Recently, the company I work for (STACK.com, Where Athletes Get Better©®™) partnered with Yahoo. It’s very exciting news that means everything we write gets exposed to a new crowd of horrible, horrible people.

Obviously, the vast majority of people who use Yahoo aren’t horrible. I enjoy Yahoo a lot, as do many of the non-horrible people I know. The company itself is great. The horrible people I am referring to, of course, are the commenters.

It’s not Yahoo’s fault. The anonymous Internet commenters of the world flock to places like Yahoo and YouTube where they can critique free entertainment from the safety of a username that combines their passion with their high school graduation year (Hanshotfirst98).

You know Steve, that guy at your work who seems vaguely racist but doesn’t really talk that much? You can find out just how racist Steve actually is by learning his favorite 70s rock band and graduation year, then checking out the comments on a Cleveland.com article about a basketball player in trouble with the law.

Anyways, Yahoo recently featured one of my STACK articles on the homepage for a bit, and the commenters let me know what they thought of it. Most of them, surprisingly, did not enjoy it.

Every week, I do a series called “Fitness Fail Friday” where I find some old funny fitness or sports-related clip on YouTube and write commentary about it. Two weeks ago, I featured a video of this guy all decked out in CrossFit garb trying to lift wayyyyyy too much weight and falling on his butt.

I thought it was funny that the amount of weight on the bar seemed to take the guy by surprise, so I made up this whole story about how it was his first day of CrossFit and he got confused by the conversion of kilograms to pounds. It honestly was not my best work, but I thought the hilarious faces he made during the lift and the way he popped his feet into the air at the end like cartoon characters do when they die would make up for my writing.

The commenters were not amused.

Mostly they were confused. When I noticed the article on Yahoo shortly after I published it, it already had 50 comments. Most went like this:

MattN
For the record Timmy, 190 kgs is roughly 418 lbs. “Yeah kinda but..” should have been a tip off that Brandon was leading you astray.

Despite the video being three years old and clearly unconnected to the commentary that followed, the vast majority of commenters were taking my attempt at humor as actual reporting. As I followed along throughout the day, 196 more people let me know what they thought. Most fell into the following categories. (You can check them all out on Yahoo.)

Really Hung Up About the Weight Thing

Michael
So this is the state of our educational system. A grown man does not know the difference between a pound and a kilogram.

Von Mises
Timmy is not someone we want doing crossfit, or probably any other exercise for that matter. we want people who actually use a little common sense and know the difference between the METRIC system and the ENGLISH system of weighing things.

Strangely Political

Justin
That is a perfect example of a democrat… Fake, lie and fail!

Kenny
Why don’t schools teach the metric system? Answer: teacher don’t understand it! Why is America falling behind the world on the education ladder? Answer: teachers are stupid.

CrossFit Haters

PCpplsuk
Cross Fit is a cult, nothing more. It also helps explain the phenomena of mass hypnosis by the media which gave us our current “leaders” in DC

Coldpassphonky
Crossfit will kill you faster than McDonald’s!
Avoid both like the plague…..

CrossFit Apologists

John
I am a 7 year Crossfitter and this has to be a fake article or someone being a clown to make crossfit look bad.

Chris
“Hey, I’d like to write an article about fitness and get somebody to read it- keyword ‘CrossFit,’ find a dumb youtube video, put in picture stills since they’re likely to stop me from linking the video. Done”

Seriously, keep hating on CF. That’s fine. This video has nothing to do with CF. How many boxes really do Zercher squats? Likely not many. How many newbies are coached to do this? Again, likely not many. The Fitness Fail Friday here is this article.

Timmy Apologists

Hope
In Timmy’s defense: Crossfit is difficult and a new gym can be intimidating. Maybe everyone should give him a break and chalk it up to nerves.

Amateur Sleuths

Seth Auser
This is the most fraudulent article of all time. This is a 3 year old video of a German guy not named Timmy.

Zacb
how did he think that those eight plate weights at 45 lbs a piece was equal to 190 kilos? unbelievably ignorant or fake. nice try again yahoo

Personal Attacks

Anthony
This is the dumbest story. Who wrote this?

Anthony
Dustin Brady, your stupid..

Derek
First of all this is an old video. Second, this has absolutely nothing to do with crossfit. Yahoo and the person who wrote this article should both get slapped for wasting everyones time with this nonsense. To think that someone actually paid for this is more of a story.

My Personal Favorite

Bill
Dustin Brady is the real idiot here, and the CrossFit rep. To make light of a potentially fatal-injury-causing incident is so irresponsible and moronic that it defies belief. Hey Dustin, do us all a favor. Put 350 kilos on the benchpress bar, and then get help lifting it off, and then let it ride down onto you. Pathetic.

 

Like most writers, I have something deep inside me that secretly really, really likes when people comment on my stuff. But only when they tell me how great I am.

So when people take to the comments to critique my work, it’s not my favorite. I’ll get hung up on one thumbs down or a single guy who clearly doesn’t get my humor. Am I a terrible writer? Do I really deserve to get slapped for wasting Derek’s time?

Then I read an over-the-top comment like Bill’s and remember that, oh yeah, I don’t know these people. And if I don’t know them, I guess I don’t have to care what they think. Even more than that, I probably shouldn’t be writing for the approval of others in the first place.

So Bill, thank you for your suggestion. After careful consideration, I’ve ultimately decided against crushing myself with a 770 lb. weight. I do appreciate your feedback and hope that we can become best friends someday.

When we do, please comment to tell me how great I am.

LIFE LESSON #8

Commenters gonna hate.