Our Commenter Appreciation Post and The 10 Most Prolific Eloquent Eloquents of 2014

By Dustin Rowles | Eloquent Eloquence | December 31, 2014 |

By Dustin Rowles | Eloquent Eloquence | December 31, 2014 |

I’ve often described our comments section here on Pajiba like the cast of Saturday Night Live: It’s always evolving, and the one that you came in on will always be your favorite. There’s an interesting life cycle to many of our most regular commenters: They come in, they light up the place, we fall in love with them, and often, someone from the Facebook Pajibans (or the Old Guard) pulls them into Facebook, and though they promise they won’t leave the comments section, they usually do once they make friends (both virtually and in real life) with other Facebook Pajibans. They still pop in and out, and most claim that they continue to check the site, but they’re usually not as prolific as they once were. There are some many hours in the day, after all. Of course, a year or two later, they’re also complaining on Facebook about how great the comments section used to be.

That’s OK, though. After enough time has passed, I’ve loved every generation of Pajiba commenter (and still keep up with many of y’all on FB), and though there are occasionally some rough patches, the Eloquents here police themselves and other commenters better than I have ever seen on other sites, no matter who are the dominating voices of the section.

It really is a great place, and after running this place for over a decade, it’s still my very favorite part of the site, even on the assholiest of days.

“Don’t read the comments” is a common refrain among those of us who write on the Internet, but it doesn’t apply here, because you can piss us the hell off on some days, and you can nag at our insecurities on others, but on the whole, it’s the loveliest, wittiest, most thoughtful place to be on the Internet.

I wish I could thank you all individually, but I’d be here all day describing all of your commenting merits, so for the sake of brevity, I will thank the ten most prolific commenters of 2014 (best I can tell), but we really do adore you all. Except that one guy (you know who you are).

Happy New Year, Eloquents! We hope to see you back here in 2015.

The Most Prolific Commenters of the Year

Mrs. Julien — Mrs. Julien has had an odd up-and-down year that actually took her away from the site for long spells, but she really is the heart and soul of our comments section, and persnickety or not, we wouldn’t know what to do without her.

emmalita — The Queen of the Upvote is probably the most supportive of our commenters, both to the writers and her fellow commenters. If you’re having a shitty day, emmalita always has a kind word to life your spirits.

NateMan — Along with relative newbie JoeK, NateMan is one of our wittiest commenters, he almost always has a witty comeback to go along with every post, adds something to nearly every discussion, and is one of the Eloquents I haven’t met yet who I’d most want to meet in real life.

Bweaves — Bweaves has never met someone she couldn’t throw off her lawn. She’s our female Eastwood, railing at the damn youths, most of whom she’s never heard of.

lowercase ryan — lowercase Ryan is one of the few regulars who got absorbed into the Pajiba Facebook world and still finds time to come back to the mother site, and I appreciate the hell out of that. He’s also seen as much TV as anyone on staff, is obsessed with Serial, and I’m pretty sure he never sleeps.

Sara_Tonin00 — We used to have a regular for years by the name of Jay, before he got absorbed into the Facebook world. He was the site contrarian. Sara_Tonin00 is his spiritual successor: She calls us out on ALL of our shit on a daily basis, but we love her anyway.

e jerry powell — I don’t care what gender you are, there’s an awesome gay man trapped in all of us, and we’d be lucky if that trapped gay man were half as cool as e jerry powell. He is the brilliant voice of our male lust.

ZbornakSyndrome — ZbornakSyndrome is wonder made of magic made of glory made of endless gif libraries.

zeke_the_pig — Zeke is our favorite drunken British commenter. He drops by and binge-comments during periods of lucidity, and while he hasn’t been around lately as much as we’d like (we miss you, zeke!), he’s one the sharpest, most acerbic, thoughtful, and bitchy commenters in all of Pajiban history.

Quartermain — If every Republican/Libertarian were as funny, thoughtful, and as full of common sense as Quartermain, there would be no political divide. He keeps us in check, and he’s one of the nicest, most patient dudes in Pajiba comments section hisotry.