YouTube’s comments section is one of the worst places on the web. On an Internet already full of nonsense no sane, intelligent person would want to spend their time reading, YouTube’s comment section stands out. Whenever you’re using YouTube, you might accidentally scroll down and see the stream of useless, nonsensical, and obnoxious comments. The people who left comments on bathroom stall walls in the days before the web seem to have migrated to YouTube.
These comments can be improved with browser extensions, replacing them with intelligent or amusing quotes. You could also just rip all the comments out entirely.
Translate Comments To Herp Derps
The Herp Derp extension will convert all YouTube comments to herp derps instead of hiding them completely. This extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Don’t worry about missing any important information when you use this extension — YouTube comments might as well contain “herp derps” for all the value they offer. If you haven’t heard of the “herp derp” meme yet, Know Your Meme defines it as “an expression used to indicate that someone is unintelligent or making ignorant statements.” That certainly seems appropriate for YouTube.
You can click a YouTube comment to read the original comment, but, according to the add-on’s author, reading an original YouTube comment is “highly discouraged.”
Replace Comments With Feynman Quotes
If you really wish YouTube comments were more intelligent, you can install the FeynCommentuser script. It works in both Chrome and Firefox – you’ll find installation instructions on the Userscripts website.FeynComment replaces all YouTube comments with quotes from famed theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. With Feyncomment, the comment section on YouTube will become a serious, intelligent discussion of science and physics. Even if you just see these comments out of the corner of your eye, they’ll fill you with a sense that your fellow human beings are intelligent people having a discussion about the nature of reality rather than bickering and cursing over the latest popular music video on YouTube.
Replace Comments With Nietzsche Quotes
Available as both a Chrome extension and Firefox extension, NietzscheDerp goes another direction by replacing all YouTube comments with quotes from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s quotes can be rather bleak, so they somehow seem perfectly at home in a YouTube comment section. It’s as if all YouTube commenters have fallen into a malaise after being exposed to YouTube comments for so long.
Convert Profanity into Yuletide Cheer
It may not be the holiday season, but YuleTube works year-round. This extension, which is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, converts profane comments into festive expressions of goodwill. As the extension’s website says, it will “turn the troll‘s comments from naughty into something nice.”
With Yuletube, a YouTube discussion about Justin Bieber becomes a discussion about a chubby little elf. Mean comments become cute lines like “I bet every reindeer who gets into TV…”. You’ll wish your fellow men and women goodwill instead of being overcome by misanthropy. It’s the perfect pick-me-up to ensure you don’t become a Grinch in the holiday season, but it’s preferable to the original comments at any time of year.
Remove Them All!
The most obvious way to improve YouTube’s comments section is by getting rid of it entirely. Just install the No YouTube Comments extension for Chrome or Comment Snob for Firefox. No YouTube Comments hides all comments entirely, solving the problem in just a few clicks. Comment Snob for Firefox is pickier by default, opting to filter comments based on the number of spelling mistakes, capital letters, and excessive punctuation they contain. You can tweak these filtering rules in the add-on’s options or just tell it to hide all YouTube comments completely.
French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once famously said that “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Removing comments brings YouTube that much closer to perfect.
Of course, YouTube comments aren’t the only blasted wastelands of intelligence on the web. Other websites with comment sections — particularly news websites — can be as bad or even worse. To get rid of comments on other websites, try the Shut Up extension for Chrome, which allows you to toggle comments on and off on various popular websites. it will remember your choices, so you won’t have to see comments the next time you visit the same website.
What’s your favorite way of dealing with YouTube comments? Leave a comment and let us know how you handle YouTube comments without going insane. (Don’t worry, our comment section is nowhere near as bad as YouTube’s! We wouldn’t tolerate that.)
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