Roger Gathmann<p>I noticed years ago that the <a href="https://zirk.us/tags/AmericanPain" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AmericanPain</span></a>, which used to die in shacks and mansions unheard, has migrated to the Net to be heard – for every pain wants an ear, desperately. Thus, my morbid fascination with the comments on <a href="https://zirk.us/tags/YouTube" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>YouTube</span></a> videos, a vast lamentation. It is here that mothers grieve daughters gone to overdose, daughters grieve mothers gone to Covid, and crooked lives find, at least for a comment, some airing. <br>This is, I believe, a unique ethical and aesthetic phenomenon.</p>