1371: Cutting the Cord

You'll recall that I've been contemplating this for some time now, but as I promised to myself, I've reached a decision: the Monday after this one just coming, I'm deactivating my Facebook account.

"Who cares?" I hear you say. And, well, that's sort of the point, really; I don't care about Facebook. It is largely useless to me these days.

As I noted in my post a few days ago, there's been a noticeable shift in the quality of posts among my Facebook friends recently. While I don't blame any of them for wanting to share things that are important to them personally, it's getting to the point where there's so much noise that there's not any room for conversation any more.

Social media is increasingly becoming "fire and forget"; people post something designed to get noticed — perhaps a passive-aggressive status update, or some sort of sociopolitical rant, or an Upworthy article with a particularly smug title — and then wait for the comments and likes to roll in. And then… nothing. Nothing at all. There's no discussion — except in rare sociopolitical cases where you can guarantee there'll be at least one person coming along to state the opposite opinion and start a tedious circular argument in which no-one ever agrees to disagree — and no real value to it all. For me, anyway.

I remember being resistant to Facebook when it first started getting big. A number of my real-life friends were encouraging me to jump aboard — remember, Facebook used to only allow you to add people you actually knew — but I thought it was going to be a passing Myspace-ish fad, and as such held off for a long time. I finally gave in while I was on holiday in the States visiting my brother, and Facebook proved to be a good means of sharing the photos I'd taken — photos that I was particularly keen to share because I'd started experimenting a bit more with composition and editing.

All was good for a while; Facebook's Groups and Events features served their purpose for a while, too, proving to be a practical means of organising collections of people and inviting people to events. But increasingly, over time, and as Facebook started to become more and more popular and more open, these features lost their value. When was the last time you responded to an Event invite? When was the last time you joined a Group?

I can trace the beginning of Facebook's downfall from my personal perspective to a fairly precise moment — it was back when they started making it into a "platform" instead of simply a site; back when Facebook games and "apps" first started appearing. I was initially in favour of this — the accompanying site redesign that came with the launch of the Facebook platform made the site look a whole lot better on big, high-resolution monitors, and it was and still is a potentially good idea to have the site act a bit like an operating system.

Unfortunately, things just declined from there. There started to be too much of everything. Too many games, too many people, too many ways of posting. People felt obliged to share each and every mundane little thing about their lives, egged on by other people and the mass media. Today, you can't watch the news without the newsreader demanding to "let us know what you think"; you can't watch a new TV show without a hashtag appearing in the corner.

These things aren't bad in isolation, of course. It's neat to be able to discuss a TV show in real time while it's on; it's cool that people have a medium of self-expression and communication that simply wasn't really possible and practical pre-broadband and smartphones. But everything just adds up to a frustrating experience, and it all but destroys the original point of Facebook — a cosy little private network where you could easily communicate with your real-life friends and share select photos and notes with them.

Times have changed. I haven't gone with them. And I'm fine with that. As such, the Monday after next, my Facebook account is going kaputt. I'm leaving a week's leeway in order to ensure that those people who do want to stay in touch have the opportunity to pick up my alternative contact details; those who don't bother? Well, it's probably time I cut those people out of my life, anyway.

If you're reading this, have (or indeed had, if you're reading this after the fact) me on Facebook and want to know alternative means of getting in touch with me if you don't already have them, let me know via a comment on this post — be sure to leave your email address in the appropriate field.

Tata, Facebook. It's been fun. It's not you, it's me.

Actually, it is you.

1365: Your Face

I find myself once again giving serious thought to the closure of my Facebook account. This is not something I should be agonising over as much as I have been, I know, but given that Facebook is such a firmly-entrenched part of modern society, it bears some consideration.

The main thing that's frustrating me with it at present is the fact that the whole "broadcast and amplification" thing seems to be getting far worse than it's ever been. My News Feed at present consists almost entirely of people making ill-informed political statements and sharing the latest scaremongering chain letter that they haven't bothered to fact-check. (Currently? It's an apparent epidemic of "false widow" spiders in the UK — these spiders do actually exist, but it's rare that a bite from one will cause anything more than a bit of discomfort, and certainly not require the amputation of a limb in any cases other than those which have suffered the most severe of allergic reactions.)

