horribly jaded internet people who take nothing too seriously

What I hate is that Facebook statuses really show the divide between horribly jaded internet people who take nothing too seriously (maybe to everyone's detriment) and really naive and "not used to this whole internet thing!" types who aren't used to leg-pulling and detachment as a constant form of online communication.

― Cunga, Friday, August 28, 2009 7:16 AM (31 minutes ago)

So everyone's first thought is 'haha ilx' - but really this attitude seems to be a pretty fitting description of a bigger cultural shift? 7-8 years ago message boards (etc.) didn't seem nearly as universally snarky/transient/ironic as they do today (ilx 2001 vs. ilx 2009 = can mostly be explained by a general anglophone-internet culture shift?)

Also, although I'm sure most of us qualify as both internet jaded and real-life jaded - I think there are lots of people who seem to be participating in this internet culture (like, sending rickrolling links or whatever) without actually being horribly jaded people who don't take anything seriously in real life.

I dunno, it just seemed like an interesting quote. discuss.

http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/a5/a5132ebc508a56dd8cf8e9f487efee33408ad5d8_full.jpg

^^gunning for the first response hall of fame

nah it was too obv

I dunno, I don't have too much invested in this thread and I 70% expect it to sink to the bottom of new answers after a bunch of jpgs and youtube videos, but I do hope someone has something interesting to say before that happens

"universally snarky/transient/ironic" = nerdy detachment, no?

but is the fact that you don't have too much invested in this thread a symptom of your own horrible internet jadedness? xp

more like my previous experience making srs ilx threads

i think everyone should be super-emotional and excitable... that always ends real well.

Like the internet enables people who aren't great at communicating with others in person, to communicate with others, and so the way they communicate is going to be commitment-phobic. Plus you have a lot of control over how people see you when they can only see your prose + links, and most people are pretty boring so it's natural to spruce it up with "funny" jpgs. I do all this myself, I'm not just characterizing others. E.g. on my fb page I told my life story in a note so that all the people I was friends with in like 5th grade who've now friended me can find out what I'm up to; but I filled the story with (what I think are) obvious lies just to make it "funny". This seems like the right thing to do, but it's also that I feel uncomfortable/bored telling my life story straight (b/c wtf have I done that's really worth reading about? It's not like I've been living the hobo life or anything).

xp

um, I'm not necessarily promoting that, more questioning whether a large portion of the anglophone world is actually becoming less emotional and excitable?

http://www.mongolia-travel-guide.com/images/boy-pointing-at-plane.jpg

from my experience plenty of those types exist, they just don't post on ILX

i don't know... "the internet" as we know it is actually pretty small. it seems like we're all english majors and failed improv comics, but most people on the net are very sincere and po-faced.

failed improv comics

oh shit you're onto me

If the "not used to this whole internet thing!" types behaved the way in real life the way they do on the internet, you wouldn't be able to move at parties from all the people rapidly backing away from them.

on the real ilx is the only msg board i post to that never has epic pchop threads - even the raquetball forum i post to has them %_% - always wondered whats up w/ that

unless im getting levled i dont think ilx is particularly ironic/transient jaded maybe idk its still pretty lame/earnest abt 70% of the time

pchop

pork chop?

^^^ see

lamp OTM, ILX isn't exactly 4chan.

pre-challop?

pchop

it's like a carhop, but he hops on your PC.

what if you have a mac?

i think a part of the shift (if you want to make the point of comparison 'the 90s' not '2001') is 'ppl who are using internet in place of some absence in their everyday life' vs. 'ppl who are using internet in addition to a pretty normal hand of real-world social interactions'

i find it kinda weird that ilx is now more capable of having enlighterrrrning discursssions about videogames than it is about records

the realization that you went online to check your email and ended up arguing about Star Trek or some shit on a message board for 8 hours is enough to make any sane person jaded.

the realization that you went online to check your email and ended up arguing about Star Trek or some shit on a message board for 8 hours years is enough to make any sane person jaded.

hahahaha

i just wasted like eight mins looking for .jpg of this chick quizzically looken at a laptop that wld top matt dc's post but i couldnt find it :/ buttttttt n.e.way this "shift" is gaytarded & not real imo ppl have always had joke-y low content convos and the impulse to avoid getting all serious business abt "issues" (its called shame i think) its just they have higher speed internet connections now.

I think there are still earnest internet users populating live journal.

Invisible, not transparent.

