There's definitely a line between entertainingly ironic online comments and vicious cyber-bullying; I certainly hope the educated readers of The Dixie Sun know the difference.
As an example, let me present to you Rebecca Black. If you haven't seen or heard of her, you just might be living in an area of the world where Internet access is communistically forbidden.
Little miss B is the voice and face behind the viral video "Friday." As of the date I wrote this article, her video had almost 90 million views on YouTube and countless parodies to boot. Her song has millions of downloads on iTunes, and she's already made appearances on "The Today Show" and "The Tonight Show."
If you haven't heard the song or seen the video yet, you should probably take three minutes and 30 seconds out of your life and watch this classic gem. I wouldn't want any of the irony to be lost before I get to my point.
I was reading reviews of her song on iTunes, and the scores of downloads are obviously ironical in nature. Ping, Apple's music social media site, users have serious senses of humor, and even though that's an oxymoron, it's true nonetheless.
Here's some examples of entertaining comments that are critically funny, but not belligerently cruel.
Username "Goddess" wrote: "Rebecca Black's voice surpasses anything I've heard before. This gorgeous ballad shows off her powerful vocals and creativity with lyrics such as, ‘Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards' and ‘Partyin' partyin' (yeah) partyin' partying'(yeah) fun, fun, fun, fun' …This song restored my faith in humanity. 5 stars, Rebecca. Your voice is equivalent to the second coming of Jesus."
But my personal favorite response came from username "LyricalGenius" who wrote, "I'd really like to see her tackle something like January." LyricalGenius also rated the song with five stars.
Ping users, you get a positive review from me today. The majority of you used hilarious phraseology without aggressively demeaning 15-year-old Black. Your comments were funny and even spelled correctly (something that's rare on the Internet these days). I'm giving you clever music downloaders five out of five Apple product upgrades. That should appease your gadget needs for the next week (when Apple upgrades them again).
The biting commentary is much more expansive, however. I don't know whether to chalk it up to a lack of creativity, young-aged users, or just plain bitter stupidity. Let's check out a different site.
According to YouTube, roughly 300,000 people "like" Black's music video; but currently 1,782,671 video trolls clicked the "dislike" button; and just as many posted maliciously venomous reviews. That number climbs by the second.
Unlike iTunes, the reviews on YouTube are scathing and attack Black on a very personal level. There are even comments where YouTube geeks actually wish her dead. Go take a look for yourself.
I'm not sure if it's the fact that iTunescontent isn't always free, or if the people who use YouTube can only comprehend visual elements rather than music and text, but the comments left on YouTube are full of grammatical, spelling, structural and definition errors. iTunes users must have a higher level of education, and thus are able to post legible comments.
YouTube username "ferdsberth" wrote (and this is how it appears on the website): "HOW MANY WENTAND BOUGH HER SONG ON I TUNES LOL."
And that was one of the smarter comments. This was one of the few I could find that didn't contain profanity and/or death wishes.
For those who post comments on YouTube, here's a review: You get 265 out of 265 days of people coming to your house to say and do to you the things you post about others. So be careful username "SirSkilld," because posting comments like "press 2 over nd over to punch rebecca in the head"(again, it's verbatim), will result in someone showing up at your door to, well, punch you in the head.
You'd think in today's society, where children and young adults are literally committing suicide because of cyber bullying, people would take a step back and re-evaluate who and what they attack via the Internet.
Yes, it's true l'il B's song "Friday" isn't going to win any awards, and the popularity of her downloads is due to folks who find the song hilarious. But we do need to realize this poor girl was born in 1997. She's in junior high school, and was obviously out to have some fun and make a music video with her friends.
She never claimed to be a Grammy-worthy recording artist. In fact, she's not even signed to a label. Her music video endeavor was completely bankrolled by her parents, and if you watch any of her interviews on talk shows, you'll find out she made the music video because she wanted to have some fun.
Becky B, you love singing and acting, and you were lucky enough to have parents who support you. Your ma and pa were willing to let you make a fun little music video with your buddies, and for that, I have a review for you and your family.
You get 50 out of 50 stars--in the sky, that is. Those 50 stars will be arranged into the shape of your face, so all the evil cyber bullies in the world who have nothing better to do with their lives than sit and make fun of children can look to the sky every night and be reminded that they are nothing.
Oh, and my apologies to all the parents out there whose grown, unemployed children are inhabiting their basements, eating their food, and making them pay for monthly high-speed Internet so those children can switch between commenting on YouTube videos and watching porn.
And finally, to all the cyber-bullies out there, I'll forgo a review and just tell you straight up what I think of you.
Take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror. Look yourself in the eyes. Do you see that soulless, dead stare? That's the look of a person who's too chicken [poop] to work on him or herself first, and who's too uneducated and unmotivated to put his or her use of time toward bettering the world and making his or her fellow human beings happy.
You are a waste of space who's eating food that could feed the hungry, spending money that could help the homeless, and destroying lives of the innocent--one child at a time. If all were right with the world, there would be a 24-hour webcam pointed directly at you, so the world could actually see what scum you actually are. I could just imagine the comments and number of "dislikes" you would generate.
Think about that the next time you decide to tear a 15-year-old girl a new one just because she's having fun.
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