Talk:2159: Comments

It seems the news article in this comic is doing exactly what it says is causing outraged user comments - presenting a narrative that is based on a few random comments from outraged readers! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 17:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

...and none of the comments for the article appear to be from outraged users, contradicting the arbitrary narrative of the article that is based on what must be assumed are random comments! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Sources: There is https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2016/08/17/489516952/npr-website-to-get-rid-of-comments?t=1559755447034 to tell you that NPR moves to Twitter and Facebook because they found that 491,000 comments came from only 19,400 commentersTier666 (talk) 17:31, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if these are "comments", so much as they are tweets being "quoted" by this article. That seems to better explain the last entry, which appears to be meant as a self-referencing quote. 108.162.241.4 18:00, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

This is entirely correct. The comic is clearly referring to the practice of quoting posts/tweets to support an article's thesis. See e.g. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/collection-action-kills-innovation.html 173.245.52.169 20:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with this interpretation! I agree that many times articles display copies of tweets, but the article title specifically mentions random comments, not random tweets. I believe the comments are indeed from readers of the article, but that's just my impression. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 21:38, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Well... Can't tweets be comments as well? Comments do not need to be in the comment section. Even if I tell my coworker at the water dispenser about an article I read, and that I didn't like it, that is a comment on that article... --Lupo (talk) 05:53, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

A lot of XKCD comics reference or allude to current events/reality. Are there a lot of articles that focus on the first few reader comments? Aside from NPR's move, is there something else Randall's referencing?

I think everyone is missing the real point of this comic. What it's really satirizing is the way the news media elevates a handful of negative comments about something to mean "The Internet is outraged". Barmar (talk) 00:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

There's a distinct lack of attention to the fact at least one of these comments/tweets are entirely stripped of context. The second to last one has absolutely no mention of the topic at hand, just a general statement. This delivers a particular punch coupled with the article's hand-picked comments to support a narrative. 162.158.93.213 07:32, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

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