This year, despite trials and tribulations (and perhaps even because of them) has been a landmark year. A year of reckoning.

It's not over, not by far. But I've come so far sometimes it is startling.

I quit drinking coffee, and all caffeine, over 2 weeks ago. I never thought I was capable of such a thing, but there it is.

easy target though innit

Like the internet enables people who aren't great at communicating with others in person, to communicate with others, and so the way they communicate is going to be commitment-phobic.

this is funny though cos the internet is now full of people who are also great at communicating with others in person, and aren't "not used to this whole internet thing!" either - yet the dominant conversational tone still seems to be jaded, sarky, etc, etc.

"the internet" as we know it is actually pretty small. it seems like we're all english majors and failed improv comics, but most people on the net are very sincere and po-faced.

Well, sincere, anyway. "Ok, hubby keeps telling me that I need to go to bed because I have a busy day tomorrow (of course, he's right (this time)) but I think actually he's wanting to play FARKLE...whatcha think?" I think you're dull and could really lose a few, long-lost friend from elemantary school. Whatcha think about that?

I think the internet makes you jaded, after not too long. Some become ironic and funny, some just get pissy.

xpost - the ppl who are "great at communicating with others in person" aren't generally the ones who would really think, "man, i must spend six hours this week arguing with a message board i post to about agnosticism"

what does that say about people who start and post to a half dozen Radiohead poll threads?

That the only reason they come to ILX is the talk about Radiohead.

haha yeah i dunno how poll threads fit into this thesis

A Pchop At A Wedding

I think a lot of those poll threads are relatively earnest ... well, except for the joke ones.

this is the thread that will break me. this is the thread that never calls back. this is the thread that stares out from the mirror each night before bed....

yeah but the difference between 'earnest 2009' and 'earnest 2003', if you look at some of the old in-depth music threads, is kinda striking

xpost

xposts, to thomp: yeah but in the bits of the internet my conversationally-non-awkward friends write on - things like facebook wall posts, say, which are an adjunct to everyday social life - they don't write straight-up sincerely, they adopt the internet's general tone of post-everything.

xxp This thread is Spartacus. This thread is Malcolm X.

how much of it is a general shift in internet culture vs. ilx, though? To me, it seems like it's due more to the fact that so many people have been around for so long and have developed, in some ways, a more sophisticated mode of communication.

You mean about the internet, or about ILX?

c sharp major i think facebook updates is the self-selecting group of 'people who still write facebook updates'

i think maybe ilx is a bad bellwether because the start of ILM and the first year or so of ILE maybe it seemed to perceive itself as having, like, a particular cultural project? — any of the three surviving original posters may come along now and tell me that's ridiculous though

xp kenan: the difference between ilx in 2003 and 2009.

Hmm; almost everyone I interact with on the internet outside of ILX is pretty earnest. I don't know anyone on ILX in rl though and I know everyone else I interact with on the internet in rl. The part of ILX I find the most head-scratching isn't the ironic part, but the amount of self-loathing people seem to have about their posting here. It seems pretty dramatic sometimes for what amounts to a place to hang out and talk about music or the news or whatever.

"Internet people write like THIS..."

the hung a man at dawn today, in the square. he looked like my brother and died like my wife furious and quick.

For the most part, I interact on the internet w/people I know in real life in a similar manner to the ways I interact with them in real life ... some of these relationships involve a fair amount of jadedness and sarcasm, and others don't. Most of the other message boards I'm on, I know most of the people IRL as well. For the ones I don't, I think I try to get a sense of what the "culture" is like, and try not to stick out too much.

when the first day of spring arrived, he came to see her. she had roasted a chicken and they wiped the grease from their hands and chins on her linen and made tiny ornaments of bone of her china.

But I still had some tricks up my sleeve; exhibit number one being a cache of buttons made of compacted snuff detritus.

why am i applying to work for a bank :(

uh oops didn't mean to c+p that there

the internet has ruined my ability to take c+p seriously

I'm not jaded!

The day Jel becomes jaded is the day ILX dies forever.

When I'm not jaded, it's more often to my detriment than my advantage. Just being "myself" is usually not something anyone asked to see.

ILX is a bit of a red herring in this discussion anyway because a) ILX has always thought of itself as better than 99% of other internet forums and b) the posters held in the highest esteem are still the ones who engage through their knowledge and enthusiasm and articulacy and so forth.

