I am a musician, and, through channels like craigslist and youtube, I also receive unpleasant, hateful comments from anonymous people. What is wrong with these people that are doing this? You wouldn’t put a mask on and go up to a complete stranger on the street or on the bus and say things to belittle them and try to make them feel like shit! What makes it acceptable on the internet? Is it the sense of anonymity, paired with the ability to voice an opinion? This boggles my mind. I’m beginning to see the internet as less of a place to communicate with people, and more like a mob-mentality riot in progress that I’d rather not be a part of any more.

I’m commenting on your subject in a pleasant way, and want you to know that you’re not alone. I think people need to be aware of this growing problem, and it shouldn’t be tolerated, in my opinion, but, hey, what can we do? We can delete the messages in our inboxes, but what about the comments on publicly visible pages? Most of them are extremely offensive, and I consider many of them to be hateful.

It seems like every time I watch a video on youtube, no matter how unpolitical or neutral or silly the video may be, there are THOUSANDS of hateful, racist, degrading, and obscene comments that leave me shaking with anger.

What is going on!?!? How far will it go??