a funeral for the death of the comment section

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and acknowledge the death of what once was:

The Comment Section.

(baaaabum reveal audio clip)

A lot of people, when giving a speech about a loved one, lie.

They say “Old Uncle Bill never had a bad word to say about anybody” about the uncle who definitely did, every single Thanksgiving, say several bad words, about several groups of people. They say “Aunt Becky was a saint” about the grown woman who once threw a rubber flip flop at you doing 60 down the highway for breaking the rules of “quiet as a mouse”.

I get why we do it. It feels cruel to bury someone with all their worst parts showing. So we wash em off a bit. Make them a bit easier to remember.

I’m not going to do that here. The Comment Section was never a saint, and if I’m honest, she was never really a monster either, no matter what everyone said about her these last few years. She was gray. And gray was the most alive she ever was.

I want you to take a walk with me down Memory Ln. At every funeral, there’s a moment where someone stands up and starts telling stories. Well, I’m not standing, but this is that moment. A couple of my favorite memories from when The Comment Section felt most human. Most real. If this was a youtube video, it would be titled “Reply Guys being funny for 10 hours compilation”, but this is Substack and so, instead, you get a fake eulogy.

I don’t know what I can say about this comment that hasn’t already been said. It’s one of the most well-known comments in history. I absolutely had to put it as number one.

“If you could choose one dead person to bring back to life, who would it be?”

One user gave an almost too-honest, yet unexpectedly sweet answer about his late wife. He wrote about how much he missed her, how he would choose her.

And then, this agitating, grating voice:

“I also choose this guy’s dead wife.”

…You can practically hear the virtual pin drop.

You’ll notice a lot of these comments come from Reddit attached to the default profile picture and a meaningless username. As we continue through this eulogy, that will change. But at the Comment Section’s peak, it didn’t matter who you were or if you had a blue check next to your name. Companies weren’t littering the replies trying to steal fifteen seconds of fame.

That will change.

This comment is very different from the first. Instead of a dry burn, this is an allegedly true story, posted in the comment section of an r/AskReddit post. The question was, “Have you ever felt a deep connection to a person you’ve met in a dream?”

One of my first viral Notes on this app was about the Lamp Story: “I’m practically begging the lamp to look a little off at this point.” Self-deprecation at its finest.

That’s how important this comment is. That’s how deeply it has lodged itself into internet culture. You can make an incredibly niche reference to a lamp looking weird, and thousands of people immediately know exactly what you mean.

Every social media platform has its own culture. While it definitely has its bad moments, Reddit’s culture is largely built around sharing stories and spreading knowledge.

Twitter is completely different.

Twitter is the Wild Wild West. It’s a 24/7, 365-day Purge Day for the Robots that live there. You post something there knowing full well that at any moment, a complete stranger might decide to make you the joke.

Which brings me to another comment that changed the course of history.

People have always been rude, especially on the internet, but for some reason, this is the tweet I always think of as a turning point. After this, there seemed to be a shift in the way people talked about mental illness online.

I also believe this tweet helped normalize dry, casual bitterness as a punchline. The comeback of the comeback.

I don’t think this one tweet created that culture by itself, obviously, but it feels like an important moment that captured the exact direction the internet was already moving in.

And as always, if there’s a way to make money…

By 2017, Twitter had solidified its angsty personality. Yet, unlike today, there was still a pretty clear distinction between the people posting and the companies advertising to them. They still held themselves to higher, more LinkedIn-corporate-talk standards.

Then Wendy’s started talking shit.

And, while it is funny, I’d argue that this was the Comment Section’s “jump the shark” moment, the point where the wall between brand and user started to disappear.

And once brands figured out how to sound like people, people started sounding suspiciously like brands.

And while the Comment Section was once so full of life, today we sit here gathered at her funeral.

Yet, there are more comments than ever!1 So how can she possibly be dead?

Well, she lost her authenticity. She lost her humanity.

Instead, today, you must follow a script.

There are around five comments you can post under almost anything that are guaranteed to get at least a few likes…which seems to be the goal of almost anything anymore.

“hope this helps”

“oh that’s not”

And we can’t forget about the viral comment of the week. Someone says something genuinely funny and within three days everyone has beaten it into the ground so hard that the original joke barely means anything anymore.

HOW DO YOU SHIFT?!

Once people realized a comment could feed their attention cravings, commenting shifted2. And after that, why risk saying something new when you could just say something everyone already liked?.3

And that’s SO BORING.

Before, opening comment sections used to feel like opening a bling bags. You had no idea what you’d get. Someone could tell you a story about a fake family and a glitching lamp, and you’d believe them. Someone could pwn the person who OG poster and you’d laugh with them because, at that time, not every comment seemed so miserable.

Now, it feels like most of the time I can guess the comments before I even open them.

Which isn’t hard because I’m extremely intuitive to the point where I think I might be psychic but STILL.

So, dearly beloved, that is why we are here.

The Comment Section is dead. The Comment Section remains dead. And we have killed her.

May she rest in peace.

Or, at the very least, may somebody come up with a new fucking comment.

<3 brooklyn