Weird comments have been popping up underneath popular videos on YouTube, and they have people scratching their heads.
There’s this theory that’s been floating around for a while now known as the “dead internet theory.” Basically, the idea suggests that the majority of the internet is now populated by bots, and that most of the content and interactions you see online are all the actions of AI programmed to manipulate the human population, like how bots pushed for the Snydercut to be released. It’s kind of a crackpot conspiracy theory, but every now and then something happens that kind of makes me think there could be some truth to it.
I’m talking about the latest weird internet occurrence of course, which has seen a bunch of strange comments appear on YouTube today, all with hundreds of likes, and all basically stealing other comments whilst inserting gibberish into them. It’s got something to do with AWM39V, the same seemingly random string of letters and numbers can be found in every one of these comments which is a dead giveaway that they are all linked somehow.
The phenomenon certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed, with Reddit users first noticing the comments appearing on the trailer for the new Star Wars series, The Acolyte. Although others have claimed to see them on other videos including the latest Joe Rogan podcast, among other things. The comments are usually somewhat related to the videos they appear under, but it was pretty broken English. Users on Reddit began coming up with theories as to what this could all possibly mean.
What could the AWM39V comments be?
The answer is pretty obvious: It’s bots, it’s always bots. A bunch of code designed to spam comment sections for one reason or another. Some suggested it could be bad code which has resulted in the weird broken English and the inclusion of the random letters and numbers in each comment. Others theorized that it could be a tactic to get the term AWM39V to appear in Google search results — in which case, this article is playing right into the bot’s hands.
Looking a little further into it, you you can find a website discussing crypto news where the same letters and numbers appear in an article title. This has led many to believe that these comments are all related to a crypto scam. It would make sense; the comments drive up search, and lead people to this shady crypto site. It’s not conclusive proof, but it’s the best lead we’ve got that explains the comments so far.
Right now the best thing to do if you see one of these comments is just report it as spam. That’s what plenty of people are already doing. Bot comments aren’t uncommon on the internet, this one just caught people’s attention due to it very obviously being spam.
