A while ago we were all talking about how comments were dying/dead online. Many popular blogs were dropping their use of them. Some cautiously defended them. Others never had them and lightly gloated about how they never mattered in the first place. Studies were run to prove them as being echo chambers to fanatics where confirmation bias reigned supreme.

I’m glad we’ve moved on from the barrage of analysis, because I agree that comments are usually poisonous because they are almost always improperly located/applied.

Humans of New York on Facebook might just be the perfect example of how comments let people be bad.

Take the following example:

“False. This race crap is really getting old. You and only you are in charge of your life.”

“that’s just silly. you all act like white people have it so great because of the color of our skin. let me tell ya its not the color of your skin its your attitude in life.”

“Oh give me a friggin break. Being white is not a substitute for being smart or talented. Your biggest struggle is excuses.”

How about this:

“I do not know why this is important to post/share but if she really was destitute she would not be dying her hair blond and smoking cigarettes.”

“And drinking too.”

“Ask your mom how much it fucking sucks to have her 43 year old…whatever….asking her for money. That is the truly sucky side of this argument.”

“You have a phone a drink and a revolting smoke in your hand give up one of them and you’ll have some money in your pocket!!! Give up all three the skies the limit!!!”

Or even just this:

“What about his sick wife being alone while he’s out living and complaining about being alone?”

“I’d have edited out his grumpiness.”

“It’s all about him. I pity his wife.”

“selfish much? Wish your wife wasnt sick so YOU wont be alone? How about just wish her to be healthy. Not sure if a prick, or misunderstood.”

People are nasty online because the affordances of writing comments are more akin to graffiti than they are to conversation.

In 2012, Jeff Atwood wrote this:

Although I love my touch devices, one thing I’ve noticed is that they are a major disincentive to writing actual paragraphs.

He points out an interview with Joey Hess:

If it doesn’t have a keyboard, I feel that my thoughts are being forced out through a straw.

The forms and spaces that comments occur in greatly shape the length and quality of those comments. And while those two comments are mostly about the constraints of mobile, it does highlight how Yelp at one time had to block comments from the mobile app only because “all they got was LOL OMG raspberry poop Emoji.”

What is the form and space of Humans of New York?

A photo and an out-of-context quote.

While for most people with open minds and imaginations, this kind of quick snapshot of a life left ambiguous gives us a feeling of vicariousness, an idea that we ourselves would just walk up to a stranger and ask them about their lives as the photographer did.

For others, it gives them just enough of a hook to hang their hat of knee-jerk reactions, prejudice and political issues onto.

And then you see that tiny little text field. It’s very small, only one line high.

You’ve seen it everywhere. It’s littered all over the page, on every post that shows up.

And there’s something itching you now about that post. And that space looks so empty…

Start shaking up that spray can…