Give Advice Bro

These nice guys are great at getting a comment section rolling. Whether the advice is positive or negative, someone loves to solve the “issues” of an article with one fell swoop of 250 words or less, whether it’s a dispute over Tracy Morgan’s humor or if Sarah Palin’s Arizona house too closely resembles the OBL compound. This piece of “wisdom” regularly acts as the catalyst for our most prominent commenter.

The Inevitable Troll

We all know the troll. Huff Post is full of them, all of which can be grouped in three fields. First, you have your general troll. Something about your comment lacked style, logic, spelling, or just had an unfavorable stance on the topic. This troll is the only one with the propensity to be nice, maybe just correcting you on some small error, yet you still have the itching feeling it’s solely to point out their ability to note such an error occurred (see: Knowies). Troll 2 only trolls based on party lines. This troll is uber pissed every time someone mentions Obama or Bush, both allowing for the conversation of who is responsible for “destroying every facet of what was once so great about everything but now isn’t.” Troll 3 is the reason you read Huff Post comments. This troll doesn’t care who posted what. Everyone gets hazed by troll 3 as these trolls troll for trolling’s sake. They’re doing it for the lolz and, most importantly, for that little reply to pop up in their email that shows just how pissed the person gets in response to their trolling.

Positive Attitude People (Pappies!)

As much as you love to read trolls, you sometimes want to remember/believe that maybe, hopefully, people are generally nice anonymously. Pappies respark that belief in humanity as they express how much the article means to them and their everyday lives while never really correlating to the topic. This can also be done negatively (Nappies) as one attempts to throw a pity party for themselves in the hopes that a complete stranger will tell them to not permaban irl.

Link Promoters

These people are contentless washes in the great seascape of comments. Link promoters have no voice on any issue and solely wish to get you to look at three different types of links: a relevant meme, another article, their own blog. Meme and article promoters may be seen idealistically as guides to interests similar to the page you’re on; however, you prefer to view them as assholes who are hyping their own interests, especially that bro who keeps putting his blog’s link at the bottom of his comments, having leveled out on those dumb Huff Post account raters in the top right of the comment. (Is this WoW?)

Knowie

Knowies are why we need the troll. We allow the troll to ping us every once in awhile in comments because, when the time comes, we know they will serve a greater purpose than our own: to utterly annihilate those who embed every comment with Wiki-worthy information in the hopes of appearing knowledgeable. These commenters find some seemingly innocuous way to flaunt their intellect in front of other commenters. Even in what looks like a candid response to another, knowies may just want to remind everyone that the Green Line territory splits of Israel in 1949 may also be a viable alternative. Troll, troll.

Ranter

Honestly, any of these categories can be a ranters but this title is reserved only for those who express themselves with “non-traditional” grammar and punctuation. Look for: CAPS lock, too many exclamation points, lack of spell check from emotional breakdown, and stylistic inconsistencies due to their rampant, tear-induced typing. Furthermore, they habitually come back to reply to people who replied to them. At times, you wish a troll or two were around, but today you feel sympathetic and wish for a pappy.

“This Comment Has Been Removed” Rager

At some point, these categories get to you. You can’t stand all of these faceless strangers who feel their inevitable death is surmounted by creating a smudge of commentary on whether Christina Hendricks’ breasts are real. You realize you’re projecting, making you angrier. Then rage. Post some long tirade pulsating with every last obscene and offensive word, phrase, material you possibly can for the eyes of those sacred few that will get to read its short-lived horror. Feel good at the thought of their mouths dropping from your graphic depiction of that colorful caricature of a Lars von Trier statement. You’ll come back later to check up on it. And there it will be absent, forever remembered with the box labeled “removed.”

– Phillip Rex Huddleston