friends. The first comment I wrote was on a skate video that was posted by Skate Jawn. They are a skateboarding magazine out of Philly. I met one of the kids who runs it at Umass Amherst where I am studying Journalism. There wasn’t any reaction to what I said as it was somewhat of a forced comment just for the sake of commenting. I panicked and just commented on this first. Less sincere than I had planned. Oh well.

The next comment was on something one of my roommates wrote or well copy+pasted. On Facebook there are these chain-mail-esque  status updates that float around. I am not partial to them. Neither is my roommate but, she saw one that stuck out to her. It was about being a girl. It listed a number of “silly, girly” things that all girls just can’t help but to do. My roommate fancies herself as a kind of feminist. Seeing this status update being copy and pasted by a number of girls she decided to add a little extra to see if anyone noticed. She added things that most girls would never openly admit (nothing too bad mind you) as a satirical representation of these status updates. I noticed one of these things that stuck out like a sore thumb and simply quoted that in a comment. People responded. A bunch of them “liked” this post.

For my last comment I wrote about one of my co-workers pictures of a sign advertising chocolate covered bacon. She seemed to think it was a bad idea. I wanted to know more about it.

When it comes to commenting on blogs I don’t really do it. I use blogs as a source of information instead of a conversation. So, commenting on them was more difficult for me. For the first one I commented on a movie review. I found it on a blog called Filmophilia. It was a review of the movie Troll Hunter (which I seriously recommend you see. It is on Netflix Instant Watch and it is awesome.) I didn’t quite agree with the person who wrote the review and responded to it. You can see the review here: http://filmophilia.com/2011/10/04/riff-review-trollhunter/   So far nobody has replied.

EDIT: The author did reply saying he agreed with me on the most part and he clarified his points. I now know more of what he is saying. It was cool that he responded.

Troll Hunter Poster

In another blog comment I was looking through an artist named Andrew Young’s blog and decided I would like to see if I could purchase one of his paintings or perhaps a print. I comment asking where I could do such things and Andrew promptly emailed me with the information. Initially I found out about him on another blog that I frequent called BOOOOOOOM. You can find the post about Mr. Young here: http://www.booooooom.com/2011/09/19/vancouver-based-artist-painter-andrew-young/

EDIT: Check out the comment from the creator of Booooooom on my blog post about comments. (Sup dawg)

 

Andrew Young Painting

 

For my final comment it wasn’t really much of a comment more than a recommendation that worked through their saite and ended up on Facebook. The website in question is called The Berrics. It is the website dedicated to an indoor skate park own and run by professional skaters who want to do good for the skate community.  In the series I wrote about it featured a story told by someone who is just an average everyday skater who happened to have an incredibly interesting story to tell. My comment was basically that I liked the story and that I recommend everyone to watch him tell it even if they don’t skateboard because it has nothing to do with that. This video can be found here: http://theberrics.com/aberrican-me/ross-capicchioni-part-1.html

The Berrics

All in all commenting went the same as always for me. Sometimes people respond and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people look at what I recommend and don’t say anything about it until they see me in person. It all sort of depends on who is looking and what they took from it.

One thought on “Commenting: How is it different?

  1. jeff says:

    hey there ian just wanted to encourage you, dig what you’re doing here. i started Booooooom because i was frustrated leaving comments on design sites and never feeling like anyone read them. no one running the sites ever responded and i am trying my best to grow the community on my site by focusing on the little things like comments on articles. i think it makes a huge difference.

    /j

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