Commenting on the Comments, Culminating in the Comment of the Week (It Could Be Yours)

By Ann Cooper

West Side Rag readers include at least a few who say they come to our site mainly for the comments. We hope everyone will read everything, of course, but we do understand the comments have their own appeal – at least when writers stick to civil discourse.

The other day, when we were sharing a laugh about a particular comment, we decided to try a new feature: Commenting on the Comments, including naming our favorite Comment of the Week. (Typos are left uncorrected.) Here goes with Week 1:

That image of Gale Brewer walking behind Jennifer Lopez at the Met gala was priceless, wasn’t it? Our headline fingered J Lo as the photobomber, but that sparked a pretty lively debate in the comments about who was photobombing whom. 

“It should be ‘Gale Brewer photo bombs Jennifer Lopez,’ wrote Tom.

“I don’t think you are right – Gale is an elected representative and J. Lo doesn’t hold any official position, so I’m pretty sure the headline is correct as written,” responded Josh P. 

No, said Yoma: “It’s 100 times funnier the other way – like Brewer was supposed to be front and center. 🙂”

Lydia sought to end the argument with this assertion: “It’s always the person in the background that is doing the photo bombing, not the person who is the actual focus of the photo.”

Stop! You’re all wrong (and so is WSR), if we take Merriam-Webster’s definition as defining: Photobomb (one word) means “to move into the frame of a photograph as it is being taken as a joke or prank.” It seems clear in the photo that Brewer and J Lo are unaware of each other, so neither of them could have committed the act of photobombing: stepping into the frame as a joke or a prank. Comments closed!

Gus Saltonstall’s story about the mailbox that disappeared from a corner of West End Avenue and West 79th Street inspired an immediate conspiracy theory:

“This is all part of the Trump administrations attack on the [Postal Service] to remove as many mailboxes as possible to make it harder for people to vote by mail and delay mailings.”

Another commenter called that out as fake news. But whatever the motive for removing the mailbox, AP did report in 2020 that the then-president told Fox News he was blocking proposals for Postal Service funding in order to hamper the post office’s ability to handle a flood of mail-in election ballots (which were considered likely to favor Democrats). 

A serious takeaway in the comments on the disappeared mailbox: the hazards of sending checks through the mail these days. More than one commenter reported sending checks that never arrived. Reader Reggie said:

“My rent check was stolen from the mailbox at 79th and Amsterdam (mailbox with only a small slot for envelopes). Thief whitewashed the payee and the check was cashed in Tennessee. When I filed the police report, they said it happens very often. No more mailing checks!”

And then there was this cautionary tale from reader Glen, who said “on a number of occasions” he’s seen dog walkers drop their little plastic bags in mailboxes rather than street waste bins. “I have long stopped using corner mailboxes because of that,” Glen wrote.

Finally, WSR covered the opening of a new branch of PopUp Bagels in the neighborhood not once but twice this week. A predictable debate ensued: “they’re great,” “they’re not great,” “they’re too expensive,” “they’re worth every penny.” The Rag is not taking sides here – the passions of bagel lovers are nothing to tamper with. But we will note that a comment on our first PopUp story is the one that made us laugh, inspiring us to name it Comment of the Week:

Jake Schrader

 Reply to  Leon

I remember going to that H&H in July after a long evening at Dublin House and asking the counter man what was incredibly hot cause that was the best part about buying bagels there. And he said . . . “I’m incredibly hot” and everyoneon the line laughed.

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