This will not come as a surprise to anyone who frequents the internet, but comments sections are not the idea-generating open forums of discussion that people thought they would be.
The comments sections of news websites specifically are very, very bad. For one reason or another, the comments sections of news sites are filled often with trolls who are more interested in starting fights and making people mad than engaging in any sort of substantial conversation.
Despite this, however, comments sections are still a way to try and discern how people feel about a certain subject or story, even if their comments are mean or inflammatory. Using the Spruce Street riot from earlier this year and the arrests that were recently made from it, we can take a look at how some people feel about WVU students when they are at their rowdiest.
The following comments come from the comments sections from three WV Metro News articles and one Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article. The actual articles are, “No charges yet as police, WVU investigate snow-day block party“, “Morgantown Police chief: Snow day incident involving WVU students ‘entirely avoidable‘”, “More arrests likely in Morgantown snow day riot; WVU not expected to take action against fraternities“, and “Snow day celebration turns into a disturbance at West Virginia University“.
Most of the comments fell into three categories; insulting or making fun of WVU students, defending the students/blaming the police, and complaining about Morgantown not plowing the roads.
Many of the comments directing negativity towards the students focused on insinuating that they were children and saying that they were drunk.
Many of them call the students “kids”, “children” or “brats” and a few say “adults” in all capitals in such a way as to insinuate that the students were not acting like adults.
Many of the comments blaming the police say that the kids were just having fun and that nothing escalated until the police were called and showed up.
The comments about the city plowing streets have been omitted because they do not really add to this discussion, however, the other two categories of comments actually have a sort of explanation behind them.
In a book titled “Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community” (which is ironically written about WVU) the different perceptions people have about party schools are explored.
Basically, the author, Karen Weiss, says that people who go to party schools and heavily party see it as their right to do so.
“In fact, they regard themselves as having a ‘right’ to party and bitterly resent other students and community residents who complain about their loudness and rowdy activities. Weiss observes that the partiers ‘are often so assured in their ‘right to party’ that they are disrespectful toward police, indignant toward persons who complain, and unconcerned about how their behaviors affect others who live and work in the college community.'”
This thinking can clearly be seen in some of the comments, a lot of them say something along the lines of the city should have just let the students have fun and not plow the street. The problem with both of these types of comments is that they refuse to see it from another perspective.
All of the following can be true; the students were just having fun on a snow day, the city needed to plow the street, the police’s presence escalated the situation, students should not have thrown things, and the police did not have to come equipped in riot gear.
The people in these comments sections however really only fall into one of two camps when talking about these party school students partying, either the students did nothing wrong or the students are solely at fault.
While comments sections are notoriously bad, it is interesting to see how many of the comments line up into these two frameworks, and the language that is used against the students tells a lot about what people think about WVU.
My Reputation 