And also the people who are willing to patiently explain things even in response to utterly moronic arguments when everyone else is doing the rolleyes.gif yes Nabisco I am looking at you.

as I said on the other thread, they're mostly jaded internet people who take nothing too seriously on the internet

for a lot of people I imagine the internet, and ilx, is just joeks

i guess ilx and a lot of other messageboards are full of people who are jaded cos they have taken the internet too seriously in the past and are now looking back and thinking 'ugh i wish i could go back in time and erase my earnest former self'?

oh yeah, I recommend spending a morning refreshing 4chan for an eye opener

c sharp major nailing it over here I must admit

(not that I was ever an online essay writer but still)

Also not sure how on topic this is but ILX is the only board I read where no-one has ever linked to a 'satirical' story by The Daily Mash and as long as this continues it will always command a degree of respect, KIU

Most people are some combination of jaded and curious; some are more studied in the art of self-depiction than others. ILX doesn't have that 'OMG these people are cretins who can't spell or think, am amazed they can perform simple bodily functions unassisted' thing I get with 95 per cent of LIFE, not just msg boards.

"The internet is a glimpse of how rude people will be in the future"

-Sifl & Olly, 'Internet Killed the Video Star'

I kind of think it's part of the dehumanizing of society, like with the internet and shit we are transforming into unfeeling and critical cyborg machines on a social/cultural level. For instance looking at something and saying "FAIL" strikes me as something that would pop up on a screen in a cheesy MST3K about computers in the future. Lots of internet semantic and cultural trends are showing up in (cringe) movies and TV shows and real people interacting in the non-internet world.

Another good example is 'OBAMACARE IS HITLER'. Republicans here have basically brought messageboard trolling to the masses.

ILX doesn't have that 'OMG these people are cretins who can't spell or think, am amazed they can perform simple bodily functions unassisted' thing I get with 95 per cent of LIFE

When I started reading this sentence, I assumed you meant that ILX doesn't have people who judge other people that one-dimensionally.

I think the jadedness is actually beginning to roll back a bit. Not just on ILX, though it feels like you see more posters admitting to actually maybe liking something every now and then, but on the rest of the Internet ppl are starting to blog/tweet/w/e abt being less negative all the damn time.

but maybe it's just going earnest -> jaded -> banal?

The next step is -> spiritual.

Isn't "physical" before that?

Banality is just bkg noise on internet I think, but ppl genuinely enthusing about shit they love is rarely banal. Scary and weird sometimes, but not banal. Xp

where does denial fit into this sequence?

IT DOESN'T!

but maybe it's just going earnest -> jaded -> banal?

Lol jadedness.

Isn't "physical" before that?

Are you advocating sex before spirituality or something? Away with you!

sorry, I was just making a joke, you don't have to get all CAPS LOCK about it.

(it was a joke also...)

POST-IRONIC CAPS LOL seems to be getting pretty popular as a way of being earnest while being knowing about the fact that you're being earnest.

"NO GENUINELY YOU GUYS I THINK THIS SONG IS PRETTY GREAT I WOULD PROBABLY BUY IT IN A SHOP WITH MONEY"

I was trying to be jaded.

Please everyone stop apologizing.

yeah, sorry about that.

sorry, I don't want to be horribly jaded internet people.

xposts How is that a one-dimensional judgement? I think ILX has tons of people who measure those qualities in others all the time; see our reactions to BBC HYS posters. While it may be an unfair judgement because it's based on incomplete information, on ILX most people know how to communicate using words on the page. It's just kind of sad how many people elsewhere are incapable of the basics.

All scenes go through a jaded period where all participants for some reason feel insecure about their enthusiasms. It lifts.

OMG I AM TOTALLY COLLAPSING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF MY SELF CONSCIOUSNESS RIGHT NOW!!!

LOLZ!!! SARCASM! ROFFLZ!!!

Suzy: I was fucking with you. "I think ILX has tons of people who measure those qualities in others all the time" = YEAH. Yer lookin' at one.

My best self would never do such things. My best self would be so damn bored on ILX.

i blame Daria

Yeah but I'm getting to the point where I think people who are incapable of properly using your/you're would have to attend remedial courses before being allowed to re-enter the public discourse/breed/vote.

I'm sure most of us qualify as both internet jaded and real-life jaded

i really hope not, tbh. i'd like to think most ilxors are more fully formed than their ilx persona, and they just use the site for blowing off steam they don't get to anywhere else, about music, movies, sports or nerdy hobbies/likes they can't admit to their girlfriends.

my 'real life' tone is absolutely nothing like my ilx tone, although i'm trying to improve the latter in the fear i'll actually meet one of you some day and get a right kicking.

true story: my use of you/you're has dramatically downgraded due solely to the internet

My its/it's use requires constant surveillance.

