We’re lucky here at The Mary Sue to have a healthy comment section (with light moderation). And we know we’re lucky because we practically live on the internet, we witness how bad it gets out there on a daily basis (I even started a tumblr dedicated to how weird it can get). Well it just so happens Etsy user CupcakesAndMace is selling this necklace in a variety of colors to help remind you (and others) to stay far away from comment sections. They write, “Take brilliantly written articles with a spoon full of sugar instead of a squeeze of lemon in the eye and stop reading the comments. The world will be a brighter place when you forget how many idiots there are out there.” If you need some extra help, you could also follow this Twitter account.

(via Dreamyeyed)

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Cheeky, cheeky, Netflix, putting one of your own original series here. The day may come when we see HBO shows available to stream on Netflix. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day.

Not now that more Americans can watch Netflix than HBO.

Remember the heart-warming story of the dad who hacked Donkey Kong so his 3-year-old daughter could play as a princess? Saccharin sweet, right? Well, not to internet trolls, who we’ve already established have no heart (or brain for that matter). Youtuber Shesellssheshells put together a vocalized compilation of some of the comments on the father’s original video. The results may shock you. [Warning: Video contains graphic, terrible internet comments throughout.]

(via Topless Robot)

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If you’re a Facebook sort of person, you might be familiar with the page I Fucking Love Science and its PG-13 counterpart Science is Awesome, both run by the same person. Or you might be familiar with the pages, but not the person. I say that because apparently many of those who like the page and follow its posts had no idea of the identity of Elise Andrew, an English blogger by way of Canada. Which, in and of itself is no bad thing. Though Andrew has done interviews before and mentions her gender in the page’s About, IFLS and SiA are both written in a general style without out much personal interjection from her, and certainly everybody has a right to release only so much info as they want to on the internet.

What’s notable, or perhaps depressingly mundane, about the reaction to a recent post in which Andrew plugged her Twitter feed, the avatar of which is a picture of her face, is the number of people who A) were excited to share their shock that a science blog was run by a woman or B) figured this was license to share their opinion on her relative attractiveness.

When do you go from banning/blocking someone on your websites to having a judge do it for you? Buffy the Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother star Alyson Hannigan had that decided in court this week after receiving threats online.

Or, at the very least, internet comments make us more polarized about scientific findings. According on an online (where else?) survey, readers who saw an article on a politically neutral scientific subject followed by a batch of rude comments were more likely to develop rigid ideas about the subject right there and then than folks who read the same article accompanied by comments that were politely disagreeing.

Blackberry and Neil Gaiman have been doing a very interesting project lately. With a bit of funding and organization from Blackberry (in exchange for branding the… collaboration? contest? public art project?), Gaiman solicited tweets a little while ago from his followers, asking them twelve questions, one for each month of the year. The author then picked twelve of those responses and used them as the prompts for twelve tiny stories, a Calendar of Tales. Now the collaboration is back to the public again, as folks are invited to make art (and eventually videos) of all kinds in response to his twelve little fictions. Some of the artwork will be featured especially in a limited edition book, but I imagine we’ll be seeing lots and lots of it on the internet as well.

Gaiman’s twelve stories have just been released here (link is to a .pdf!), so if you’re looking for something to peruse over your lunch hour today, you could do worse.

Previously in Neil Gaiman

Because, like, you might not survive if you can’t look at things like this. According to a new ruling in Germany, that is.

Ahh, making internet videos about comments on internet videos, it’s like spitting into the wind. Only much wittier.

Shortly after James Gunn issued his sincere apology for an ambiguously satirical post on his blog that was rediscovered by fans in the wake of his appointment as the director of Marvel Studio’s Guardians of the Galaxy, The Mary Sue received a letter in our inbox from a writer for another major entertainment blog. It contained what we thought were some very well put thoughts on the reaction against the reaction against Gunn’s post. We asked her if she would be comfortable publishing a form of the letter on the site, and she assented as long as she could make a few edits for the new format and she could obscure which specific site she worked for, which necessarily required the post to be published anonymously. Things were delayed a bit by the holidays and revisions, but without further ado, here’s her post.