I discovered Internet Comment Etiquette through h3h3Productions, a popular YouTube commentary channel that acted as my de-facto news source for the YouTube community.
Internet Comment Etiquette or Commentiquette is an educational comedy program created and hosted by Erik Hoffstad — aka Salvia Erik — aka Big Money Salvia — designed to teach people of all shapes and sizes how to exhibit proper etiquette in comment sections across the internet.
My introduction to Internet Comment Etiquette came after Hoffstad was featured on the h3h3 podcast and gave his own one-off segment called Erik’s Conspiracy Closet. After that, I decided to throw on his “Music Videos” lesson and immediately fell in love.
Hoffstad covers all sorts of topics in his lessons ranging from “Staying Happy,” to ”How to Apologize Online,” to “Things You’re Doing Wrong.” and brings his Hunter Thompson-esque writing style into the pit of chaos that exists in comment sections across any and all internet platforms.
He also has a recurring series called “Tweets from the Class,” where he answers pertinent questions from his students on Twitter. If it has a comment section Hoffstad will be there to provide his students with a shining example of how to conduct yourself properly among your peers.
The vulgar, quick-witted and absurdist comments Hoffstad leaves across the web quickly became my favorite thing to watch online. Much like Doug Stanhope had done for me with stand-up comedy — Commentiquette took the top spot as the No. 1 performer above all of the other long-held staples I had in my list of favorites.
Erik’s latest video “Avoiding Surveillance,” marks a new chapter in the Commentiquette classroom as his most well polished video to date. The increase in production value and added story is indicative of a more mature show that will seemingly become stronger with time.
Hoffstad first gained popularity with several viral videos of him smoking salvia and attempting to perform different tasks back in 2009. The first Commentiquette lesson was released in 2012, and as of 2018 he is still criminally underviewed.
His disjointed upload schedule is often a point of contention with his audience, but I can never truly blame him for taking a while in between uploads when I am trying to procrastinate on my own work by watching his.
In the case of his latest lesson it was well worth the wait, but even with a brand new 17-minute video to enjoy it was still over too quickly. Despite how much recognition I think Hoffstad deserves and how much content I want to consume, I don’t want to present the kind of problem a show like “Rick and Morty,” ran into where an overwhelming amount of praise and positive press has ultimately rendered them underwhelming and overblown.
If there was a way to give Big Money some more money without letting him be swallowed by the slow death of mainstream success then I am rooting for that to happen. I donate to his Patreon to try and help in my own small way, and his latest video is also the first to ever include a sponsor which seems to be an indicator of some positive traction for him.
The key is going to be supporting him without blowing too much smoke up his ass and creating absurdly high standards for him to try and meet. After all, he is a drunken clown who spends too much time jerking around to actually upload enough to become hyper successful.
But, in the end, he is a drunken clown that I aspire to be like one day. Even if he remains criminally under-reviewed, he is still my hero.
