This Week in Commenter Executions: The Negative Response

We all know the old adage "do as I say, not as a I do." Well, it seems there are some people who both say and do opposite things at the same time. Yes, it's time to stop saying that you're going to disagree with someone unless you're actually going to disagree with that person.

There's a type of comment meant to show indignation over something someone said, but is so lazy it doesn't even express why they're so indignant. Let's take a look at one from this week:

This statement is so stupid that I'm not even going to respond to it. #boaemployee

Let's look at this from a few directions. First of all, it is literally false, because this was, indeed, a response to a comment. So there's that.

Now let's look at it in context. The story was about Bank of America booting a reporter who was interviewing customers at a branch of the bank. Here is the (good) comment that BrownSugar***S left in response:

I banked with BofA in college, but I'd dumped them by the time I started working for them 4 years later. The employees that banked with them were subject to termination if they overdrew their accounts twice. I have a real problem with my employer knowing how much money is in my account. They are, and always have been, crooks.

While you may disagree with her, the comment has some inside information thanks to her time working at BofA. Those are comments we love! We want you to come here and air the corporate world's dirty laundry! Then our offender rollergirl76 steps in it and leaves her "I'm not going to respond" response.

If she was disputing the comment's accuracy or found the comment to be offensive or disagreed for some other reason, she should have explained herself. But no, she left the snooty equivalent of "you're stupid," without any further illumination.

As a current employee, she could have started off with, "That isn't true. I've learned from my experience that..." and explained to us the issue with the initial comment. Even better, she could have quoted the section of the employee handbook that addresses employee accounts to prove her point. She could have said anything reasonably intelligent in response and that would have been better than nothing at all.

This type of comment comes in a few forms. Like "I don't know where to start," or "I can't with this." It's fine to use these as a rhetorical device before launching into a response to the original comment. But can one of these haughty snubs be your entire comment? Well, I'm not even going to respond to that.

A Few Notes & How to Submit Nominations


