YouTube is wonderful. Never in human history have we had access to such a broad and diverse range of video content. And it’s all just a click away. Top 100 music videos? Yep. Obscure British comedy sketches from the 1980’s? It’s there.
What a pity about the comments section. For whatever reason, YouTube suffers from an inordinate amount of toxic comments. It’s for this reason that, no matter what I’m watching, I never scroll down. But that’s just me. Some people, like product designer David Diamond, see things differently.
In the case of Diamond, he just released a Google Chrome extension called Comment Mode. Once activated, this lets you watch a video and read the comments simultaneously. You can see what this looks like above.
Comment Mode doesn’t work automatically. Rather, it has to be activated on a video-by-video basis. This is done by pressing the Comment Mode icon on the video control bar..
Those who use YouTube to interact with their favorite personalities, or are members of certain fandom communities, will probably get a lot out of Comment Mode. If that’s you, you can add to your browser bar here
But for the rest of us who wish to minimize their exposure to the literal Three Mile Island that constitutes the lower 3/4ths of a YouTube video are best giving this one a pass.
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