comment commentary

Go to any music video on YouTube and you will see a recurring comment.

This band sucks/This music sucks/The fans have sucky taste!

‘Don’t feed the trolls’ is an adage seen around the internet, and yet you will see the recurring replies from the fans:

If you don’t like the music, you don’t have to listen. And you don’t have to leave a comment. We don’t need your opinion.

But these commenters weren’t vicious trolls, or even subtle trolls. They didn’t leave a sadistic comment with the purpose of receiving pleasure from the various pained responses of the fans.

They were simply opinionated viewers using the comments section for precisely what it was designed for. Under the anonymity of the internet there is no repercussions for hurting an invisible fan’s feelings.

YouTube was first designed to host videos, the definition of which some users have interpreted to mean songs with a still image attached.

The comments section is similarly designed for leaving comments. And if YouTube doesn’t have the resources to censor “hateful speech” against “bad music” then a fan can leave a comment telling the hater not to leave comment. The back-and-forth makes the comments section fun, if brain damaging, to read.

Now, comments are supposed to be “nice” and “respectful,” but those platform inflicted guidelines are as subjective as the worth of the video itself, and typically only apply to videos of politically controversial subject matter. YouTube can remove user flagged comments, but once it begins policing comments on its own it cannot be unbiased; human bias is the soul of media.

The comments section puts the social in media. It shouldn’t go away, and it shouldn’t be policed for “hater speech” by YouTube. Flagging should be reserved for bots and spam.

The haters are stating their honest opinions for no reason other than they have a place to put it. And the fans are responding because a conversation is two sided.

Haters and fans are not critics, and their analysis is usually based on their personal lives anyway, because music makes listeners feeel

This indisputable truth from the fans to the haters was the best way to extinguish the stupidest kind of debate on subjectivity. And its actually very useful advice.

Don’t like it? Fine. That’s your right. But don’t dwell on what you hate so much that you waste your own time by entering enemy territory to tell fans that you hate what they like.

No minds will ever be changed.

Additionally, don’t waste more than a moment thinking about it unless you are willing to think why

And even then, do the fans really want to know what internetuser112 thinks?

Personally, I don’t think music needs a comment section. Music is subjective noise. Everyone is going to have a different opinion. But a video is a video, and unless the uploader disables comments, the comment section will contain the unsolicited opinions of haters and the defense from the fans.

I never thought about the haters. I knew the music I liked sucked. I liked it anyway.