The point here is that Facebook's original purpose of communicating and sharing personally meaningful things has all but completely gone out of the window in favour of sharing the latest "inspiring" clickbait from Upworthy (seriously, fuck off, Upworthy, Buzzfeed and all of your fellow content farms), the latest moral panic from Daily Mail-like sources, or the latest "OMG hilarious!!!" video from whatever dark corner of the Internet produces nothing but "OMG hilarious!!!" videos.

The reason I hesitate so much and continually wonder whether cutting the Facebook cord is a good idea is that old chestnut — "it's the only way I'm still in touch with some people." Well, to be honest, a lot of those people for whom Facebook is the only means I can still contact them I haven't actually spoken to for ages, even on Facebook; those people who actually care will probably know how to reach me via other means, or will pay attention if I leave some sort of post with alternative contact information prior to closing down my account. Those people who don't care? Well, I guess they weren't that good friends after all.

In cutting the Facebook cord, then, it will doubtless be sad to effectively cut ties to some university and school friends, but it's also an inescapable truth of life: people go their separate ways following milestones, and sometimes that's for the best. I won't deny that there are people I miss, but I've been just as lax at staying in touch with a lot of these people as they have been lax towards me. It's no reflection on either me or them in most cases; it's simply the fact that our lives have moved on in different directions, and we each have our own different priorities, groups of friends and personal interests.

Typing this out has helped me think a few things over. I'm going to carefully examine my Facebook usage over the next week, and make a decision at the end of the week as to whether or not I'm going to close my account. If I decide to close it — which, right this second, is the decision I am erring towards — I will leave a message up on my profile for a further week with alternative contact information — where people can find me elsewhere on the Internet (primarily Twitter or Google+), or via email — and then close it. At that point, those people who want to get in touch can; those who can't will be confined to the past, likely never to be heard from again.

Anyway. Apologies for thinking out loud. Perhaps some of you are thinking the same things too, though.

1358: The Bits You Fast-Forward Through

I'm struggling to remember the last time an advert actually had its intended effect on me — that is to say, I can't really remember the last time I actually bought something or made use of a service based on an advert.

The reason for this is that advertising appears to be getting increasingly infuriating and lazy as time goes on. TV ads these days are actively irritating rather than positive in promoting things, Internet ads are seemingly designed to be as obtrusive and distracting as possible, and print ads barely exist any more.

Consider TV ads, if you will. There seems to be an increasing number of people writing TV ads who seem to think that doing the whole thing as a rhyme is a good idea. No. This is never a good idea, because poetry sounds pretentious and arty-farty even when it's good; get someone without a literary bone in their body to write some sort of rhyme about yogurt or nappies or haemorrhoid cream or something and the result is just embarrassing, like the sort of shit children come out with for the usually short-lived "poetry" project they inevitably do as part of "literacy" lessons in primary school.

Then there's the ads that take a well-known song and "hilariously" change the lyrics to something to do with insurance or plasters or credit cards. Inevitably, the songs chosen are the most horrendously overplayed, clichéd shit that everyone is already sick of, and similarly, the ad itself is inevitably edited by someone who has no clue about musical structure or indeed how the original song actually went, leaving the whole thing feeling like a band of year 9 music students who think they're really good but actually keep forgetting the lines.

Worst of all, I think, are the ones that actively try to "go viral" or become a meme. This is always painful to watch, because it's something you can't force. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that anything that has tried to deliberately "go viral" since the dawn of the Internet has spectacularly failed (is anyone following O2's advice to "be more dog"? Didn't think so.) while anything which did successfully permeate popular culture ("you've been Tango'd", say) did so largely through word of mouth rather than a group of marketing executives specifically trying to make people say things.

