Doode kent gettum, JERK FACE!!!!

Have you ever read a comment like that somewhere? Say, I don’t know…YouTube? Or Yahoo! discussion boards? Or just about anywhere else people are permitted to just BLURT OUT WHAT’S ON THEIR MINDS, right through their fingers, comfortable in the knowledge that nobody at work is likely to turn around and say, “Hey, you’re that guy who keeps leaving the JERK FACE comments!”

I’ll admit it…I’ve been irked far more by such comments than they deserve. Sometimes it’s the fact that no attempt at all is made to even consider that we have such a thing as spelling. Sometimes it’s because you get the feeling the comment was left by someone who either didn’t give the matter half a second’s thought before hitting !!!POST!!!, or someone who really should just…not…post…ANYTHING…ever…

Sometimes it’s the vitriol. Sometimes it’s the @^*&@ing bad language. I’m not a prude (and hardly innocent as the driven snow when it comes to the occasional outburst of @*&^@, or *@&^, or even {gasp} ^!&^*@), mind you, but gee whiz. Must we use Those Words all the time?!

And by the way…in my humble (and OK, prudish) opinion…never, EVER on discussions involving little ones. Leaving a comment that could not be uttered out loud on the airwaves on someone’s video of Precious taking her first steps…bad form, old beans.

ANYWAY. I have often wondered if the folks leaving the comments, especially those vicious negative ones with the @*^&@s in them, had any idea what they sound like. (You know, maybe, like…ill-educated buffoons with the social graces of a rabid boar and also there is a strong suggestion that they probably smell bad?)

I have also wondered if, had they taken a precious moment to read their comment aloud, would they maybe have…reworded a bit. Noticed that they spelled “can’t”, “kent”, stuff like that.

Perhaps there really is some kind of hive-mind going on out there in the computer-geek world, for lo! YouTube has also wondered. And they have implemented, shall we call it assistance, for those who might need a little help seeing how the world sees them: YouTube Commenters Hear Their Own Gibberish.

Basically, for those who aren’t going to read the article, YouTube now has a button on their comment posting form that reads you comment back to you.

Bloody. Brilliant.

Purely in the interest of science, I went to YouTube and tried it.

Hysterical.

Seriously, I could probably spend hours just typing in the foulest, meanest, weirdest, most poorly spelled witticisms and listening to the deadpan, computer-generated voice reading them back to me.

Except that I am terrified that I might accidentally hit “post comment” instead of “discard” and then people would know I know such words.

I cling to my veneer of civility, people.

Also, Hi Mom! Hi Grandma! Love you both! Haven’t used any foul language lately (that you know of!)! OK! Kiss-kiss!