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I kissed comment culture goodbye

(sustainableviews.substack.com)
256 points spyckie2 | 1 comments | 05 Sep 25 20:11 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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

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squigz ◴[05 Sep 25 22:04 UTC] No.45144190[source]▶
I'm not sure what you're talking about here? What strikethrough? I immediately recognized it in your 2nd line as Loss. This is a culture thing, not an AI thing.
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mingus88 ◴[06 Sep 25 04:37 UTC] No.45146649[source]▶
Claude tried to explain the meme but without the horizontal bar, it was not 4-panel. It contradicted itself explaining the dots. It makes no sense:

• : (one person standing) • :| (two people, one standing, one lying down) • :| (two people standing) • ; (one person standing, one lying down)

So I had to look up the meme, saw that the entire representation relies on a strike through. That’s how you get one person in 1 panel. That’s how you get four panels at all.

Sure, if you have seen the meme without formatting, you would recognize it. You probably have seen bots reposting without the right formatting it just like I did.

Or you didn’t. Who can say for sure? That’s my entire point. Comment sections are dead

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1. anyfoo ◴[06 Sep 25 07:46 UTC] No.45147399[source]▶
It's true that nobody can say for sure, but bots reposting the loss meme somehow strikes me less likely as some people reposting the loss meme. And an entirely ASCII-representation (ignoring the strikethrough) is extremely easy to post, so could make this a relatively common off-shoot of the meme that many would recognize, strikethrough or not.

Why do you think they were all bots?