I think my least favourite ads in the world are "interactive" Web ads, though. They'll start as a postage stamp-sized version of a TV ad, and then those infuriating words "Get ready to interact!" will appear on the screen. Rather arrogantly, the people behind the ad then expect you to indulge in all the fun of, say, hoovering a carpet or wiping a dirty toilet seat, with your reward being the helpful information that you can buy the product you've just been "using" at all good supermarkets.

I should probably just use an adblocker if all this infuriates me so much, but unfortunately I'm all too painfully aware how much of the Internet is reliant on these stupid ads, and there's relatively little I can do about TV ads aside from not watch TV, which I don't really do that much anyway.

Anyhow. Bollocks, piss and fart. I am grumpy so I am going to bed.

1344: Problem?

I fucking hate the word "problematic".

I've been struggling to articulate exactly what it is that bugs me so much about "problematic," (and please imagine me screwing up my face, using a sarcastic voice and making exaggerated air-quotes while you read that) but an idle insomnia-fueled wander around the Internet the other night led me to the Urban Dictionary definition of the word, which conveniently sums up pretty much how I feel about this word and how it it used today:

A corporate-academic weasel word used mainly by people who sense that something may be oppressive, but don't want to do any actual thinking about what the problem is or why it exists. Also frequently used in progressive political settings among White People of a Certain Education to avoid using herd-frightening words like "racist" or "sexist."

I've heard the term "weasel word" in the past, but it had somehow slipped out of my mind. Reading this definition brought it all back, though, and made me realise what a wonderfully descriptive term it is. "Weasel word" — a word or phrase designed to weasel your way into (or out of) a difficult topic without saying anything truly confrontational. Or sometimes without saying anything of substance at all.

Alongside the fact that "problematic" is a particularly slimy example of a weasel word, it also bugs me that it seems to be the first and only word people turn to when attempting to discuss Important Matters of Social Justice That We're All Supposed to Get Really Fucking Angry About. Whenever it's used, it just makes me think of people trying to sound more intelligent than they actually are. In fact, what it makes me think of — and here's a random memory for you — is a time shortly after my Grandad Davison died and my parents were having a Serious Conversation in the front of the car. I was very young at the time, but I felt that it was Important for me to join in said Serious Conversation, so I listened, nodded and murmured "Mm. True. Very true," at moments when I thought it would be appropriate, but actually ended up looking like a bit of a tool. I get the same feeling any time people start dropping "problematic" all over the place in conversation — like they're trying to have a conversation that they're not really quite mentally equipped for. Unfair? Perhaps. But that's how I feel.

My teeth-gritting annoyance at the use of this word was actually concerning me somewhat since so many people were using it, so I looked it up and attempted to determine if it was actually some sort of established sociological term, but no, I found no evidence to suggest that. It's just a word that's caught on and become fashionable for some inexplicable reason — much like "entitled" was a year or two back — and now everyone and their radical feminist dog is using it. The English language is rich, diverse and full of multiple ways to say the same thing. Use it.

If you're similarly frustrated with the prevalence of this weasel word and want to do something about it, may I suggest that when Christmas rolls around, you purchase a thesaurus for everyone on your Twitter and/or Facebook feeds who has expressed an interest in being some sort of militant crusader for social justice. And maybe by next year we'll have a new overused word to get sick of.

1337: The Value of Comments (Or the Lack Thereof)

Grand Theft Auto V's reviews came out today — the game itself is out tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, comments sections the world over erupted into chaos on each individual site's review (although USgamer's has, as ever, remained largely very polite and articulate, which is a trend I sincerely hope continues).

Of particular concern is Gamespot's review, which gave the game 9/10 while still managing to point out the fact that yes, GTA has some issues with women that it really should have probably gotten over by now. My concern isn't with the review itself, which is an interesting, well-argued read; rather, it's with the 3,192 comments that are beneath it at the time of writing — a figure that is literally increasing by the second right now.

