#24 — The Art of Commenting — A collaborative series with Grandma Smillew, Debdutta Pal, and R C Hammond

Your Most Devastating Weapon As a Commenter

How selectively sharing your attention can drive some readers to distraction

We’ve focused a lot in this series on how writers make constructive use of their comments.

That’s because commenting well drives engagement, which brings money, fame, and requests for you to take paternity tests.

Today I discuss how to use the comment section as a weapon.

The time-honored methods include these:

• Reading an article carefully and leaving a devastating critique pointing out flaws in the author’s logical reasoning
• Not reading an article at all and leaving a devastating critique in the form of “Great article, thanks for sharing!”
• The silent objection, in which you clap but once to attract attention and then do not comment at all.
• The spam comment, which doesn’t even pretend to relate to your article but attempts to divert attention to the spammer's content elsewhere.
• The former President technique, which is when an author considers themselves so important that they neither comment nor respond to comments. (See also One Way Writers.)

If you really want to mess with a reader’s head, there is a more powerful commenting technique. Do this, and you’ll drive your target to distraction.

• Read stories as usual and leave thoughtful substantive comments, except on your target’s stories.
• Write stories as usual and interact with everyone who comments, except on your target’s comments.

In other words, be an active, generous community participant in all settings except for the person you want to drive mad.

They will see your activity, and they won’t be able to help but wonder. “Is this person deliberately ghosting me? Am I imagining it? Is it something I said or did?”

Now, there’s no point in being needlessly cruel. You should have a goal in mind. For example, driving up reading time by tricking your target into seeking to attract your attention.

The key is to engage, unpredictably and oh so minimally, just before your target writes you off as a lost cause. A week to ten days. A cursory response, say a “Thanks” (no punctuation) or a thumbs-up emoji.

I do not recommend any of you use this technique unless you are sociopaths, in which case you don’t need my approval.

Consider this rather a manual for spotting unsportsmanlike behavior, so that you do not fall, unwary, into any traps.

Be well.

You want to be as well-prepared to navigate the risky world of comments as possible. Read these recent installments in the series: