I know I’ve said this before but the gloriously geeky webcomic xkcd is fantastic. Part of it is that I’m enough of a geek that I actually get their comics (this one was freaking hilarious to me because I was a physics major, and this one sparked a few ideas…) and absolutely love that fact, and part of it is that the comics themselves are hilariously funny.

But the most recent one just struck a chord with me, probably because it’s something that I can testify to being the truth:

It’s the god damned truth. YouTube is great, but YouTube comments and commenters make my eyes bleed. Same with sites like Break.com. It’s one of the reasons I dig Google Video and Revver: not everything on the god damned internet needs comments, especially unmoderated ones. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine-commenting has gone from sharing thoughts and perspectives and linking to other sites and content to rampant trolling and children with egos and beef laying it out in a public place where they can hide behind their anonymity. Just the sad state of the internet these days, I think.

David Pogue, brilliant columnist for the New York Times, took the issue to task a couple of of times, and even the fine folks at Lifehacker took a stab at it. In general, in bringing up the topic they’ve elicited some of the most intelligent discourse I’ve seen on the web in a long time.

Regardless, don’t let the discussion take away from the hilarity of the comic. It’s not just a commentary on the net in general, or on youtube readers/commenters, but how really hilarious stupidity can be sometimes.