People would be shocked to receive an SMS from me that was written in TXT SPK.

sometimes when someone says something lame in real life, I want to post an animated gif in response.

Just carry around a glove puppet of a kitten for use in such instances.

one of my friends IRL used to work for a bookstore chain in a different city, where the Human Resources guy suffered an emotional breakdown and would only talk to people through a sockpuppet.

my 'real life' tone is absolutely nothing like my ilx tone

Making statements against the status quo brings a level of derision from your peers online that is far more than if you said it in the 'real world'. You may get shouted down or your grammar will be mercilessly critiqued or you will be mocked with 'LISTEN TO ME SHEEPLE'!! Amidst all this if someone writes in genuine support of your position it is difficult to tell if they are sincere or being sarcastic and patronizing.

The best way to avoid all that is to take a detached, jaded response on most things. "The hammer that sticks up" and all that....

Mr. Garrison? xpost

xxxp I want a glove puppet of this:
http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/Jerry-Seinfeld-Dad-Again-2.jpg

xxx-post

one of my friends IRL used to work for a bookstore chain in a different city, where the Human Resources guy suffered an emotional breakdown and would only talk to people through a sockpuppet.

― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Friday, August 28, 2009 11:39 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did he later move to colorado and become a school teacher?

the Human Resources guy? I have no idea.

^latebloomer, today your name is apt, got there first...

I really don't want anyone to have a glove puppet of that, ever. Already looks like Jer has a big ol' hand up his arse, so where is the need?

The glove puppet example would be pretty much the most annoying thing I could imagine and it's made me realise that animated gifs aren't actually pinpoint witticisms at all but actually really lame and I hereby resolve never to post one ever again.

that show would actually have been tolerable if the only talking was done by hand puppets.

Amidst all this if someone writes in genuine support of your position it is difficult to tell if they are sincere or being sarcastic and patronizing.

Or worse, gleefully blowing sunshine up your ass, because that's what they sincerely think they're supposed to always do on the internet.

kenan otm

Suzy, don't you have a deadline you're supposed to be meeting? Stop procrasturbating on the internets and get back to work, you! ;-)

-captain save-an-editor

Thanks, kate, for pointing out a way of being unpleasant that I hadn't even thought of.

I hate when ppl use yr/ur incorrectly, but not as much as I hate "wat" used in earnest in a sentence (ie not as "UH"). I just write ppl off for doing that.

?????

irl or on the net? writing people off irl sounds shady, like an insurance underwrites cum hitman

The role of insurance underwriter cum hitman to be played by Edward G. Robinson.

Kate, I am having lunch on the internets today. Moral quandary here: do I hold a due-today feature hostage because my employer promised to have me paid for just-out cover feature yesterday, and it didn't happen, leaving me much diminished for Bank Holiday? Note that this was an eyeball-to-eyeball promise and much needed because we're out two weeks later than normal.

I've worked in many accounting depts, and it's quite standard practice with persistent promisers and non-payers to cut off supply (or at least threaten to) for non-payment of previously provided goods.

um guys we've done this thread already

T/S 'experienced internet users' vs 'noobs'

I'd have gone with tubgirl there. Personal choice.

I don't even know what we're doing, here!

what's tubgirl?

Tubgirl:

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/36/3642/AXREF00Z/edgar-degas-woman-seated-on-the-edge-of-a-bathtub-washing-her-neck-with-a-sponge-1880-1895.jpg

um guys we've done this thread already

typical jaded response

(as was that)

irl or on the net?
on the net. don't care irl, but it's like putting on a moron voice on internet

Ok I see what you're saying, but I didn't really until then.

ur yr own worst enemy, as they say

tg is her own worst enema

Don't ppl write ppl off where you ppl are?

gleefully blowing sunshine up your ass

LOOOOL

yo is it true vordul got sonned by a wite kid after a aol beef??????

Has there already been a thread covering the social/cultural aspects of the internet as they impact everyday 'offline' life?