What is the value in that comments section? Leaving aside the loathsome content of a significant proportion of those individual comments, what possible value is there in allowing people to comment on a review at such a rate that it becomes literally impossible to follow a single conversation? What possible value is there in 3,216 (yep, it's gone up in just those few words) comments, many of which contain the same ill-informed, bile-spewing opinions? For that matter, even if they didn't contain said bile, what possible value is there in having 3,230 comments beneath a review? Who is going to read all that shit except, possible, judging by Twitter, for people who have a particular taste for masochism?

It's not just Gamespot's review that's a problem, though it, at the time of writing, appears to feature by far the most objectionable people. Destructoid's Jim Sterling has been complaining about commenters once again lambasting him for rating [game x] one score and [game y] another score when they have nothing to do with each other. He notes that he doesn't believe review scores are the problem there, either.

Perhaps they aren't, either; perhaps the problem is the comments section.

The trouble with proposing something drastic like eradicating all comments sections, however, is that they're occasionally valuable — though increasingly we're in a situation where comments sections are only useful and conducive to meaningful discussion on smaller sites such as USgamer, and personal outlets such as this blog. In the case of large-scale sites like IGN and Gamespot, it seems that all comments sections achieve is to give imbeciles a soapbox to stand on and bellow their idiocy from while simultaneously finding like-minded twats to validate their opinions, culminating in the ridiculous sight of people genuinely clamouring for Gamespot to fire the reviewer Carolyn Petit for giving Grand Theft Auto V 9 out of 10 instead of the 10 that they, the people who have not played it yet, think it deserves.

But what can be done? Should IGN and Gamespot just close their comments sections?

Well… Yes, I think they should. They're clearly not adding any value to the conversation. There's no sense in trying to make it a "dialogue" between the site and the readers when the comments come at such a pace and in such a volume that it's impossible for the original writer to engage in discussion with people who actually want to engage in discussion, and in the meantime the braying idiots just get a megaphone with which to bellow their idiotic shit into the void. Shut 'em all off, I say, and leave the discussion to sites with a community small enough to make online interactions actually meaningful; let the big sites become places from which content is just shared and discussed via social media rather than the wretched scum-pits they seem to be becoming today. It'll put the attention back on the actual writers and the things they're saying — and it will probably significantly benefit said writers' mental health, too, because I know I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the torrents of abuse some people have been getting today.

3,512 comments.

Can we reboot the Internet?

[EDIT, June 7, 2023: 22,164 comments. Just in case you were curious.]

1325: Focal Point

I'm sure any writer pals reading this can probably relate, judging from some things I've read recently: it is infinitely easier to focus on negative things than it is about positive ones. And those negative things absolutely dominate your thoughts, almost completely obliterating any good work the positive things might have done.

Let's take an example. Recently, I wrote a lengthy article about "otaku games" — that particularly misunderstood aspect of Japanese gaming where people who don't play them constantly judge them as being nothing more than pervy fanservice. To be fair to their opinion, there often is a fair amount of pervy fanservice in them, but it's pretty rare that is the sole or even the most important part of them. Check out the piece here.

On the whole, response to the post has been very positive. I've been very happy to hear from a lot of fans of Japanese gaming who thanked me for giving a reasoned, rational take on the subject — with input from people who are actually involved in bringing these titles to the West — and for treating both the games and their fans with respect. I've had people tell me it's a wonderful article, compliment me on covering something that other sites don't bother with (or take the more common "This is Bad and Wrong, LOL JAPAN" stance on) and generally express a very genuine-feeling sense of appreciation for something I worked hard on.

So what do I find my brain focusing on? The guy who tweeted at me saying "TLDR" (seriously, that is pretty much one of the most disrespectful things you can say to a writer, especially when they've worked hard on something — try giving some constructive criticism or, even better, actually engaging with the points made in the piece), and the commenter who complained about me "not talking about the game" in my Tales of Xillia review and lambasting me for promoting an "incest simulator" in an article about visual novels. (Said "incest simulator" was Kana Little Sister, an incredibly moving work which I've written about at length in a number of places on the Internet; to refer to it as an "incest simulator" in a distinctly Daily Mail/Jack Thompson-esque way shows an astonishing lack of understanding, my keen awareness of which was what inspired me to write the "otaku games" piece in the first place.)

