my kingdom for a news outlet who would just own up to the fact that they fucking hate their commenters and thats why they are going to do the absolute worst thing to their website and kill the comments section.

once upon a time if you wanted to express yourself to your news outlet you had to write a letter, put it in an envelope and mail it in. only the very few would see their complaint or compliment published in the newspaper or read aloud on tv.

but then the Great Equalizer, the Internet, reared its ugly head and OMG teh Trollz pounced on ridiculous news stories and blog posts and ruined EVERYTHING.

did the newspapers, magazines, and radio stations pay money to Community Managers who knew how to “engage” the readers and steer conversations and referee and ban people and lift people up?

not really.

did the newspaper implement the worst commenting systems they could possibly create or buy – systems clearly written by teenage Russians for pennies on the dollar?

oh you’ve seen Tronc’s commenting system circa 2016?

did NPR, who probably has the smartest, brightest, most college educated audience in all of history hire anyone to show them exactly HOW they could take that priceless audience and figure out what Digg, Reddit, Metafilter, Gothamist, Reason, every serious sports blog and gads Gawker learned long ago: that sometimes the comments are the best part.

WHY WOULD THEY? DONT YOU KNOW, THE ON AIR PERSONALITIES ARE ALL THAT MATTER AND IF YOU UPSET THEM WITH FACT CHECKING AND CRITICISM THEN DOWN  DOWN DOWN GOES THE SHIP.

all of these comment quitters took their cues from their high school crush, the New York Times, who never wanted online comments to exist in the first place and were quick to remove comments from delicate articles which would attract the most heated discussions. so today they figure if the Gray Lady could do it, then they could – and should – as well. but thats even more bullshit because, again, who is more educated than the regular reader of the Paper of Record?

the catch is: who has a thinner skin than the editors and writers of the NYT who FOR SURE do not want hoards of unwashed desk jockeys telling them that they suck in between bababooeys right beneath their six month feature about the unrest in the Middle East.

too bad, journalists. too fucking bad.

do you think Magic Johnson looked forward to being booed in Boston and NY and Detroit and Chicago after running up and down basketball courts in those tight shorts? After years of working out and watching tape and figuring out defensive schemes? After hours of practice and conditioning, fighting through injuries and mother fucking HIV?

the answer is YES!

Magic Johnson absorbed the boos of tens of thousands at the Garden because Magic Johnson is a G.D professional and he knows that those people are the ones who paid for his many mansions and the best way to shut them up is to fucking rule.

Or in the case of the ultra sensitive journalists: don’t read the damn comments.

Or in the case of the fuckit we didnt want it anyway editors of web sites: learn how to turn those lemons into champagne.

Reddit’s entire world is comments, why can’t you figure it the fuck out?

Answer: because you are lazy and Web 0.2 and hate your commenters and all you really want to do is talk AT your audience, not with them, and you should really just admit it and quit being lying liars.