3rdgensooner
5/18/2011, 11:19 AM
The Tourtured Tale Of How A YouTube Uploader Lost His Mind (http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/?p=434)
In May of 2008, a man by the username of Leftventricle did a rather noble thing. He uploaded a video of an old but memorable commercial to YouTube. The commercial was the first in the series that would become the long running “Got Milk?” campaign. It was the one with the guy in the museum who fails to win $10,000 on a radio trivia contest because he lacked the proper amount of milk to wash out from his mouth the peanut butter sandwich he had been so enthusiastically eating. You remember it…
OLSsswr6z9Y
It is a classic commercial, one that should no doubt be available on the internet so that it might be played for one’s enjoyment upon his or her random recollection of it. Its upload to YouTube represents all that is good in our open source culture. And, in the infancy of the story that is about to unfold, Leftventricle can only be seen as a positive force in our world. The comments that were posted beneath this video over the next three years, however, would lead to the eventual downfall of our protagonist. ****ing guy went looney tunes.
For reasons that will later become clear, much of the official record is missing. But from what remains, we can synthesize a rough estimate of what occurred.
Immediately after Leftvintricle uploaded the video, people began posting under it nonsensical comments with countless misspellings and grammatical errors. Though this is the norm for nearly every YouTube video with a significant view count, it seemed to hit a nerve with Leftventricle. He had probably always been annoyed by carelessly written internet comments, but in this particular instance he felt compelled to take action.
Leftvintricle wasn’t setting out to make moderating the “Got Milk?” YouTube comments the focus of his life. He just wanted to lay down some basic ground rules, to put forth a fair effort towards making just this one comment section a safe place for semi-decent writing mechanics. He took to his own comment section to address the issue and lay out a workable policy:
http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ventricle.jpg (http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ventricle.jpg)
It is clear that Leftvintricle did, in fact, follow through on his promise to delete “retard comments,” as there is no trace of the specific comment to which Leftvintricle is referring within his quotation marks. What is up for debate, though, is whether or not Leftvintricle’s decree influenced future commenters to actually check their work, or if he simply continued deleting faulty comments himself. The latter is more likely, but either way, the comment posting continued.
http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/graph21-300x182.jpg (http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/graph21.jpg)
Over the course of this new comment moderation era, two main themes emerged.
In May of 2008, a man by the username of Leftventricle did a rather noble thing. He uploaded a video of an old but memorable commercial to YouTube. The commercial was the first in the series that would become the long running “Got Milk?” campaign. It was the one with the guy in the museum who fails to win $10,000 on a radio trivia contest because he lacked the proper amount of milk to wash out from his mouth the peanut butter sandwich he had been so enthusiastically eating. You remember it…
OLSsswr6z9Y
It is a classic commercial, one that should no doubt be available on the internet so that it might be played for one’s enjoyment upon his or her random recollection of it. Its upload to YouTube represents all that is good in our open source culture. And, in the infancy of the story that is about to unfold, Leftventricle can only be seen as a positive force in our world. The comments that were posted beneath this video over the next three years, however, would lead to the eventual downfall of our protagonist. ****ing guy went looney tunes.
For reasons that will later become clear, much of the official record is missing. But from what remains, we can synthesize a rough estimate of what occurred.
Immediately after Leftvintricle uploaded the video, people began posting under it nonsensical comments with countless misspellings and grammatical errors. Though this is the norm for nearly every YouTube video with a significant view count, it seemed to hit a nerve with Leftventricle. He had probably always been annoyed by carelessly written internet comments, but in this particular instance he felt compelled to take action.
Leftvintricle wasn’t setting out to make moderating the “Got Milk?” YouTube comments the focus of his life. He just wanted to lay down some basic ground rules, to put forth a fair effort towards making just this one comment section a safe place for semi-decent writing mechanics. He took to his own comment section to address the issue and lay out a workable policy:
http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ventricle.jpg (http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ventricle.jpg)
It is clear that Leftvintricle did, in fact, follow through on his promise to delete “retard comments,” as there is no trace of the specific comment to which Leftvintricle is referring within his quotation marks. What is up for debate, though, is whether or not Leftvintricle’s decree influenced future commenters to actually check their work, or if he simply continued deleting faulty comments himself. The latter is more likely, but either way, the comment posting continued.
http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/graph21-300x182.jpg (http://www.noahgarfinkel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/graph21.jpg)
Over the course of this new comment moderation era, two main themes emerged.