How to be a successful online commenter

The online comments industry is a tricky one to break into, but fame and fortune await for those who master the art of saying things below web articles. All you need to do is follow these simple steps, and you’ll soon be one of the rising stars of the online comments world.

1. Pick a specialist subject. It doesn’t really matter what it is – popular ones include why Macedonia shouldn’t be allowed to be called Macedonia, the inefficiency of wind farms, the Trotskyite agenda of the BBC and how immigrants are destroying every good thing in British society – but you have to stick to it rigidly for the rest of your days. It may seem difficult to spot the link sometimes, but every single online article is actually about your specialist subject. You should spell this out for anyone who might not understand.
2. Never read the article itself. It’s frankly unnecessary – it’ll only prove your point about Macedonia/ wind farms/ the BBC/ immigrants anyway. If you do insist on reading it, make sure it’s just the headline and three words taken at random from the middle of the article.
3. Reading the comments you are directly responding to is also strictly optional.
4. You can communicate your point far better by going all freestyle with the spelling and grammar. Utilise capital letters for RANDOM WORDS and add multiple exclamation marks to indicate where you have made a joke.
5. Use the tried-and-tested Richard Littlejohn technique of giving someone a nickname and continuing to use it even though no-one else is. Littlejohn’s obstinate campaign of calling Cherie Blair “The Wicked Witch” for 15 years despite no-one else joining him in doing so for that period is a textbook example. Obscure literary or cinematic references that 90% of the population won’t be able to place are ideal for the generation of such nicknames. So, for example, if there’s a particular politician who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, you could perhaps call him “Donny” all the time. Just use Donny – not his real name (this would lead to the danger of someone else knowing who you’re referring to). And there’s no need to add something like “er, you know, Donny from the Big Lebowski who doesn’t really know what’s going on.”
6. Continue to make jokes as if they’re hilarious and original long after everyone else gave them up as terrible. Your persistency in using “Tony B.Liar” and “New Lie-bour” will be rewarded.
7. Find a highly dubious statistic – preferably isolated from a large data set so that it can be used utterly without context or reference to the actual questions asked – and use it to back up your point in every comment.
8. Use someone you strongly admire – Lord Kitchener, Winston Churchill, Enoch Powell, Josef Fritzl – as your avatar.
9. Employ poetry to bring a distinctive edge to proceedings. Everyone else will appreciate your specially constructed verse.
10. Never leave a comment without linking back to something highly relevant (even though the majority of philistines reading may not see it as relevant) on your own website.

Tags: online travel, Travel Writing