You know who needs hugs? Underappreciated comments from 2016! January 6, 2017 1:32 PM   Subscribe

The underdogs. The under-appreciated. The under-noticed comments from last year, the ones that you enjoyed and favorited and wish to share with other MeFites. Now is the time. This is the place. Bring to the Grey your favorite comments of 2016!

(Spread the love: preferably comments with fewer than 12 favorites, and not self-links, please.)

Previously: 2015; 2014; 2013...
posted by MonkeyToes to MetaFilter-Related at 1:32 PM (56 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite

I'm not surprised that few folks were still following the thread about the 2016 World Chess Championship a few weeks and 16 games after it started. But I liked that Exceptional_Hubris capped it off with an anecdote about encountering the victorious Magnus Carlsen after the final game.
posted by Kabanos at 1:52 PM on January 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


On a thread about dialing Sweden and being put through to a random Swede to talk to (the recent MetaFilter podcast phone-in jogged the memory of this):

Do you think they can help me assemble a MALM?
posted by schmod at 2:04 AM on April 8, 2016
posted by Wordshore at 2:05 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


turbid dahlia + direwolves = true love always

excellent '08 election reference by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon [NOTE: at the end of a 4600+ comment election thread]

Bulgaroktonos* + Mrs. Pterodactyl trivia callback by solarion

sammyo re: Trainspotting 2

* holy shit, I spelled this correctly on the very first try
posted by amnesia and magnets at 2:08 PM on January 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


it's less fun searching my favourites this year as so many of them are excited and optimistic election thread comments that i can't really reread without slithering into the pit of existential darkness
posted by poffin boffin at 2:15 PM on January 6, 2017 [33 favorites]


I apparently have very mainstream Metafilter taste in comments. Everything I favorited has 50+ other favorites.
posted by COD at 2:18 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Late in a long, dystopian, narrative-crushing election year, during a goofy flotation-centric derail in the nervous calm before a literal storm, ricochet biscuit strolled right up and perfectly lanced an understated West Wing reference with
Hurricanes, buoy, I don't know.
Also this is slightly offbrand but I still love every single comment in this stupid pun thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:19 PM on January 6, 2017 [9 favorites]


Most of my favorites from 2016 are not particularly happy but I stumbled across this little anecdote from usonian, which I can't help but imagine acted by early Michael Cera.

This one is depressing but worth a read: Pizzagate spills over into Austin, TX restaurant East Side Pies (from spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints, who incidentally has a wonderful username).

As a palate cleanser here's psoas doing the Silicon Valley Friends theme song.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:53 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


poffin boffin had a great new fashion idea.

I'm still grateful for Huffy Puffy's gentle reminder about Texas voting and Southern civil rights history.

sneebler enthusiastically encouraging us to embrace the rot!

Short Attention Sp's border collie has a surprisingly sensible philosophy.

Mr. Bad Example knows way cooler scientists than I do.

oh god I'm only into January this was a terrible idea
posted by sciatrix at 3:00 PM on January 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Here are some I'm still smiling/thinking about:

Bob Dylan described as a typical Nobel Laureate (Kattullus)

"just Wagon Train in space" (JoeZydeco)

a very concerned commenter on Playmobil BMX stunts (Jane the Brown)

Crossing the Nullarbor (The Notorious SRD)

Depression is the Dread Pirate Roberts (plinth)

Vote Mexit (EndsOfInvention)

Night of the Hunter was a documentary about my childhood (pxe2000)

Metatalk is the Seattle process in text form (fireoyster)

Denial and addiction (Maias)

It exceeds the numerical criteria slightly, but the latin mouse's comment deserves to be seen and favorited by everyone who has ever worked in the arts

I wanted to link everything in this thread individually, all the answers are so good
posted by thetortoise at 4:12 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Elly Vortex has sound advice for keeping in touch without Facebook.

jessamyn talks about a scary monster among the books.

madamjujujive's tale of turkey terror! And from mudpuppie: OH HEY, CEMETERY TURKEYS!

How cold was it, wenestvedt?

A giant illuminated octopus? Yes, please, and thanks, exogenous!

jetlagaddict's memories of the flipping departure board at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia evoked a lot of nostalgia.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:15 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


This post made me belly laugh, and I really hope poffin boffin has played Hitman. There's a lot of stuff you can do with toilets!
posted by selfnoise at 4:16 PM on January 6, 2017


cortex: Also this is slightly offbrand but I still love every single comment in this stupid pun thread.

For those who missed that thread, note that cortex himself was an absolute monster in there, his 300+ comments including such gems as How I Met Your Mothra; Sherlock Holmes Alone; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Interrupted; and Immanuel Kant Hardly Wait -- pop culture mashups that not only made us laugh but made us think.

