←back to thread

I kissed comment culture goodbye

(sustainableviews.substack.com)
256 points spyckie2 | 2 comments | 05 Sep 25 20:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.399s | source
Show context
mingus88 ◴[05 Sep 25 21:26 UTC] No.45143816[source]▶
Comment culture died for me in a different way.

I was browsing some thread and someone referenced a meme typed out as :.|:;

The comment had a few replies who recognized the meme. I had no idea what it meant so I asked Claude

Well the AI knew what it was! It was the “loss” meme but the explanation it gave made no sense.

Turns out the meme needs a strike through tag. This turns :.|:; into a four-panel diagram of a web comic.

That’s when I realize that whatever trained Claude stripped out the formatting, and thus the entire meaning of the meme. And the comment I originally saw was a repost bot that also failed to retain the formatting when it reposted it.

And the replies that understood the reference were all reposted by bots.

So who even knows if we CAN make relationships on the internet anymore?

I can’t trust that any comment is actual human expression any more. Or is it just bullshit stripped of any context or meaning

replies(4): >>45144190 #>>45144229 #>>45146224 #>>45180881 #
1. ElectroNomad ◴[06 Sep 25 02:53 UTC] No.45146224[source]▶
It’s wild how a single missing tag can collapse the whole meaning. It really underscores how fragile context is in this digital realm. Makes you wonder if we’ve lost our ability for an authentic connection… or just spearheading into an echo chamber where you never know if it’s a human or a bot…
replies(1): >>45147438 #
2. anyfoo ◴[06 Sep 25 07:53 UTC] No.45147438[source]▶
To be fair, "the loss meme as minimalistic ASCII art ad absurdum" is a pretty extreme form. It's basically tailor-made to be below the threshold of recognition, while still evoking familiarity once you know what it is. It's almost certainly the answer to a self-imposed challenge of how one could make the meme with the absolute minimum of ASCII-only characters.

I'm not sure anyone would recognize this as the loss meme to begin with, unless they got context-hints like "this is a popular meme", strikethrough or not. So, yes, that context is extremely fragile here, but that's because this was made to be barely viable in the first place, not because that's a general quality of any content in the digital realm...

That's not to go against your wider point (to which I have no opinion either way), I'm just not sure this is significant for that.