387 Comments

User's avatar
Freddie deBoer's avatar

Here's the commenting rule I posted yesterday.

"Starting tomorrow, there’s a new rule in place for commenting on this newsletter: any comments that do nothing other than to dismiss the relevance or importance of the topic of the given post will be deleted, and the commenter will be issued a one-month ban. I mean specifically comments of the type “this is worth talking about because?,” “why is this worth a post?,” “I don’t care about the phenomenon the post is describing,” etc. There’s not going to be any warnings - if your comment merely dismisses the relevance or worthiness of a post’s topic, you’re banned for a month.

A particularly annoying, self-aggrandizing version of the type of comment I’m talking about is the “this is just meaningless online stuff!” “This is just a Twitter phenomenon!” Etc. These comments are uniquely annoying and self-defeating. First, this newsletter is about many things, and one of those things is online culture and its influence on culture and politics. Many people, in the 21st century, spend a great deal of time online, so elements of online culture have natural and intrinsic interest. If you personally don’t see the interest in a given post, simply pass it by; no one will miss out on anything by not seeing your comment about your lack of interest. Another aggravating element of this tendency is that commenting on an internet newsletter is inherently a marker of being online. This tends to be so self-celebratory, even masturbatory - “you’re all so online, but not me! All of this online stuff is beneath me!” My friend, if you are online enough to launch a comment on a blog, you are not so offline that you get to strut around in that way.

If you routinely find yourself uninterested in what I write about here, you are of course free to take your readership and your money somewhere else. That’s an option you have. An option you no longer have is to peacock around in my comments section, bragging about how the topic of the day isn’t worth your interest. That ends now, and people who violate the rule will catch bans. You have been warned."

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar

One thing I hope we see in the future is more outlets for non-professional creative expression. The need to express ourselves creatively is a universal human desire. But there are very few spots for professional creatives.

I think a better society will have a lot more community theatre, boutique publications, small improv groups, community writers' workshops that can give people outlets for creative expression even if they don't make it their profession.

Expand full comment
385 more comments...

No posts