How To Write A Stupid Comment Without Looking Completely Stupid
I am not an English teacher. I do not write in a technically proficient way. I don’t like to grade papers on anything but content because I write as I think…sort of. I qualify that statement so that I can separate myself from the great sodden masses of Internet Commentators.
Let me rephrase that. Not Internet Commentators. Internet Commentors. A commentator is generally a person who is seen as an expert in a
certain subject like politics or sports or video games or something. A commentor is just that. A person who posts a thought (I use the word “thought” in the loosest possible connotation) at the end of some story or blog entry they read on the Internet. And that is the biggest problem with the Internet. Everyone gets a turn. There are no signs that say, “Your IQ must be this high to ride.” That is why we get gems like this:
How many more must we loose…
And this:
We should just nuke aghgan y not it doesn’t seem like they wanna change,so what the hell get ride
And let’s not forget this gem…
Im sure there were not to many mexicans hurt in mexico, their all here..
They have a big skimmer to pick up oil, do they one for Mexicans?
So what can we learn from these posts? Racism is fun again, people REALLY don’t like Mexicans and there just might be a correlation between hatred and education. More hate equals more dumb.
A Guide To Posting Stupid
Anyone can post anything and I am not a thought cop. And I also know that some people simply post horrible thoughts on the Internet for kicks or to compensate for virginity. But some of what I am reading these days is SO poorly written, it’s laughable. I mean who can really take the poorly scribed rantings of a semi-literate Internet troll seriously? But what if the same rants were written in actual English?
Im sure there were not to many mexicans hurt in mexico, their all here..
becomes…
I am certain that there were not too many Mexicans hurt in Mexico…They’re all here..
Literate hatred is, somehow, far more frightening than illiterate hatred. So how do I rant like a frightened child without sounding like I never 
finished the sixth grade? It’s all in the vocabulary. Get control of the most basic parts of English and the silly troll becomes…uhmmm…I don’t know…Glenn Beck? The biggest problem stems not from the ignorance of the Commentors but, rather, from the unbridled pride taken in such ignorance. As I wrote earlier, racism is fun again. Xenophobia is all the rage and the have-nots now look at middle-class with disdain, as if a lifetime of fiscal management and pension plans now makes them a bunch of socialist slaves sucking at the teat of the mainstream media. And we know this because guys like Beck tell them so.
So here is my short but sweet guide to posting stupid stuff while not looking like a stupid person.
- Loose doesn’t equal lose.
- Then doesn’t equal than.
- There doesn’t equal their which doesn’t equal they’re.
- Are doesn’t equal our.
- To doesn’t equal too.
- Punctuation matters. Always has, always will.
- Text Speak makes you look 13 years old.
- Typing in all caps makes people angry and the writer look crazy. Crazy people are easily dismissed.
- Spell check. That red squiggly line under your word means you can’t spell. Right click and fix it.
It really is easy. Just a nip there and a tuck here and you go from raving, backwoods lunatic to a literate person with an actual idea. And an actual person with an idea like,
“Most of these racist comments are not from Americans. There is a company in Asia that hires people to make these comments. I followed the money trail and it came back to a company in Florida. This company is owned by Rush Limbaugh.”
becomes just a little bit scarier.
Next: Dumbing Down America One TV Show at a Time.
Teaching Television 