Taia777
The world of checkpoints in the YouTube comments.
Ran across this link in the mmm.page discord last week. I’m not linking to the video part of the page here - to be honest, I haven’t watched it yet. The video is not irrelevant here - but there is just a lot going on in the comments.
In fact, these aren’t just comments - but checkpoints! A new kind of comment where you check in and say how life is going. That’s all there is to it![1]
The Taia777 Sanctuary Discord describes checkpoints as ‘spiritual comments’:
When people listen to the song and see the background of the vines/sky, it invokes a sense of nostalgia and curiosity. It’s hard to explain. It brings you back to a simpler time, when everything was controlled and bliss. But it can also amplify the current state you’re in, causing a complete reevaluation of yourself, and perhaps an epiphany of your existence as well. Many people have found solace in the comment section, as they pour their hearts and souls out to anonymous people on the internet.
It’s unknown what the first spiritual comment was, but when the video was first recommended to me around 2017, I recall seeing people question their identity and reality; I had also translated several of the Japanese comments, many of them sending their love to the unknown and those who are lost. Ever since I can remember, the taia777 comment section has been filled with love and, for many people, has been a safe space where people can vent with no repercussions. Everyone’s experience with these videos is different, but what’s universal is the utilization of the pathos. Emotions will be involved one way or another.
An even more popular video is taia777’s “Corridors of Time” video - while there are some checkpoints attached to this video, most of it is color commentary on this peculiar subculture.
Along similar lines (and also brought up in the original discussion on Discord,) this video of Porter Robinson & Madeon’s “Shelter”. Except that the comments section in this video is dominated by a single user (name of JustJeff) posting checkpoints daily!
From a few hours ago:
Day 824: Finished “That time I got reincarnated as a slime” season 2 today. Man I love that anime
Sorry, it’s not strictly JustJeff. There are a lot of comments that are fake checkpoints, parodies or copycats.
I can’t help but feel that the stigma around YouTube comments - once seen as the premiere cesspool of the Internet - has perhaps made them the perfect spot for this kind of natural flowering of humanity. A great balancing has transpired.
It actually is so much better than a normal comment. ↩︎