Yeah, that definitely needs a thread. Also, please write a book about blogging.

i think maybe ilx is a bad bellwether because the start of ILM and the first year or so of ILE maybe it seemed to perceive itself as having, like, a particular cultural project? — any of the three surviving original posters may come along now and tell me that's ridiculous though

This is ridiculous. (Hey, you asked.) I think more that it was the newness of the ILX setup that prompted a lot of the discussion -- we had stepped away from the spam drowning Usenet, while a variety of separate communities came together and were collectively talking for the first time, sounding each other out. It may be an oversimplification to say it but you can boil down a lot of the earliest aesthetics to the fact that Tom Ewing brought in the a.m.a. coterie on the one hand and the Sinister mailing list on the other. What seems like a planned project was more of a function of the participants just being themselves.

The changing of posting styles has been interesting to observe as well, and I'm not immune to that! But it's the same way that people talk about writers finding a voice combined with understandable if often insular shorthands given a familiar audience over time.

haha I was going to say the exact same thing Ned said but it came across as being too snarky so I deleted it

You horribly jaded internet person!

can't say, as I'm horribly sincere all the time.

haha I was going to say the exact same thing Ned

if u mean word for word than that's spooky

i was going to say exactly what ned said but i was way more eloquent so i deleted it and let him just mash it out.

I love when I step out for a bit and a thread that had just started is well over a hundred posts by the time I get back. Is this one going well?

if u mean word for word than that's spooky

Stranger has occurred.

it's going very well, i am pleasantly surprised by how cuddlestein it has been thus far.

i guess because nobody want to be "that guy"

i think that guy got sb'd and the rest of us are just cowed tbh

"Horribly jaded, one of us, one of us!"

http://www.librarisaurus.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/104_gooble_gobble_med.jpg

gooble gobble

Has there already been a thread covering the social/cultural aspects of the internet as they impact everyday 'offline' life?

― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 28 August 2009 12:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah it's here

There are already academic papers and books by NYTimes columnists about detachment in web comments. DO YOUR RESEARCH

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31PYcWUJ6oL.jpg

God fuck that man.

not employed by the Times tho

always preferred

http://oldpoetry.com/images/ext/List/0/164.jpg

:)

Lewis Carroll is the patron saint of taking nothing too seriously.

apparently he's a total dick on the subject of radiohead, that's what i read anyway

Even worse is the people who take everything seriously, but treat other people like shit. Dropping in Ron Paul endorsement-style and refusing to listen to any other viewpoints, just bombing their own regurgitated one

I still don't get wht stet was saying or if he ws joking or not

i suck. Was agreeing with suzy saying ppl incapable of using you're/your properly need schooling, but I go further b/c I apply it to ur and yr as well (ur = you're, yr = your obviously). And using "wat" is beyond the pale in general, like morons on Facebook giving it "lol wat an amazin photo r ur balls hingin out or wat".

But i need to go back to explaining-yrself-pour-les-nuls school anyway.

Sometimes I'll bust out a yr but I blame Sonic Youth for that completely.

Oh yeah, I use em and love em. Just use em right, is all I'm saying.

haha thanks ned and dan

i think by 'particular cultural project' i just meant - combined with the fact that ILM was also pretty strongly connected with FT at the time - that ILM had this sort of attitude to it, always, of 'let us never take the prevailing wisdom for granted'. i didn't mean to imply that tom e. had, like, a grand overarching scheme of pop-cultural domination, along with that.

i try and only use 'ur' and 'u' when i) posting at people who do the same ii) just trying to be obnoxious; on the other hand, 'yr' and all-lowercase are internet affectations i find it hard to do without

'let us never take the prevailing wisdom for granted'.

omg I want this in size 40 font at the top of the ilm page.

Unless someone has a real learning disorder, I just feel bad spelling = bad communication skills and obliviousness toward others; I would always reply with 'your' to a ur. My provocation for this came when I got another one of those circular screeds from the local green Biro man who shouts at the council on behalf of our building (he also charmingly assumes others want him to). There's nothing like insults laced with homonym errors and bad spellings, it's like someone's up spitting in your face while they talk.

Being jaded is a defense mechanism. And a useful one. But taken too far, it can be damaging, i.e., it not only can insulate you from harm, but also from happiness and friendship.

I actually have thought about this subject while wondering how the personality of my 8-year old daughter will develop. I hope she is just jaded enough to avoid being fragile or too-vulnerable. But I don't want her getting to the point where everything is distant or ripe for a snide remark. I certainly have become more jaded over time, and I have mixed feelings about it.

(Haven't had time to read the whole thread, so apologies if my comment is redundant (or stupid)).

where do you stand on usage of the equals sign to mean something like 'demonstrates', suzy?

