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What word represents a sarcastic, derogatory, non-substantive or just silly posting to "comments" on the internet such as those sometimes seen following news articles, YouTube videos, product reviews and blogs?
For example: You should have written something intelligent instead of posting that "_______."
Maybe something like "spoop?"

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – tchrist
    Jun 12, 2017 at 14:23

4 Answers 4

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In the beginning,

Well, there's egg and bacon,
[...]
Egg, bacon, sausage and spam
[...]
Spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam tomato and spam
(etc.)
stlyrics.com

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Lovely Spam!)

Then came the internet. At first is was dominated by professionals getting academic work done. This meant people were expected to act professional. Also, it was slow. So anything that wasted your time was extremely painful.

Then came automation. Accidents happened and some posts turned out to be repetitive or meaningless1. Some who complained about this expressed their displeasure by comparing it to the Monty Python song quoted above. People soon realized that the only consequence from these accidental postings was complaining. And a passive aggressive weapon was born.

The result of this behavior has been called floods, junk, and simply noise. But spam, at least to me, was the first internet meme. I remember trolls that had obviously combined their copy and paste buffers with key repetition to repeat the word spam over and over. Giving them the power to waste your time without even having to bother to type let alone think. Other than the Monty Python bit itself this is what most likely popularized the usage.

This is why so much of the internet is moderated today. Users have the power to downvote this answer exactly because I have the power to make it nothing but:

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam ...

And that only cost me 8 keystrokes. This is why, despite helping the US win World War II, Hormel, the makers of spam, inventors of the word, owners of the trade mark, gets second billing in the definition of spam:

spam noun

  1. irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of recipients.

  2. trademark - a canned meat product made mainly from ham.

verb

  1. send the same message indiscriminately to (large numbers of recipients) on the Internet.

google.com

So either the internet owes Hormel an apology or Hormel has secretly created the greatest viral marketing campaign of all time.

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Lovely Spam!)

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    Spam these days would definitely be associated with either messages promoting some commercial service, or at the very least posted in high quantity (possibly automated). Trolling is a distinct activity. Jan 3, 2016 at 19:16
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    "Spam" is indeed one word, but I don't think it is quite the right word for the stupid, not always sarcastic, comments suffixed to news articles, blogs, customer reviews, UTube presentations and such. Perhaps we need a memorable acronym or anagram. Any ideas?
    – Coop
    Jan 3, 2016 at 19:22
  • Trolling is a motivation. Marketing is a motivation. Spam is a judgment of the value of the content. If trolling was murder then spam is the murder weapon. Yes trolling and marketing are distinct but they both produce spam. Jan 3, 2016 at 19:22
  • "spam" means basically junk email, but I believe it's pretty good to use "spam" more generally to mean "the crap you see on the net".
    – Fattie
    Jan 4, 2016 at 2:23
  • Perhaps you should repost that as an answer here: What's the etymology of spam when talking about bulk unsolicited messages?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 4, 2016 at 8:18
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On some websites, such content is referred to as shitposts. However, this term is part of the jargon of some communities, and is unknown outside of them.

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  • Please add an explanation how to correctly use the word. Jan 4, 2016 at 13:41
  • You're going to need a hell of lot more profanity to correctly use that word.
    – Mazura
    Jan 5, 2016 at 3:02
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For useless/stupid comments I would use guff, chuff (slang), drivel, or just plain old crap. For irrelevant comments or messages promoting something else, I'd use spam.

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  • +1 but it would be nice if you could provide a link or the definition for guff and chuff, terms which I did not know were derogatory. I have always used chuffed to say when I am especially pleased with myself, or particularly honoured by someone or something "I was dead chuffed when I won that prize"
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 4, 2016 at 6:28
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    @Mari-LouA I've added links that show definitions in the google search results. Re. 'chuff', you're right that 'chuffed' can mean pleased, but it can also be used derogatorily: thefreedictionary.com/chuff - for example: "That guy talks a load of chuff."; or "Why do I get so much chuff through my letterbox?" (source: my childhood in W. Yorkshire).
    – jhabbott
    Jan 4, 2016 at 13:39
  • I've always considered chuff to be that sort of image add weeken a bird puffs up and struts, so both of your uses fit. Never actually looked it up, though. Huh.
    – The Nate
    Jan 4, 2016 at 13:58
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What about prattle (noun not really used to refer to internet) ?

verb definition: to talk for very long about something that is not important or interesting

Example: We are the champions of chatter, the proponents of prattle, the backers of blather. We are the goddesses of gossip and we own this shit.

 EDIT: From @MartinSmith link, I noticed "parasitic comments".
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  • again a great word one could use here
    – Fattie
    Jan 4, 2016 at 2:27

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