As part of the “social media generation,” there are factors of online life that have become even more iconic than the viral posts or personalities. Social media comments and replies have become a way to extend the jokes and change the way that each person interacts with their personalized feed.
It Started on Twitter
While the original social media giant X (formerly Twitter) always allowed pictures and videos to be posted, much of its fame came from creative comments and one-liners crafted to make a point in fewer than 140 words, although the limit has since been extended to 280. Celebrities and laymen alike spent undisclosed amounts of time carefully crafting statements and jokes in just a few lines.
Even more famous than the tweets themselves were the quote-tweets that came from them. One of the most famous quote-tweets of all time has lived long past its original form, living in screenshots and far-reaching comment sections vaguely related to the original joke.
While some have their own moral issues with the original joke, the line, “Omg you people can’t do anything,” is commonly quoted and commented on videos across different topics and algorithms.
This cultural permeation is no one-off feat, with jokes and one-liners covering every topic going viral, with and without context, near weekly. Serving as anything from an inside joke in a friend group to a cultural movement, posts on X have done much to lay the groundwork for what a single statement can do.
Comments As Trends
Moving beyond apps like X, comment sections have become an integral part of the scrolling experience, with trends moving beyond the videos themselves and into the comment sections. Similar to quote-tweets of the late 2010s and early 2020s, templates of jokes spread from video to video, with people morphing the joke to fit the context of a video or post.
Around 2020, one of the most famous jokes on TikTok was born in the comment section of multiple videos. Known as the “fairy comments,” internet strangers would format a sarcastically scathing compliment sandwich in the comment section surrounded by fairy, sparkle, and heart emojis. The emojis may have been meant to soften the blow, but comments like “aww you tried, once is enough,” still stung to many victims of the trend.
Turning comments or posts into iconic one-liners that spread beyond the original videos to other online communities is now a common part of the social media experience. One TikTok user known as Tamara posted one of the most prominent examples of this under a video about collecting buttons. When another commenter questioned her, she ended the exchange with the comment, “hey so it actually only has to make sense for me to do it and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else.”
This line is often found in comment sections across apps as a way to avoid internet trolls or an otherwise awkward or rude exchange with another internet stranger.
How TikTok Has Revolutionized the Comment Section
While many comment trends have come and gone since, TikTok has done even more to change how users interact with the comment sections under videos. Rolling out new features in waves, users can now use stickers, pictures, and voice notes under videos to try and gain the attention of passing scrollers. Many TikTok users boast a library full of stickers hosted by the app itself, ready to post as a response under a video.
With these new features, TikTok comments have become almost their own genre of comedy, with videos going viral not for their content but for how funny everyone collectively finds the comments. Some creators even regularly post videos reminiscent of YouTube reaction videos, where they scroll through the comments of another video while sharing the comments and laughing.
With social media landscapes constantly changing, developers are fighting to keep users engaged with their individual apps. Taking popular things like memes, GIFs, and pictures and adding them to comment sections has revolutionized the way an app like TikTok is used. By adding and removing features, these apps shape the way our public consciousness engages with content and online communities in every available capacity.
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