I wish I didn't feel this way, but it made me feel somewhat better to read this piece over on Hookshot, Inc recently. Here's what was, for me, the most pertinent part:

"Reader feedback is, in many ways, wonderful. It pulls writers down from pedestals and/or ivory towers, and it democratises a whole medium. Every voice is heard, and charlatans are uprooted. A culture of reader-fear has, arguably, been fostered – but ultimately people raise their game, and those much-suspected dirty deals are (by my reckoning) far less likely to occur today than they were five years ago.

"The problem is that all this is incredibly unhealthy for writers with… what you might call an ‘amiably complex psychological disposition’. I’m one of these people (it’s hugely common in my field – and indeed any creative arena) and I couldn’t even count how many of my working days have been ruined by an angry person venting steam beneath a piece I’ve written. The black dog starts barking, and your creative mojo runs away.

"Sure, the trolls are generally a minority – but when your mind has been built to concentrate on negativity rather than happy, happy, joy, joy (and you work at home, on your own) then comments threads are a mental plague pit.

"As a writer – what can you do about this? Well, you can start making your review scores more conservative for a start. Oh, and you can definitely avoid rocking boats that contain angry devotees of certain platforms, genres and franchises. Oh, and how about excising all humour for fear of miscomprehension from angry dullards you’ll never meet?

"OMG HANG ON GUYS OUR COLLECTIVE INSECURITY JUST BROKE GAMES WRITING.

"So basically: say what you want to say, and suck it up. There’s no wrong opinions, only a lot of people who think you should be fired for having a right one."

I was simultaneously surprised, delighted and slightly depressed to read that. I wish it didn't have to be that way, and I wish it was possible to train oneself to be more like, say, Jim Sterling — someone whom I greatly admire for his no-nonsense attitude and at least outward appearance of having thick skin. (For all I know, Sterling might finish his day job and cry himself to sleep over the torrents of abuse he receives on a daily basis, and I wouldn't blame him if that were so — but I somehow doubt that's the case anyway.)

Ah well, as Will Porter writes in that excellent Hookshot piece — seriously, go read it if you have a few minutes — the only real thing we, as writers, can do is say what we want to say and suck it up somehow. If we start sanitising our own opinions, thoughts and even writing styles to appease the lowest common denominator in the comments threads, then the world of writing would be a boring one indeed.

1324: Fury

I hate anger in all its forms — whether it's directed at me, coming from me or going on around me.

I'm not entirely sure where this feeling comes from — perhaps there's some sort of deep-seated trauma from some event in my past that I'm repressing — but it means I've always felt enormously uncomfortable whenever there's any sort of anger present near me, whether "near" means physically close to me or simply within my frame of awareness thanks to the Internet.

I remember getting extremely upset any time my parents would have an argument when I was little. However much I was assured that it was a natural part of any relationship, it still always filled me with anxiety. I felt that same feeling of anxiety whenever I got angry at school — usually the result of being bullied — and fearing that I'd lose control. And I feel the same thing today whenever there's anger around me — or coming from me. I get uncomfortable, restless — even physically shaky at times if I'm the one expressing anger — and I hate it.

Consequently, I find it increasingly difficult to deal with the seemingly-constant fury that comes from certain quarters of the Internet. If it's not one thing, it's another — there's always something out there pissing someone off, and they always want to talk about it at great length, usually with some sort of public shaming involved. And I just can't deal with it, frankly.

The natural response is, of course, to simply switch off, walk away or unfollow these people altogether but that brings with it a whole host of modern etiquette questions that we simply didn't used to have to worry about. If I unfollow, for example, a Twitter user who is mostly a decent person but who occasionally descends into mouth-frothing zealotry any time certain topics come up — to what I consider an unreasonable degree, regardless of how valid their points are — what will they think of me? What do I say if I ask them why I unfollowed them, assuming they notice? Am I honest about it? Or do I make up some lie about that probably fictional Twitter bug that makes it "randomly unfollow" people every so often? (Oh shit, did I let the cat out of the bag? Sorry.)

