Once, not so long ago, inexplicably, I waded into the fetid swamp that is a new article's comment's section. There was a particularly unhinged commentor, we'll call them Pat, that was railing against the newspaper's staff. For some strange reason, I looked up Pat's past comment history, and it was mostly, though not entirely, all screeds against the paper.
The paper is the Denver Post. The Post is a paper thin shell of itself, gutted by the machinations of hedge funds too greedy to realize that sub-prime newspapers are even worse investments than world class ones. The Post even ran a picture of the wrong stadium for Opening Day for a few years, I think. Most of the Post's good staff had left years ago for the 'greener' pastures of purely online journalism.
Pat had further filled out their entire profile for commenting and said that they were a proud resident of Des Moines, Iowa. Seeing as they spent nearly all day commenting on the Denver Post, I had questions. So, I made a profile, got a free 30 day subscription and ability to comment, and then asked Pat the questions. Namely, are you a real person, are you really living in Iowa, and why are you spending all your days on this earth railing against a zombie newspaper in it's comments sections?
Pat confirmed that they were real, and that they lived in Des Moines. Further, and I'll not forget this, Pat said that the reason they spent all their days attacking the Post was "I just really fucking hate the Post, Rocky Mountain News was better and should come back" Rocky Mountain news had been truly dead for a decade at this point and was never coming back.
I could ask them more questions, and try to dive into their strange psychology, but lets be real, Pat is crazy. I have since returned to my policy of never reading the comments section. Thar be the weirdos.