I'm struggling here to put a sincere spin on phrases like "touched something primal," "reached another plane of existence," and "missed his true calling." It was an impressive thread.
posted by john hadron collider at 6:05 PM on January 6, 2017 [5 favorites]




Devonian intruducing a teeny weeny spider, and continuing to defend it.

Yes!

I thought of Devonian two nights ago when I was lying in bed - wait a second, I'm going somewhere with this - I was about to shut off the light when I looked up and saw a teeny house spider making its way back up the the ceiling via a strand of web. I wished it good night and turned off the light.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:11 PM on January 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also this is slightly offbrand but I still love every single comment in this stupid pun thread.

That thread was a thing of beauty. I'm cracking up just rereading all the Oldboy riffs.

ah, we were so young and full of hope, then
posted by Existential Dread at 8:51 PM on January 6, 2017


My favorites from this year are a couple little oddball tangents:

Naval history curiosity in a Eurovision thread.

The linked tweet here is one of my favorite things on the Internet.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:40 PM on January 6, 2017




HuronBob scores a 13/10 h*cken empathetic from @therapist_rates
posted by drlith at 10:00 PM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


The one AskMe that has stuck in my mind, with its attendant collection of I-can't-believe-I'm-writing-this comments, is this food one.
posted by Wordshore at 11:18 PM on January 6, 2017


This one has 22 faves but that is way too few for a comment where pjern tell us his grandfather relayed the 1908 Cubs World Series win by telegraph in Galesburg! That is some historic stuff!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 12:57 AM on January 7, 2017 [2 favorites]




In the thread HuronBob was being empathetic in that drlith mentioned above, sp160n has to win a prize for most failed reducto ad absurdum of the year with:

...the fact that we don't having nursing homes for elderly capybaras is a severe emergency.

Well, I'd never thought about it before, but yes, I think society should start fixing this right now.
posted by ambrosen at 3:04 AM on January 7, 2017


BlueHorse's response to this thread is perfect. (Scroll up for context)
posted by duffell at 4:12 AM on January 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


Pretty much the entirety of The Cheese Heist Movie MetaTalk thread.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:26 AM on January 7, 2017 [4 favorites]


Go to this thread. Scroll down until you see some ALL CAPS. That comment has a bunch of favorites already, so keep scrolling until you see a bunch more ALL CAPS. They all deserve more love.
posted by Etrigan at 8:52 AM on January 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


mandolin conspiracy composed a little song. E. Whitehall gave a lot of thought to doors on spaceships.

And apparently I favourite like a 12-year-old...
posted by Banknote of the year at 9:03 AM on January 7, 2017


Oh the cheese heist mention reminds me; I can answer one of the remaining questions now due to a recent conversation with a somewhat indiscreet doctor's surgery receptionist. Namely:

Why did "Andy" have eighteen pounds of Red Leicester cheese?

So. Back some time before the cheese AskMe, Andy bought a regular block of cheese from the supermarket. He got home, ate some of it, and was ill afterwards.

Andy took the cheese back to the supermarket, confronted the manager, and threatened all manner of things e.g. legal damages. The manager - ex-army type - stood his ground and dared him to try any of the things he threatened. Andy backed off.

Andy, with his anger issues, seeked retribution and visited the supermarket over a period of time, stealing blocks of cheese as he went. When he returned to his base, adding to whatever, his "cheese vengeance trophy collection" or whatever his angry mind thought it was.

The odd thing was; Andy kept trying to eat some of the cheese but it kept making him ill. After a visit to the doctor it turned out he had milk or cheese allergy or intolerance or something. The cheese was perfectly fine. But he kept stealing it because ... I don't know why. It's the kind of thing angry/vengeful people do?

Eventually he was suspected of the continuing anomalies in the stock levels of cheese at the supermarket and banned from the store on sight. Why was he suspected? Because the doctor's receptionist and the store manager are a couple (in small isolated English communities and valleys, everyone eventually mates with everyone else*) and they had a conversation and joined the dots.

And, like Rogue One to A New Hope (but with cheese instead of death star data files), that's the prequel for how we arrived at the start of the cheese heist rural English village farce. Andy has now moved far away thankfully so my concern about having an axe embedded in my front door has abated. He apparently now spends much of his day, in his place in the north of England, being very angry on Reddit as he is under some kind of curfew.

tl;dr - the cheese was originally stolen by someone with an allergy/intolerance to cheese.

