Underappreciated comments 2020 December 29, 2020 3:30 PM Subscribe
Looks like it's been a couple of years since the last time anyone did this, and I miss it... Let's show some love for the hidden-gem comments that made you laugh, cry, or cheer this year, which you immediately recognized as genius, but somehow slipped under everyone else's radar.
As is traditional, please try to stick to comments that received 12 or fewer favorites, and no self-links.
As is traditional, please try to stick to comments that received 12 or fewer favorites, and no self-links.
A lot of mine are about cats:
* Kitchen Witch solves a taxonomic problem.
* cattypist cuts to the chase in the "What's a thing you'd like to invent" MeTa discussion.
* signal describes their cat's funeral in a Fucking Fuck thread.
* miles per flower on their kittens' names and Wikipedia.
* betweenthebars on Bustopher Jones.
Others, mostly light:
* kristi's description of Weasel making custom cakes.
* dlugoczaj identifying a WCW problem.
* LizBoBiz on this year's script.
* kristi's highlighting of "exactly how bad are these data and how did you get them?".
* filthy light thief exploring feral wallabies, Fiona Bryde Colquhoun and "a cete or clan" of badgers.
* Mr. gudrun's friend's birthday dragon.
* kalimac on the Shipping Forecast.
* widdershins sending an Asterix book to his dad.
* mandolin conspiracy linking to the University of Leeds Disability Archive, which I didn't know about.
* the matching mole posting a poem by Anselm Hollo.
* and zeusianfog posting a poem by Dan Albergotti.
I don't tend to post a lot of comments, and I'm grateful to those who do. Phew. That was a tough year to look back through.
posted by paduasoy at 4:58 PM on December 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
* Kitchen Witch solves a taxonomic problem.
* cattypist cuts to the chase in the "What's a thing you'd like to invent" MeTa discussion.
* signal describes their cat's funeral in a Fucking Fuck thread.
* miles per flower on their kittens' names and Wikipedia.
* betweenthebars on Bustopher Jones.
Others, mostly light:
* kristi's description of Weasel making custom cakes.
* dlugoczaj identifying a WCW problem.
* LizBoBiz on this year's script.
* kristi's highlighting of "exactly how bad are these data and how did you get them?".
* filthy light thief exploring feral wallabies, Fiona Bryde Colquhoun and "a cete or clan" of badgers.
* Mr. gudrun's friend's birthday dragon.
* kalimac on the Shipping Forecast.
* widdershins sending an Asterix book to his dad.
* mandolin conspiracy linking to the University of Leeds Disability Archive, which I didn't know about.
* the matching mole posting a poem by Anselm Hollo.
* and zeusianfog posting a poem by Dan Albergotti.
I don't tend to post a lot of comments, and I'm grateful to those who do. Phew. That was a tough year to look back through.
posted by paduasoy at 4:58 PM on December 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
Stud me with (copper) barnacles and drape me in (silken) kelp was a terrific question about sourcing a style. It got lots of favorites. But I would love to commend the people who answered for their amazingly lovely (and under-favorited) help: pipstar; azalea_chant; kalimac; theora55; selfmedicating; hurdy gurdy girl; fairlynearlyready; corvine; kapers; Maeve; nakedmolerats; clew; and genmonster. This is not my style at all, but I appreciated the way these MeFites jumped in with both understanding and specific, helpful suggestions. Just awesome, and it did my heart good. (I realize this is not strictly in keeping with past hidden gem posts, but you know what? In this terrible year, I was so happy to see someone wanting to look awesome in a new personal style, and to see so many others willing to validate and facilitate that wish; I think they all deserve a shout-out.) Thank you!
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:38 PM on December 29, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:38 PM on December 29, 2020 [12 favorites]
This comment by merriment absolutely cracked my shit up and I called people on the phone to repeat it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:37 PM on December 29, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:37 PM on December 29, 2020 [10 favorites]
Also this joke by ricochet biscuit is so good I'm actively angry I didn't think of it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:41 PM on December 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:41 PM on December 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
It's been an eventful year, as we all know, and many of us have spent more time in front of a screen than we normally would. Looks like about 15% of all the favourites I have ever dropped have been this in 2020, and I have been here since late in the Dubya administration. Weirdly, it got really hard to find things I liked that few others did in the final quarter. Maybe we are all so gleeful about that orange guy being banished to the land of wind and ghosts that we got profligate with the favourites. I can't recall anyone before 2020 noting that they ran out of their allotment for the day.
