Fleshbot Commenters: Strength in Shame

You can go elsewhere for inside peeks at how things work around the Fleshbot compound and mothership, but I'll just say that in my three years working here I have only met one other Gawker Media personality who wasn't already known to me. Such is the terrible loneliness required of being so goddamn scintillating, that gathering us in one room might vaporize the vicinity in white-hot fire.

Thus it was odd when I joined a party for little sister site Jezebel's commenters in L.A. (I supplied the door prize porn). I had one thing on my mind: Find out why we've got, like, eight commenters on Fleshbot while all other Gawker Media blogs have thousands.

First, who would have thought to have a party for commenters? Well, delightful pixie Molly McAleer, girl videographer of Defamer, that's who.

"So many people comment on the site that I thought I'd put together a Jezebel party," she said. "Can you bring porn?"

"Yes," I said, "but your commenters identify themselves to each other and aren't content to just read the site?"

"No, they feel compelled to add their opinion and build community," she didn't actually say, but might have.

At the party, which was attended by about 20 Jezebel commenters of varied ages and genders, from students to married couples to a nascent epidemiologist to someone who said Dario Argento's most recent film made her sad, I asked people - all Fleshbot readers, too - why they never commented on our compelling and turgidifying fare.

Here are the top three reasons:

· "I can't look at cocks at work."

· "I don't want someone clicking my username on (apparently wholesome site) Defamer and tracing it to Fleshbot."

· "What more can I say about dirtpipe milkshakes?"

So there you have it: repression, shame, and ignorance. We're better than this, Fleshbot readers. For some reason, comments say as much about a site as Alexa ratings. So take your work laptop into the bathroom with you and look at cocks there, and comment on those cocks, and learn about all the wonderful places they go, and comment on that, too.

And then maybe Fleshbot commenters can get a party someday.

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Previously: Fleshbot Comments: Stalking Made Easy