Difficult to misspell an equals sign.

≈

-

<

<3

you are all horribly jaded......etc etc

oh shit is shortening etcetera allowed?

xp You don't even KNOW, man! I'm also horribly disfigured! Cut me some slack, ok?!

xpost
yes : tctr

i promise to use this on ilx from now on, and never explain why

I thought suzy was having a jibe at ppl who correct your and you're; the internet makes u dumb, I guess

oh I get it, I thought when you said "ILX doesn't have that 'OMG these people are cretins who can't spell or think, am amazed they can perform simple bodily functions unassisted' thing I get with 95 per cent of LIFE" u were saying tht it was refreshing tht ilx doesn't have those ppl from other message boards who insist on capitalisation and proper spelling and will reply to a post full of yr arguments w/a one word post pointing out yr spelling mistake in line 2

their they're there hidere tctr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39sZgwSr_s

I don't think she was saying that, but it's otm as well. I mean, fuck a metafilter-style "I think you've split the infinitive there, old chap, your argument is null". I mean, the amount of people here who can spell/punctuate and don't is awes. I wonder what we'd be like if there were posters who actually didn't know the difference and were all YouTube grammar for real.

OTOH we often have people replying to a post full of arguments w/"UH" which can be equally frustrating but also hilarious and totally deflating.

...

tbh, fuck using the 'shift' key on ilx. i know where it is when i need it.

Everything I learned about arguing on the internet I learned from Hunter, age 3.

i like the effort you made to put those quotes on xp

OTOH we often have people replying to a post full of arguments w/"UH" which can be equally frustrating but also hilarious and totally deflating.

I am probably guilty of doing this pretty often but there are some arguments around here that escalate to such extreme levels of absurdity and/or studpidity that sometimes "uh" is the only appropriate response.

i like the effort you made to put those quotes on xp

i actually went to go back and delete them for effect, but that would have been outrageous hypocrisy given the context

well, it's not like you had to hit the shift key to make em.

sure this is it

Abbreviations are good.

I really did mean that we are smart island in an ocean of teh stupid. Sometimes it seems like everyone commenting on the internet - apart from those on ILX and half a dozen other sites I like to revisit - is so bad at the grammar and writing things that I worry how they manage the eating, sleeping and shitting things without adult assistance. I AM LOOKING AT YOU, RIGHT-WINGNUTS!

So jaded.

No, I'm just oooooooooooooooooold. /shuffles off, looking for Zimmer frame

I AM LOOKING AT YOU, RIGHT-WINGNUTS!

No, no, you have it all wrong. Lacking basic skills in our own native language is proof that God loves us. Why else would we still be so goddamn awesome?

there's a political spectrum link to demonstrated grammatical ability on the internet?

Kind of? Yeah, I think there is some correlation between spelling and grammar ability and general reasoning ability.

lol people that aren't left wing r stupid!

I took the "nuts" part to be as important as the "wing".

remind me not to take you up on any chicken dinner offers

hey now

who likes giblets?!

more into the older pigs myself

i'll take what i can get thank you

I was hoping this thread was going to turn into some media studies analysis fest but instead it's about pork

Most translations of the Bible do have the linguistic grace of the standard youtube comment.

ILX: the four wingmen of the APORKALYPSE

(happy ramadan everybody)

did jesus died?

Yes but he is risen!

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9014/spideygod2pg0.jpg

see i dont have any of these problems on the Innernet™

that comic is vile.

lame/earnest
^^^

Why are they crucifying Kid Rock.
.
.
actually why did they wait so long to crucify Kid Rock

People's real personalities eventually shine through, even if they're being jaded or ironic 90% of the time. It's been fun lurking here and trying to figure out what the true opinions are beneath the masks of various posting styles (and trying to keep straight who all of you people are). I haven't ever seen a message board community that operates the way this one does.

I've noticed a huge difference in posting styles among different age groups. In my facebook experience, the older folks tend to be much more straightforward than the 20-30 year olds. It doesn't seem to be entirely related to the depth of internet experience. It seems like more of a cultural difference. The older people just don't seem as interested in - or maybe even as cabaple of - the kind of "meta" posting that accounts for a huge proportion of the posts on, say, ILE/ILM (especially ILM). I'm not making a value judgement here, but it is interesting.

I found the except of Snark in today's Guardian Review quite interesting, actually.

Dan S. otm above.