"Happy V-day, Nice Pants" (or, Commenting IRL)

Photo courtesy of Greg Saulmon at MassLive.com

In the ongoing experiment of active online commenting, I finally posted my first comment to a piece on MassLive today.

I don't know if it is entirely fair, considering my previous disclosures about enjoying the safety of social networks, as I know the author of the post. Still, I pressed send and watched the words vanish behind the wall of the moderator. Something tells me that it will be our very own guest lecturer from last week who either passes it on or hits "delete."

However this post does double-duty, as I not only took the great leap forward of adding my opinion to the pile (that would be a pile of one, as there was not a lot of traffic surrounding it), but the piece I chose to comment on had to do with commenting IRL! (That's acronym-online speak for in real life for any readers who have not spent the last four years of their life consumed by academic treatises on the Internet).

Greg's post is titled, "Things people say when you give them a space to say them." The photo captures a message that is both witty and entertaining as well as timely commentary on our culture.

He writes about these interactions with public sphere from his own experience as an online journalist:

...When you give people the space to say what they want, you're going to get a fascinating mix of incredibly smart and incredibly stupid comments.

So, today in Northampton, when I spotted a collection of paper hearts with hand-written messages taped to the kiosk outside Urban Outfitters, I felt the same little twinge of excitement that I feel when I see a news story followed by a long comment thread. What are people saying? What are people thinking?

In the case of the paper hearts, the messages were mostly predictable: ruminations on love; commemorations of anniversaries.

There among them, though, was the message above -- a paper heart talking to a chain store. In a sense, from Anonymous, to Anonymous. Is it an example of the impersonality of commerce, or an example of how there are more ways than ever to say what you're thinking?

Honestly, I'd say it is a little bit of both...