The Comedy of Crowds
The Meritocracy of Comment Sections
Have you ever felt like a joke was floating around in your mind, but you couldn't materialise it? I often have that. Any time I look at the comment section of a video I will see one of the most hilarious one-liners as the top voted comment. It climbs up on its own merit. It always hits the spot. It is also, in an eerie way, often the exact joke my brain was failing to make.
It got me thinking about outsourcing to the wisdom of crowds. There are some things that need expert knowledge or esoteric insight. A crowd might contain experts, but the rest wouldn’t be able to assess the expert’s opinion anyway. But, when it comes to more straightforward things, it works.
Can we use this more often? I say yes. It’s simple, as we all know: everyone throws out their thought or idea, then it gets upvoted. Writers could use this to get plot ideas. Local government could gauge public sentiment or answer upvoted questions from residents. It's already happening at scale on social media.
The comedy of crowds is, to me, on a par with any comedian I’ve heard. It's so consistent at this point that I refuse to believe we can't weaponise this for even better things.
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If only we had the power to upvote comments made in real life, the world could be a very different place.
Yes one liners are great in contrast to the vast majority of novice replies & anecdotes from mistypes you're gonna get in your comments by virtue of the channel being a rather simplistic take on typology (no offence I'm calling it like it is). In part due to being an Ni agency type your espousing the same variants of a theme on repeat & ensuring to meet a mass audience it's relatively simplistic to be relatable & comprehensive (again no offence: you know this). In contrast the likes of CPT is highly abstract & mechanistic & thus is catered for a more 'academic' clientele. I'm not making a pejorative comment I'm simply drawing a comparison as to the audience you wish to attract. I don't believe I'm an expert like Harry for CPT but my understanding is very deep & my knowledge extensive; I don't expect to get likes an upvotes to my comments albeit my purpose is to help those like myself who initially gravitated to your channel to gain a better understanding of the fluidity of type & direct them to CPT. I've actually seen a fair few people like Sen (INTJ) who was on your discord server (admittedly probably one of the only actual INTJs on your discord) who have migrated over to CPT. Sure crowd pleasing has its immediate gratifying rewards but in the long run it's pretty vacuous, not like I don't enjoy the good one liner myself!