The meanest comment on the internet

…is actually a compliment.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

“Aw, I love how you just wear anything…” —Kate

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Every so often, I’ll see a compliment that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy posted under someone’s TikTok. I’ve taken to sharing them on my Instagram Story when I’m feeling particularly exhausted. “OMG I’m in love with her non-botoxed face!!!” reads one I found on a video podcast interview with Emma Watson. “I see wrinkles! I see facial expressions! I see emotion! Love love love.” This comment has 5,356 likes, and is the meanest thing I could think of anyone ever saying to me.

If you don’t yet see why, I’ll go ahead and pluck out another from this genre. Picture this: You are a woman, you are on vacation in Paris, and you are over the age of 40. “I see my future,” the top comment reads, “and it’s bright 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰.”

Neither of these videos were about the person’s age or their appearance. But even on these videos of women simply living their lives, the comments make clear that both those things are still the most notable aspects about them. In a well-meaning effort to counter the decades of tabloid scrutiny that put a generation of women in a futile race against time, these comments end up saying exactly the same thing, but with emojis. I’d truly rather you just called me old.

And “old” is getting younger and younger on TikTok. I first wrote about this back in 2022.

TikTok knows I’m 29, and perhaps some cruel elf working the algorithm is the one responsible for putting videos like this one on my feed. In it, a pair of 24-year–olds fret about seeming out of place at a college bar of 22-year-olds, which is like a dog worrying about being out of place in a room of identical dogs. Then there are videos like this, where a 30-year-old documents herself wearing the clothes made popular by teenagers as if she was, like, Steve Buscemi. In this one, a user simply remarks how good Alexa Demie looks for 31—an age Demie may or may not be (the star is, seemingly, purposefully silent on the matter).

“This app gives me a heart attack about my age every day,” one commenter wrote.

The thought I’d add, at a wise and ancient 32, is that no one app is to blame for these attitudes. Rather, a platform like TikTok is a reflection of what we, real people, are already feeling. So many women are still very scared of aging, which is why we rejoice in video proof of women getting older and their lives being relatively unchanged.

“I feel like there’s a gap in the living world of older women that young people can be around and not feel like it’s a burden,” Deborah, a creator from the “over-65 side of TikTok,” told me in 2023. “They just see being old as being awful. We’re aging and isolating ourselves and young people, I think, are not finding us.”

As young people have started finding the elders, they’re not being very tactful about it. This style of backhanded comment didn’t come from nowhere. Many plus-size creators could tell you about similarly clumsy statements under their unrelated videos.

“These comments pass the vibe check,” is a popular bit of commentary, and while it is again meant to convey something nice (that no one should be mean to this creator) it is really saying something else (that there’s something so obviously “wrong” with them that you were worried people would be). The “vibe check” commenter finds a way to call out something the creator may not have even been insecure about—but sure will be now!

TikTok is one of the few platforms to boast an engaging comment culture, and that’s because the comments there are a public square in and of themselves. The ones that that get the most likes are pushed to the top, and truly augment the video. After watching a TikTok, especially a funny one, I’ll very often go to the comments, which build on or subvert or call out the original content in a fresh way, and I’ll find myself laughing again.

But that means the comments aren’t necessarily for the creators; they’re for the other people watching the videos. When a person comments “I love seeing wrinkles!!!” on a video of a 35-year-old who (seemingly) hasn’t had work done, I can’t imagine it’s because they want the 35-year-old to read it. Instead, it’s a declaration to the public of their desire to turn the page on this era of plastic surgery, a sort of digital bra-burning. And ultimately I do think it’s important we shift towards a more realistic and positive view of aging—but I’ll be honest: We’re not far enough along in that acceptance that I want you loudly heralding me as the example straight to my wrinkled face…