As always, my personal metric for this is if I have favourited a comment and it has a received a single-digit number of favourites total; as well, some don't make that much sense unless you got back and read sizable swaths of the thread they were in, so I have skipped ones that need a lot of background to follow. This the stuff I thought funny or insightful this year that only a handful of other mefites did:
In the first quarter of the year, Jane the Brown gave some great advice to GMs of tabletop (or videoconferenced) RPGs, clawsoon offered a great suggestion for Prince Harry's next career move, Brandon Blatcher offered a similarly satisfying solution to a Star Wars plotting misstep, straight said what we all thought about a headfake in that same Star Wars thread, mwhybark speculated on a possible guest star for a current TV show, ochswar talked about why Norway looks like it does, acrasis explained black squirrels, MonkeyToes concurred with me about memory retrieval techniques, Ralston McTodd pointed out that not all comments sections are dismal, showbiz_liz praised an ingenious mnemonic, GenjiandProust was pragmatic about his life goals, and Jacen improved Monopoly vastly.
Q2, or months 2-17 of the Plague Year, saw hippybear appraising an insult, windopaene make a jesting funny aneurysm prediction, Nanukthedog reminds us why That One Scene in The Lost Boys is awesome, jacquilynne share my joy at learning the same trivium over and over, pykrete jungle make a shrewd observation on trollery, kersplunk offer some useful terms from the Irish language, ananci reveal the average number of skeletons we have, Mr. Bad Example offer a frank assessment of punsters, emjabee link to a good police reform initiative, numaner offer a review of The Good Place that gives me all the feels, Iris Gambol give some good news resulting out of the George Floyd protests, schroedinger offer a sobering rebuttal to the tra-la-la attitude of covidiots who think a ventilator is no big deal, rikschell talk a bit about dehumanizing enemies in media, and meabomb revealing we were watching the same TV show forty years ago when the world changed.
In July through September, DoctorFedora made a canny observation about an overlooked benefit of masks, Grangousier tersely noted the Grand Guignol excesses of Hannibal, brook horse agreed with me on how the disabled are an afterthought in public building procedures, Joe in Australia reminded people not to conflate low engagement with lack of support, Mr. Bad Example pointed out the shortcomings of an utterly generic branding, NoxAeternum suggested a path for cinemas to recover, Static Vagabond noted certain irregularities -- or rather, regularities -- in Kanye West's paperwork, thisclickableme talked about being bilingual in a bilingual city, wabbittwax talked about getting murdered on camera, dry white toast deftly summed up Canadian realpolitik, Ouverture sadly summed up American realpolitik, EmpressCalipygos candidly summed up the unrealpolitik as the president* understands it, and slothrup bleakly summed up realpolitik as it is on the streets.
In the last part of the year y2karl talked about how we domesticated ourselves, runcifex reminded us the trumpsters were pretending a flipped coin was till spinning in the air, rongorongo reminded us that a song nearly four decades old sung by two dead men is the perfect 2020 soundtrack, sexyrobot illuminated a cliche, joeyh gives us something for undergrads to really ponder, jessamyn may have convinced a roofer that some people are different than others, Mayor West talked about the world shifting around The Simpsons and skwirl looked for the silver lining in the Arecibo dish collapse.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:38 PM on December 29, 2020 [15 favorites]
As always, my personal metric for this is if I have favourited a comment and it has a received a single-digit number of favourites total; as well, some don't make that much sense unless you got back and read sizable swaths of the thread they were in, so I have skipped ones that need a lot of background to follow. This the stuff I thought funny or insightful this year that only a handful of other mefites did:
In the first quarter of the year, Jane the Brown gave some great advice to GMs of tabletop (or videoconferenced) RPGs, clawsoon offered a great suggestion for Prince Harry's next career move, Brandon Blatcher offered a similarly satisfying solution to a Star Wars plotting misstep, straight said what we all thought about a headfake in that same Star Wars thread, mwhybark speculated on a possible guest star for a current TV show, ochswar talked about why Norway looks like it does, acrasis explained black squirrels, MonkeyToes concurred with me about memory retrieval techniques, Ralston McTodd pointed out that not all comments sections are dismal, showbiz_liz praised an ingenious mnemonic, GenjiandProust was pragmatic about his life goals, and Jacen improved Monopoly vastly.