* This is an exaggeration, but to a degree that varies greatly from village to village. Everyone has needs. I come from one and we observed that the farm next to ours had not so much a family tree, but a family graph. Several of us in my year at village primary school also bore an uncanny resemblance to the then-retired village milkman, but that's another thing.
posted by Wordshore at 10:12 AM on January 7, 2017 [118 favorites]


- In thread "Detained German physicists hear about atomic bomb (transcript)", lollusc had a comment that managed to turn the whole premise of the article on its head for me, making it less Ken Follett and more Christopher Priest.

- This is from July 2015, but I kept returning to this languagehat comment as the year went on, for obvious election related reasons.

- Comment about punk and fashion from Frowner

- In Ask, a mikeh answer to the question "Did my carpet cleaner just tell me he was on drugs" that made me laugh a lot (and still does).

Finally, every answer in the (still unresolved!) Ask question "Who here likes puzzles?", especially the bespoke Turbo Heaven Android app that quinndexter made.
posted by rollick at 10:32 AM on January 7, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh, I didn't even see Westringia F.'s great follow-up to the German physicist thread until looking again -- obviously also under-appreciated!
posted by rollick at 10:37 AM on January 7, 2017 [1 favorite]




T. D. Strange sums up Pence.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 1:31 PM on January 7, 2017


I appreciated the eponysterical quality of this response. Though the answer was wrong, I did learn some things about Miami Vice.
posted by terooot at 2:35 PM on January 7, 2017


XMLicious points out that Martian moons aren't potato-shaped; potatoes are Martian-moon shaped.

wenestvedt: "ENTER IT IN THE BOOK OF CONFLICTS" which makes me LOL every time I run across it and I'm going to start shouting it at my relatives.

aurynn shares my frustrations with Epitaph, but phrased much more amusingly.

Jeopardy! style: "tiny Illinoises" -- what are The sounds an Eastern Tiger Salamander makes when it doesn't feel well? That's right, Johnny Wallflower!

stet recommends FRUIT FOR THE FRUIT GOD!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:06 PM on January 7, 2017 [1 favorite]




behold i have emerged from my pit to shame mankind

hypatia has very important priorities during a laugh attack

drumcorpse's accidental snapchatting

like_neon recounts a friend's australian toilet terror

bigbigdog writes an important story about bears

louche mustachio is the only art critic whose views interest me

rh envisions a delectable future for all mankind

feral_goldfish on thinkpieces of the 1880s

the demon that lives in the air recounts one of my favourite literary moments of all time

zeusian fog on the horrors of babies

honorable mention goes to every single commenter in the glorious tronc thread

i have laughed at this comment at least once a week since we were all blessed by its presence back in june and i cannot with any level of coherence explain why

christ im fucking cackling helplessly right now
posted by poffin boffin at 4:01 AM on January 8, 2017 [3 favorites]




Where is my MeFi beer nerd podcast, please?

i have emerged in human form
posted by beerperson at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh my god, that puns thread implodes and then just keeps on circling its own all-consuming drain, spitting out dumb titles like Hawking radiation from a black hole.

Don't Tell Mom, The Babysitter's Deadpool?
Fievel Goes Westeros?
My Left Footloose?

I hate how much I love you, Metafilter.
posted by deludingmyself at 11:26 AM on January 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Where is my MeFi beer nerd podcast, please?

i have emerged in human form


One's also emerged in, well, podcast form...Kitteh's posted hers over in Projects: Harpy Hour - a podcast about women in craft beer & spirits
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:02 PM on January 8, 2017 [4 favorites]


I also liked almost exclusively popular comments this year, but I'm glad I looked through all my favorites and was reminded: you could feel the sky alerted us that there exists in the world a giant rabbit named Suitcase who goes out for walks.
posted by clavicle at 1:43 PM on January 8, 2017


This got some favs, but it was in MetaTalk over Christmas week, so many people may have missed Eyebrows McGee's holiday mod nightmare, Edgar Allen Poe style.

I also liked Atom Eyes' summation of the life of a snowman in the C&H inspired thread last month. And from the thread on The Quidnunc Kid's amazing LOTR limerick summary, plinth's youthful summary of Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

While we're on the subject of Tolkien, I'm mostly avoiding my politics favorites, but let's just all agree that Grangousier warned us way back in May. Fly, you fools!

codacorolla described a card game I would play in the tail end of that thread on magical healing, and made me almost snort a beverage with this summary of what they think the musical Cats is probably about, having never actually seen Cats. (Spoiler alert: invented plot summary has at least an order of magnitude more plot than the actual musical.)

AskMeFi, the world's finest crowdsourced agony aunt, continued to tell it like it is in 2016. ldthomps: This isn't a dress rehearsal life. You don't get to stick around in limbo never getting your needs met just because you want to keep your parents, or your wife, or WHOEVER happy, and then do it over again later. bilabial, on how to decide what kind of houseplants are compatible with your lifestyle. And fullerine's answer to this post on jokes to make middle schoolers laugh still makes me laugh. No comment on what that says about my sense of humor.

