Comics, Comments & Chowderheads

We all have morning routines.

Part of my wife's morning routine is going to http://gocomics.com/ to read the stimulating offerings of some of America's most noteworthy doodlers.

She reads two comics daily: FoxTrot and For Better or For Worse.

It's nice, I think, for gocomics to put comics online for those of us who are too cheap and/or too young to purchase an actual newspaper. It's kind of sad, being in that age and income bracket-- some of my favorite memories of childhood revolved around eating cereal around the dining room table with my sister while getting milk droplets on the comic pages while my father screamed at us for "goddamn crunching" our Cinnamon Toast Crunch or whatever it was too loudly. But, those days are over, and thank God for the internet.

Anyway, not only does gocomics provide a place for you to catch up on the latest antics of G. B. Trudeau's highbrow clan and that sassy black kid from Boondocks, it also allows you to create an account, an avatar and this, then, enables you to leave comments under the comic of your choice after you've finished reading it.

Now why, one might wonder, would you want to do that exactly? Is it because you're bored? Perhaps unemployed? Maybe the power of Christ compels you? Maybe you just love to comment. If that's the case, then get your fat fucking asses over here-- stop wasting time leaving a note every time Hobbes makes a hiney-burp.

Seriously-- why do we need a place to comment on comics webpages? What is it, exactly, about the daily happenings of Paige, Jason, the iguana, and Peter's blind girlfriend that moves people to spend time commenting on? Not only do people comment on the comics, but they engage in discourse and, sometimes, heated argument over a storyline, plot device or piece of dialogue in one of the comics. I mean: look at yourselves. You're commenting... on a comic. You're investing yourselves deeply enough to make an emotional reply based on the products of somebody else's imagination.

Is it just me, or is that a cry for help?

They leave comments for each other, they debate, the interpolate and extrapolate, they take it all far too seriously. Not only that, they leave comments for the cartoonists-- as if Bill Amend or Berkley Breathead (no, it's not pronounced that way) were trolling gocomics regularly, thirsting for the sentiments, requests, criticisms and comments spewed forth from the avatars of their fans. Word to the wise: they don't.

At least... I hope they don't.

Commenting on internet pages is an interesting phenomenon. Everybody wants their voices heard, and the internet, with its endless amounts of space provides room for everyone. This is good and bad. I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth, because, well, here I am, but still I feel like not every website in the universe needs a comment function (please comment on this).

Another example is newspaper websites.

You might be too young to remember this, but there once was a time that, if you read an article that moved you or that you didn't like, if something in a newspaper story caught your ire or your fancy, you took fifteen minutes out of your day to compose a letter to the editor. If said letter was even slightly articulate, remotely timely and/or partially logical, in a day or two, it might actually wind up in print in the Editorial/Opinion Page. This, dear children, is how people used to make their voices heard. Now, every slackass shitstain with an IP address and at least one free hand can make an offensive, idiotic, irrelevant, oftentimes abusive comment on a newspaper's webpage.

The Oakland Tribune's website has the following message before each of its comment sections:

"Please keep your comments respectful of others by avoiding name-calling and other inappropriate remarks."

You're tempted to think, is that really necessary? Are we little children? Can we really not be trusted to behave ourselves on the online comment section of a newspaper? Must we be told to "avoid name-calling and other inappropriate remarks?"

Name-calling?

Really?

Really.

I'd post some of the unbelievably obscene, ridiculous, hurtful and just plain fucking stupid comments people made after the four police officers in Oakland were gunned down, but why give these questionable individuals more webspace than they deserve?

I know we all have things to say, and that we're all just dying to be heard, but can't we find more constructive ways to speak our minds than by commenting on the quality of the birthday gift Andy Fox got for her husband-- or by spewing racist venom all over America's failing newspaper websites?

I mean, just who's listening anyway?