A couple times a week the emails trickle in about comments. Either they politely inquire where the comments section has gone, throwing in some closer like “your blog was far more interesting with the comments” (ahh the beauty of tact), or they lambast me for removing the ability of complete strangers to express their opinions about my writing and personal life, a truly bizarre form of communication that blogging seems to have made commonplace. After almost two months of staying clean and comment-free, I can announce that the comments section officially sleeps with the fishes. It’s true, it was often great reading - every day the entire tragicomic spectrum of the human condition displayed itself across the page. But ultimately it can be a soul-killing thing to confront anonymous readers vomiting their self-loathing and vitriol onto a computer screen, all with you as the chosen target.
It comes down to this: If you want to talk smack, do it on your own blog, or in one of those scary chatrooms likely monitored by federal authorities. My blog is not your forum. And I have neither the time nor the desire to monitor comments all day.
To explain it best, I call upon my favorite scene from a brilliant and highly underrated gem of modern cinema, “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.” In the film, the main characters discover they are the subject of a chatroom discussion on a website entitled “moviepoopshoot.com.” The page is filled with expletive-peppered rants summarizing the myriad ways that Jay and Silent Bob suck. Once the heroes sell their likeness rights for a big-budget Hollywood film, they take the cash windfall and proceed to travel the world, tracking down every commenter on the website and subsequently beating the crap out of them. It’s a beautiful moment. A while ago, my friend Rob nearly made it a reality. Seeing as I can barely climb a flight of steps without ass-planting let alone throw a decent punch, I’d say my antagonists have less to worry about. But watch out - this week I officially set foot in a gym. Who knows what could happen.