Altered Perception In YouTube Comments

(I'm feeding by blog onto Facebook now - enjoy! If you're reading from there, stop by the Blog and look around, when you get a chance!)

Some YouTube videos can be very entertaining, but some of the comments posted to those videos can be disturbing. For many people, they're an opportunity to express hate, intolerance, and outright paranoia. For the rest of us, it's a display of pure ignorance and gullibility. For example:

When legendary newsman Walter Cronkite died, a comment expresses disgust, because he was a member of a mysterious ruling elite.

Any Obama video, of course, is peppered with comments calling him a Nazi, a communist, a Leninist, even a reptilian member of the "Illuminati," the popular catchphrase for those who believe in a vast enslaving conspiracy (either earth-based or otherworldly) of elites. And I hardly need to mention the racist comments, which are invariably attached to anyone of color.

NASA videos are routinely attacked by those who believe that "IT'S ALL FAKE!"

Some kids and teens comment on their peer's videos with vicious, violent threats and name-calling.

YouTube and the Internet, because of perceived anonymity, can be a refuge for the darker corners of human nature. For some, especially kids, it's an opportunity to be extreme and in-your-face without any consequence - I think some percentage of these online "wackos" are quite the opposite.

Unfortunately, the sheer volume of altered perception on display in the comments area (we'll talk about the actual videos another time), begs the question, "Is this where we're going as a society?"