I am overthinking this issue, I'm sure; if people make me uncomfortable, I should just take myself out of that situation and prevent myself from getting drawn into something that would make me even more uncomfortable. The consequences I worry about might not even happen at all; if they do, I just have to deal with them. The fact I'm unable to participate in some discussions as a result is probably a good thing in the long term — there are plenty of other things out there that I can engage with, so I should focus my attention on those rather than things that make me anxious or uncomfortable.

This self-indulgent stream of consciousness brought to you by Internet Rage. Now I'm off to go and play Corpse Party in bed. Good night.

1320: Anime After Hours

I started a new anime discussion community over on Google+. You can find it here. If you're wondering why I chose Google+, the most-frequently-ridiculed-by-people-who-have-never-used-it social network on the Internet, it's because Google+'s Community tools are both really good and extremely simple to use, with unnecessary fluff kept to a minimum. Also, it's ad-free, which is lovely.

Anyway, my thinking behind creating the Anime After Hours community, as it's called, was relatively simple. There are a number of anime communities on G+ already, but the vast majority of them tend to end up doing the same things: posting pictures without context (usually with at least one commenter yelling at the poster to remember to put a source in their post); asking the same simplistic questions over and over again; playing tagging and meme games; and only discussing the most popular, mainstream titles.

This is all fine, of course; it's great that there are active communities that allow people to discuss the mainstream side of anime — stuff like Naruto, Pokémon and the like — and that are friendly to the younger end of the market. But, as any anime fan who's looked a little deeper into the medium will know, there's a lot more going on than just Naruto. A lot of anime is aimed at more mature audiences; late teens at the earliest, grown adults in some cases. And I'm not just talking about ecchi or hentai adult content; I'm also talking about shows that take in mature subject matter, or which are violent, or which kids simply wouldn't get.

As I watch more and more anime series and find myself discovering the things I like, I was becoming more and more conscious of the fact that there was a serious dearth of places for people around my age to discuss the medium — it's difficult to be heard in the rapid posts of G+'s more popular anime communities, for example, and they're not saying anything particularly interesting anyway. As such, Anime After Hours was designed as a place for people to come and discuss their favourite anime, whatever form that might take. It's an inclusive community that will accept anyone, on the understanding that it's a community for talking and discussing, not for superficialities. Already there's 13 members, which isn't that much, but we've started kicking off some interesting discussions — and I'm sure as (if?) more people roll in, the community will become more active.

So consider this your invitation, dear reader; if you're the slightest bit interested in anime and you've been looking for a place to come and discuss the medium free of Naruto-loving kids, you know where to come. All you need is a Google account.

See you there?

1316: Get Hype

I've written about this on at least one occasion before, but the fact that Breaking Bad is on television again has reminded me of the curiously inverted effect that hyperbole has on me. In other words, the more people waffle on about how amazing something is, the less I want to pay any attention to it whatsoever. I've long since muted everything to do with Breaking Bad for this reason, as it's completely dulled any enthusiasm I might have once had for something that is — by most accounts — very good.

Breaking Bad is a curiously extreme example of what I'm talking about. It's doubly infuriating because everyone posting about it on social media is also being incredibly conscious of spoilers — Breaking Bad fans hate spoilers — and thus what we end up with at the time a Breaking Bad episode is broadcast is a string of tweets that say absolutely nothing. To be more precise, they tend to be nothing but a string of tweets of people going things like "OH MY GOD" and "WOW" which has absolutely no meaning whatsoever to those who aren't watching the show.

Now, I'll grant that Twitter provides a reasonably practical means for Breaking Bad fans to get together and discuss the show — or, more accurately, "react" to it in real-time — but it really doesn't inspire anything like in-depth discussion, and thus I have to question the value of doing this, particularly as it has several knock-on effects: 1) people who don't like Breaking Bad get pissed off 2) people who might have wanted to watch Breaking Bad at some point get fed up and decide they don't really want to watch it until everyone shuts the fuck up about it and 3) the people who are actually watching Breaking Bad are only giving the show half their attention because they're flip-flopping back and forth between the TV screen and their phone.