Thanks for being clever and making my friends, family and coworkers ask what I'm laughing at for another year, everyone.
posted by deludingmyself at 2:25 PM on January 8, 2017


I was very happy with the entire 3 Bears/porridge derail in the Star Wars Obstetrics thread.

beerperson's finding the bright side to Turkmenestan's empty show city.

Slightly more than 12 favorites, but damn Fizz's dad has it going on.

Though I already regret giving the man more encouragement, this pun from cortex made me snort.

Also thank you poffin boffin for pointing out the tronc thread which I had missed. I needed those laughs today.
posted by Mchelly at 4:49 PM on January 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


Advice on the cool kids from Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The

Advice for the haters from The corpse in the library

Zippy's clever addition to a recursive food party

Falcon Crest White Strips by Mayor West is my favorite entry in the thread everyone has already posted
posted by soelo at 8:28 AM on January 9, 2017


This is one of my favorite MetaFilter things. So glad that you posted it, MonkeyToes!

In reverse chrono order:
-xdvesper links to some actually really cool drone photos of natural wonders
-mahorn teaches us about comparison of adjectives
-flabdablet shares my feelings about supermarket self-checkout machines
-naju reframes the Academy into a marketer's dream demographic and illustrates using The King's Speech
-puffin boffin is 500% correct about both the Pilgrims and turkey
-lazuli breaks down their criteria on when to give feedback
-C.A.S. blows my mind by mentioning the Russian Aluminum Wars of the 1990s, which despite sounding like something out of Gibson did actually exist and were super (deadly) serious
-TheWhiteSkull creates 'be kind to yourself' instructions for putting together IKEA furniture and mdonley makes me green with envy by describing a delivery and assembly service IKEA provides in countries alas not mine
-jonmc goes crouton petter on canceled tv shows
-suddenly, and without warning, explains the annoyance of modern cookbooks and food blogs that exposit for far too long before finally coughing up a goddamn ingredient list
-maxsparber writes an excellent Midwestern Lutheran insult
-chavenet plays with fractions
posted by librarylis at 1:08 PM on January 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh my god, I can't believe I missed the continuation of the cheese heist story! Thank you SO MUCH for bringing the resolution to my attention. IMO, that pretty much wins Metafilter for the year.
posted by telepanda at 1:15 PM on January 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh man, I always say I'm going to remember comments for this, then start looking through my favorited comments and to get through halfway through December 2016 I'm on Page 14, so I'm going to narrow it down to things that made me laugh in this single-link Cosmopolitan post, and also were under the 12-favorite limit because the entire thread had me cackling (even on a re-read just now)

emelenjr's 'yo dawg' riff

nubs' unexpected bonus guess

a halcyon day's genious Bento box idea
posted by Fig at 1:57 PM on January 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Someone needs to write a bookmarklet that scrapes your profile for favorites from the past year with under X favorites to make this thread easier next year.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:07 AM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


I mean, what even are feet?
posted by Rock Steady at 6:12 AM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh my word, how did I miss that Cosmo post! Thanks, ... uh ... Fig...
posted by drlith at 7:10 AM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


ODiV's sly Seinfeld reference in the no-spending MeTa.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:05 AM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yes, someone please make me a script so I can participate and also get some work done today.
posted by maryr at 9:31 AM on January 10, 2017


I would also like to know which comment gained the most in favourites after being linked from one of these threads, which is probably a much more difficult ask.
posted by rollick at 9:40 AM on January 10, 2017


Bob Regular: "Booby hatch?" What the hell? Is that sort of like a "freak wharf?" That's the perfect comparison and I always enjoy any sort of PFT reference.

Buttcakes. They should be called buttcakes. from bunderful. I don't know why that one got me when similar easy one-offs don't, but it still makes me laugh.

caution live frogs is happy this wasn't an obit. I haven't noticed it as much but for a while it felt like every post about a living person had someone saying "Please tell us in the post that they're not dead! I was so worried!" and this gave it the humor I needed to just laugh them all off.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:17 PM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Gorgi's rollercoaster of emotion watching mad MTB tricks.
Knapah shows the real meaning of Britishness - swearing at the Tories.
poffin boffin has some outside-the-box thinking on pinatas for dads.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:24 AM on January 11, 2017 [2 favorites]




en forme de poire on the nature showering while ADHD, because, yeah
Pater Alethias on whether early Christians considered the soul immortal, which was informative, interesting, and strangely comforting in the context of my approach to Pascal's Wager
Abehammerb Lincoln's RPS problem, which is a lovely image
posted by invitapriore at 11:59 AM on January 15, 2017


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