Playing Word Games in Blog Comments

by Andy Polaine on November 23, 2008

in General

failblog_comments.jpg

I just noticed a whole series of word-association and other games going on in the comments of Fail Blog posts. I have no idea if this is a new phenomenon, but I haven’t seen it before. Nor is it clear if any of these people know each other from elsewhere, but there is a whole little community gameplay scene that appears to spontaneously twist and turn.

I always find it fascinating how people will bend almost any activity towards play and communication. Blog comments are of course already set up for communication, but it’s the ability to have them nested on Fail Blog that seems to create a the boundaries for the playfulness.

Is this something new or have I just been in a cave or something? Anyone know of other examples of this happening?

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{ 4 comments }

1 Bill Mill November 23, 2008 at 7:55 pm

A similar phenomenon is that of reddit pun threads. A typical example: http://www.reddit.com/comments/6nyrv/someone_tell_me_why/c04eghp

2 Andy Polaine November 23, 2008 at 10:34 pm

That reddit one is great. Any idea of where this whole thing started?

3 Andy Polaine November 23, 2008 at 11:00 pm

Bill (comment No. 1 above) just mailed me a link to Reddit’s special pun page. Some of them really are very good.

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