To my heartbreaking disappointment, that article never came.
But don’t worry, ‘Prince,’ I’ve got your back. Today, the gloves come off — I am no longer your friendly neighborhood columnist, but a hard-hitting, undercover, dashingly debonair reporter. So here goes nothing …
Princeton — A fog sets over the dark world of online comments. These are dangerous times, times when innocent readers can accidentally stumble into the madness of treacherous websites like dailyprincetonian.com. Your faithful reporter slinks in the background, struggling to understand this precarious underground economy of opinions, where words, non-words and almost-words are tossed about like whiffleballs near the vicious-dog-loving neighbor’s fence on a windy day.
Suddenly, a scream is emitted from somewhere off in the distance. Could it be? Yes, yes indeed — another comment has been posted. A tension-filled hush falls over the website as the nervous masses pause to read who has dared strike this time. It is the notorious gangster “ty,” who, at 3:15 p.m., has issued the following battle cry: “princeton sucks.” Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity! He needs no exclamation points to emphasize the raw hatred in his comment; a period will suffice to sharpen the snarling attack-oriented verbal claws he uses to proclaim his turf of Comment Box #62.
A preliminary investigation reveals the smoldering wreckage of many such wars fought over the past seven pages. On Page Six, the infamous assassin “09” targets a sophomore in the following bullseye attack: “Dearest ’11, you know nothing about grade deflation as a freshman or sophomore. Kindly self-muffle.” Further back in the murky pits of Page Five, an uncontrollable mob known to frightened locals as “The Revolutionaries” drops the ultimate Times New Roman-styled atomic bomb: “We hereby declare a coup detat and ask for the resignation of Tilghman, Malkiel, Rapelye for the sake of current Princeton students, alumni, and prospective Princetonians!” Truly there are no rules in this seedy online haven of the commenting proletariats.
Overwhelmed by the palpable brutality of these orange and black-and-blue pages, I quietly breathe out, “So … many … comments … .” But to my horror, I have not simply whispered it; I have typed it! Panic seizes me as I watch the Prince Staff moniker light up like a beacon that shrilly shouts, “I am not one of you, commenters, so please verbally attack me with heaps of ridicule!” I pray that the ‘Prince’ Web staff will swoop down like the Secret Service and erase my comment from the shadowy back alleys of the website before it is too late. But my fervent prayers are to no avail, and like a pig being led to the bacon factory, I bow my head and resign myself to my fate. It is only a matter of time now before they find me. The life of a reporter is undoubtedly a harrowing one, and in a dazed delirium, I find myself dreaming of my old columnist days …
… And now I put my columnist gloves back on. Before entirely switching gears back to reality, I’d like to give a shout-out to the commenter “Great job!” who wistfully remarked on Page Four, “I really hope this comment ends up in a future article covering the comments on this one.” Your wish has now been granted, good sir, by the Columnist Fairy. One more commenter, “Sweet,” deserves mention for his enthusiastic organizational skills: “Let’s comment a lot on this article so the next Prince headline will be: ‘Comments on the article about another article on the admission rate sparks heated online debate.’” I couldn’t agree more, and I’m glad I was able to help. I must admit, readers, that I thoroughly enjoyed my brief stint as a ‘Prince’ reporter extraordinaire. I made some friends, made some enemies and wrote a piece that will inevitably win the next Pulitzer Prize. More importantly, I was able to inform the Princeton community about a very pressing issue. After all, I know what’s really newsworthy. And online comments are always, always, always at the top of my list.
Christine Brozynski is a politics major from Mendham, N.J. She can be reached at cbrozyns@princeton.edu.
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