I tried the "livetweeting" experience a couple of years back when I got vaguely into The Apprentice. I picked up a few followers in the process and found some entertaining people, too, but it really wasn't worth it; the number of people who got irritated at it didn't really make up for the people I "met" in the process, and the interactions I was having with others who were "reacting" to the show in real time were superficial at best. I didn't find it particularly valuable, in other words; certainly no more so than sitting around watching a show with friends in the same room, which is something I don't tend to do — TV, for me, tends to be an accompaniment to something else (like eating dinner) rather than an activity in itself.

More than the fact I didn't find it particularly valuable socially, though, I just found it frustrating to do — if I was tweeting while watching, I found myself unable to concentrate on what was going on on the screen, so eventually I gave up, much to the relief of my Twitter followers.

Ultimately, it's your Internet; if you want to "ooh" and "aah" at Breaking Bad while it's on, feel free — I simply reserve the right to mute your ass if you do it too much!

Grump over. Time to go to a pre-wedding celebration.

1306: Mark Book

My brain occasionally lapses into childhood when I contemplate looking at comment sections, because, as full of cretins as they sometimes are, comment sections are the modern-day equivalent of the red (sorry, green — red's too aggressive) pen scribblings your teachers would scrawl after your assignments at school.

Imagine if the two scenarios were reversed, though. That'd be weird, wouldn't it? Get your maths homework back with "lol fake and gay" written after it; read a New Statesman article and discover the entire comment section is nothing but people writing variations on "You have the beginnings of a good argument here, but your overuse of the word 'problematic' displays a disappointing lack of creativity that ultimately hurts the piece's credibility. See me to discuss."

Actually, I think in the latter case, that'd probably be preferable, to be honest.

I joke, but I do genuinely feel like I'm being "marked" when I see that there are comments on things that I've posted. In some senses, when you put something up for public perusal — particularly on something with a wider audience than this teeny-tiny personal blog — you are being marked, particularly if you've written something contentious.

A lot of writing on the Web is designed to persuade people of something or other, whether that's that the reader should go and buy Gone Home (you probably should) or that the art in Dragon's Crown is going to bring about the downfall of society as we know it (it's probably not), and as such when someone feels compelled to leave a comment, they're going to be going through your arguments, deciding whether or not they agree with them and then leaving their "judgement" on the piece. If someone agrees with you, it's like getting a nice big tick, a "Good." and a gold star; if someone disagrees with you — particularly if they do so aggressively — it's like not only having a lengthy teacher comment that you hope your parents don't catch a glimpse of, but it's like having that comment publicly read out to the rest of the class.

Except there's one key difference between comments and marks — comments are (theoretically, anyway) a dialogue; marks from your teacher are a one-way thing. (At least they were when I was at school; I wouldn't be at all surprised if modern education invited pupils to "respond" to their teacher's comments and/or "appeal" if they didn't feel they'd been treated fairly.)

That's a pretty big difference. Even if someone gives you a "bad grade" through a negative comment or a complete disagreement/dismissal of your opinion, you can attempt to engage with that person and start a conversation. Sometimes interesting discussions can arise; other times, utterly pointless shouting matches can result, leaving you wishing you'd never written the fucking thing in the first place.

Are comments valuable? There's no easy answer to that question. I don't think they're valuable in all circumstances — it's extremely rare to find a helpful YouTube comment, for example, and comments left on Facebook are 95% pointless, regardless of whether they're left on personal posts or adverts — but at other times they can be the source of thought-provoking discussion and even the fostering of friendships. (Comments on this site have certainly fallen into that latter category, which I'm happy about, and over on USgamer we've mostly enjoyed respectful, well-considered discussion and debate from our commenters so far, which is immensely encouraging to see.)

Would the Internet be a better place without comment sections? Quite possibly; but it would also remove a lot of the ability to converse and engage with things that we take for granted today. So, for better or worse, they're clearly here to stay.

Just remember to give your favourite writers a good mark every now and then!