I love comments!

Hitting the stumble button today I landed on this page filled with pictures of giant 'optical illusion style' murals.

The pictures were interesting, but the comments provided much more entertainment. First up is some well deserved civic pride:

Chris said...

Wow, those are amazing. I live close to Massillon and see these when I drive by.

This is shortly followed by more civic pride, (albeit slightly snooty pride).

Anonymous said...

How nice to see my beautiful hometown of Massillon, OH (Pronounced: MASS-LIN) on the web. The murals really are well done and very beautiful! They have also stood up to the elements very well and show little sign of wear!

Massillon is a great place to live and the murals just make it a little better!

Then comes the kicker…the comment that reminds you that you're on the internet:

Anonymous said...

Fuck Ohio!

Yay! Gotta love the trolls! However, the best thing about this comment thread is not only does it highlight the trolls, it also highlights the 'instant expert know-it-alls'. Check this comment out from a user who obviously just finished his first term at community art college:

Norm Loman said...

The painter obviously has lots of technical skill. No question there. But his subject bothers me. These pictures idealize the past. They make one nostalgic for a world that never existed... and If spectators aren't able to take the murals with a grain of salt, this amounts to sheer propaganda.

Now, if I was talking to Norm, I'd probably go into detail about how he was wrong, that very few people would be likely to treat a hundred foot mural as historically accurate and that realism wouldn't have nearly the same effect as a more idealized vision of the past. Actually that's wrong. If he came out with that statement at a dinner party, I'd just glass him in the face with my champagne flute. However, another anonymous poster puts it much better than I can:

Anonymous said...

Norm Loman is talking out of his ass.

Then, after the deep art debate we have one of the other comment thread staples…the guy using the meme that fell out of fashion months ago:

Anonymous said...

Photoshopped. The pixels are all wrong

This is what I love about the internet. You take a relatively innocuous photoset and it brings all the nutters out of the woodwork. The only thing this comment thread is missing (and this can happen with any subject)…the eventual fall into an argument about the environment, racism or whether the moon landing was real or faked.