Q2, or months 2-17 of the Plague Year, saw hippybear appraising an insult, windopaene make a jesting funny aneurysm prediction, Nanukthedog reminds us why That One Scene in The Lost Boys is awesome, jacquilynne share my joy at learning the same trivium over and over, pykrete jungle make a shrewd observation on trollery, kersplunk offer some useful terms from the Irish language, ananci reveal the average number of skeletons we have, Mr. Bad Example offer a frank assessment of punsters, emjabee link to a good police reform initiative, numaner offer a review of The Good Place that gives me all the feels, Iris Gambol give some good news resulting out of the George Floyd protests, schroedinger offer a sobering rebuttal to the tra-la-la attitude of covidiots who think a ventilator is no big deal, rikschell talk a bit about dehumanizing enemies in media, and meabomb revealing we were watching the same TV show forty years ago when the world changed.
In July through September, DoctorFedora made a canny observation about an overlooked benefit of masks, Grangousier tersely noted the Grand Guignol excesses of Hannibal, brook horse agreed with me on how the disabled are an afterthought in public building procedures, Joe in Australia reminded people not to conflate low engagement with lack of support, Mr. Bad Example pointed out the shortcomings of an utterly generic branding, NoxAeternum suggested a path for cinemas to recover, Static Vagabond noted certain irregularities -- or rather, regularities -- in Kanye West's paperwork, thisclickableme talked about being bilingual in a bilingual city, wabbittwax talked about getting murdered on camera, dry white toast deftly summed up Canadian realpolitik, Ouverture sadly summed up American realpolitik, EmpressCalipygos candidly summed up the unrealpolitik as the president* understands it, and slothrup bleakly summed up realpolitik as it is on the streets.
In the last part of the year y2karl talked about how we domesticated ourselves, runcifex reminded us the trumpsters were pretending a flipped coin was till spinning in the air, rongorongo reminded us that a song nearly four decades old sung by two dead men is the perfect 2020 soundtrack, sexyrobot illuminated a cliche, joeyh gives us something for undergrads to really ponder, jessamyn may have convinced a roofer that some people are different than others, Mayor West talked about the world shifting around The Simpsons and skwirl looked for the silver lining in the Arecibo dish collapse.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:38 PM on December 29, 2020 [15 favorites]
Thank you, Foosnark, for your hilarious Oblivion reference, and gusottertrout, for your thoughtful exploration of the contradictions in why people identify with a religion when they apparently don't agree with its teachings.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:59 AM on December 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:59 AM on December 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
I made the list! I'm a real boy now!
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:21 AM on December 30, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:21 AM on December 30, 2020 [8 favorites]
From "you didn't know you needed to see penguins going to the cinema"
"obviously we can't take all 36 penguins out everyday, everywhere..."
But have you tried? Because that's the video I want to watch!
posted by hydra77
And from: A li’l Twitter thread by Eduardo Sampaio on his (& his coauthors’) paper, “Octopuses punch fishes during collaborative interspecific hunting events”.
Those fish know what they did.
posted by belarius
posted by ellieBOA at 5:27 AM on December 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
"obviously we can't take all 36 penguins out everyday, everywhere..."
But have you tried? Because that's the video I want to watch!
posted by hydra77
And from: A li’l Twitter thread by Eduardo Sampaio on his (& his coauthors’) paper, “Octopuses punch fishes during collaborative interspecific hunting events”.
Those fish know what they did.
posted by belarius
posted by ellieBOA at 5:27 AM on December 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
Some AskMe answers:
mdonley’s heroic effort finding a neon sign in Hong Kong.
zenon drops some knot knowledge.
LNM’s dough mixer exposition
posted by zamboni at 7:15 AM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
mdonley’s heroic effort finding a neon sign in Hong Kong.
zenon drops some knot knowledge.
LNM’s dough mixer exposition
posted by zamboni at 7:15 AM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is my favorite comment:
DirtyOldTown: I will not be able to take it if 2020 hears us having this nice moment and sends someone in here to tell us Mr. T is secretly awful in some way.
posted by sundrop at 7:15 AM on December 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
DirtyOldTown: I will not be able to take it if 2020 hears us having this nice moment and sends someone in here to tell us Mr. T is secretly awful in some way.
posted by sundrop at 7:15 AM on December 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
As a fellow Yid, poffin boffin's Yiddishisms always make me smile.
EmpressCallipygos provides a link to the NYPL's Theater on Film and Tape Archive, giving me hope that someday I will be able to see my dream production of Waiting for Godot, starring Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
Eyebrows McGee shares an account of some devilish Zoom shenanigans.
In a thread about quarantine cooking, Greg_Ace's pun about an x-rated Marx Brothers movie nearly made me do a spit take.
flapjax at midnite repurposes some Zeppelin lyrics to commemorate the Great Goat Takeover of northern Wales.
CarrotAdventure suggests the best possible use of an app that tells you which McDonald's ice cream machines are broken at any given time (turns out it's quite a lot of them!).
Really enjoyed marimeko's story about how her grandmother taught her to smoke like a lady.
And finally, Pyrogenesis discovers that mayonnaise is all about physics.
posted by merriment at 12:19 PM on December 30, 2020
EmpressCallipygos provides a link to the NYPL's Theater on Film and Tape Archive, giving me hope that someday I will be able to see my dream production of Waiting for Godot, starring Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
Eyebrows McGee shares an account of some devilish Zoom shenanigans.
In a thread about quarantine cooking, Greg_Ace's pun about an x-rated Marx Brothers movie nearly made me do a spit take.
flapjax at midnite repurposes some Zeppelin lyrics to commemorate the Great Goat Takeover of northern Wales.
CarrotAdventure suggests the best possible use of an app that tells you which McDonald's ice cream machines are broken at any given time (turns out it's quite a lot of them!).
Really enjoyed marimeko's story about how her grandmother taught her to smoke like a lady.
And finally, Pyrogenesis discovers that mayonnaise is all about physics.
posted by merriment at 12:19 PM on December 30, 2020
yesterday: njohnson23 called the dancing boston dynamics spectacles "Mister Robojangles"
posted by 20 year lurk at 12:36 PM on December 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by 20 year lurk at 12:36 PM on December 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
richochet biscuit poetically explains the poignant appeal of a pair of footprints from 10,000-15,000 years ago.
Literaryhero warns us that geoff might be a robot.
posted by Corduroy at 1:56 PM on December 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Literaryhero warns us that geoff might be a robot.
posted by Corduroy at 1:56 PM on December 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Oh Boy, Assassin's Creed! That's where I'm a viking!
That time when jackbishop set his ballot on fire.
And special thanks to ShooBoo for teaching me a better way to peel ginger root.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:25 PM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
That time when jackbishop set his ballot on fire.
And special thanks to ShooBoo for teaching me a better way to peel ginger root.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:25 PM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
ActionPopulated, thank you for making me laugh and laugh: the absurd havoc wreaked by snails who love to fuck
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:52 PM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:52 PM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yikes. Paging through my likes for 2020 is a lot of heavy, depressing stuff. Which is not surprising. But I found a couple gems.
Poirot humor from adrianhon
Wall-E trivia! from bleep
posted by Glinn at 3:19 PM on January 1, 2021
Poirot humor from adrianhon
Wall-E trivia! from bleep
posted by Glinn at 3:19 PM on January 1, 2021
I made the list? I feel like a real grown-up mefite now!
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:02 AM on January 4, 2021
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:02 AM on January 4, 2021
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And another one about women's sports, which is amazing because I'm pretty sure that means I've favorited more comments about sports this year than I have actually watched sports ever.
This recent comment re. the piccolo.
posted by phunniemee at 4:10 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]