...and post!
Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik is a YouTube comedy show hosted by American comedy writer Erik "Big Money Salvia" Hoffstad. Each episode focuses on a specific topic, ranging from "movie trailers" to "Russians dangling off building", and each episode features Erik teaching the viewers how to post "respectful" comments on everything from YouTube and Twitter to YouNow and Yahoo! Answers, usually with counterintuitive results. Although ostensibly instructing viewers on how to leave proper and respectful comments, his comments are often rude, vulgar, and rambling, often going on tangents that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.The show began in 2009, when Erik began posting episodes on his channel "LetsGOtoCLASS". In 2015, Erik started a new YouTube channel created specifically for the show. The first episode of this new channel was entitled "Starting a YouTube Channel".
You can see the channel here.
Internet Comment Etiquette contains examples of the following tropes:
- 10-Minute Retirement: When Erik briefly decides to become nice as a way to help make the internet a better place, he immediately becomes the target of trolls and team killers who assault him as an easy target. He quickly realizes that his mood altering medication was just a placebo and he returns to normal.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Erik's son, a robot named...Robot.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: Early into the "Artificial Intelligence" video, Erik attempts to leave a comment on a Boston Dynamics video, only to then mangle his own catchphrases, abruptly admit he can't remember his childhood, and then confuse the Youtube comment box for Twitter before abruptly spewing binary. It is then revealed we were actually watching a simulation Erik had created in an attempt to create episodes faster.
- The Alcoholic: Always has a glass of wine handy in his videos. He attempts to quit drinking via Training Montage in the "Drinking" video. He fails miserably, several times.
- All for Nothing: The demon that tries to claim Erik's soul during the various Occult and Halloween videos finally succeeds in "Exorcisms"... only to immediately run into Skjöldr, who already inhabits Erik's body, meaning his attempts could never succeed. He's a good sport about it though, and Skjöldr doesn't hold it against him since he couldn't have known.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After showing the infamous "incest" Folgers coffee commercial from the 2000s (in which a brother reunites with his sister after coming home from the army for Christmas, but appears to be giving his sister suggestive looks), Erik writes a very long comment in which the brother confesses to his sister that he wants to have sex with her when no one is looking. When the mother and father come downstairs, in tears and furious, respectively, it appears that they have overheard the inappropriate conversation between their children. Instead, the father simply knocks the son unconscious purely because he's drinking Folgers coffee and "this is a Peets Coffee house".
- At the beginning of the "Crib Def" video, he shows a "Last Time on..." scene that shows his next episode will be on the subject of "crib death". When it cuts back to the main video, he announces that he will do as he promised and then proceeds to spend the rest of the episode talking about "prominent" YouTube rapper DJ Crib Def, who definitely doesn't look anything like Erik wearing sunglasses. Lampshaded and parodied at the end of the video where he pulls his next topic out of an envelope, only to reveal that it's "Lou Gehrig's Disease" and concede that there's no way he can twist the wording to avoid it. Being all part of the joke, the Lou Gehrig's Disease episode never actually happened.
- His "I Hate The Postal Service" video was released around the time there was a controversy over the U.S. postal service being tampered in the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. As it turns out, though, "The Postal Service" Erik talks about in the title is actually the electronic band named The Postal Service, and expresses confusion at seeing people being passionately in favor and against "the postal service".
- Brass Balls: The comments on
"Man getting charged by a gorilla" are all about the tenacity and the Memetic Badass nature of a man standing up to a gorilla unfazed in the video. Naturally, Erik responded... - Brick Joke: After discovering that Facebook deleted his Todd Clorox account in "The Clorox Plan", Erik spins this into a positive as it proves that his shitposting account, Holiday Fartcruise, is "100% undeletable". Later on in the video, when Erik discovers Todd's active BitChute account, he discovers a video of Todd discussing this very thing.Todd: (strained) Heeey guys, Todd Clorox here... I just found out about this other Facebook account, it's called "Holiday Fartcruise"...'
- Brief Accent Imitation:
- Erik briefly types (and narrates) a comment in a stereotypically thick Cockney accent near the end of the Christmas episode and then as Nobbleberry.
- Also a Russian accent as Nubleborski.
- Catchphrase:
- "Bounced on my boy's dick to this for hours."
- "Ain't no planet x coming cause ain't no space cause ain't not globe Earth."
- "Cease your investigations."
- "...aaaand post."
- Christmas Episode: One that focuses on conspiracy theories surrounding the (allegedly Satanic) origins of Santa Claus folklore.
- Chubby Chaser: In his song "Suck My Girlfriend's Dick", DJ Crib Def mentions that he needs to "buy a bigger bed 'cause [his] girlfriend's thick".
- Conspiracy Theorist: Erik has a tendency to mock many conspiracy theorists he deals with, including Mark Dice and Alex Jones. Many of his comments parody this mindset, usually by mentioning FEMA camps or the Cloud People.
- Crossover: Erik has crossed over with Jacksfilms before, as well as YouTube musician Hot Dad and boogie2988.
- Demonic Possession: Skjöldr occasionally possesses Erik's body as a vessel, allowing him to post comments of his own.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Whenever Erik mocks a conspiracy theorist, he will often turn to the camera and talk to said theorist, claiming that only they can see this part of the video and that they should cease their investigations.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Erik had a much less animated, very deadpan delivery in his earlier videos.
- Eldritch Abomination: Helga (pronounced with a soft G), the bastard daughter of Loki and Skjöldr's queen, who is depicted only as a shadowy corner of the ceiling that constantly emits inhuman shrieks.
- Everyone Has Standards: During the "How to Apologize Online" episode, he stumbled across a man who went on the obituary page of a gay teen who committed suicide and said that God should forgive the teen for his "Sins" of being gay and killing himself, describing his suicide as "Murder". The man then proceeded to harass the family of the teen about how the teen's suicide was murder, despite them understandably wanting him to stop. Erik was pretty disgusted with the guy, calling him slimy and making everyone who watched aware that the man was running for State Senate in Utah. He didn't win.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Eric's last video for 2020 was titled "This is Just an Ad" and was an almost 3 minute long NordPass ad.
He used the Youtube Premiere feature to broadcast it live to a chat room.Eric: The video was called This is just an ad, I don't know what you guys were expecting. - Foreshadowing:
- When the horse dewormer episode turns to Facebook, Erik's guest, Dr. DeWormer, says he's unable to post anything due to Facebook deleting his account for "promoting pro-Ivermectin research", something which Erik finds a little too harsh. Once it's revealed he's actually Todd Clorox, however, it's clear he was lying about the cause.
- "Exorcisms" starts with Erik watching a video about someone exorcising a "Viking demon" from a woman, noting that it's a good thing Viking Demons aren't real. When a demon tries to claim Erik's soul at the end of the video, Skjöldr returns to inform the latter that he'd already possessed Erik, so his soul is not up for grabs.
- Funny Robot: Erik's "son", Robot, who incidentally also has a son, Robot Jr..
- Gag Haircut: During the "Erik Drinks Wine and Gets a Haircut" short film, he gets his hair shaved and dyed to look like a pineapple.
- Godzilla Threshold: "The Revenge of 5G" sees Erik trying to react calmly and peacefully in regards to people who think 5G cell towers are causing COVID-19, only to find himself reflexively being harsh and rude to people instead. Eventually, he finds his way to a Facebook group all about the conspiracy theory, and is once again blunt... only to realize how good it felt. After realizing that there's no point in trying to be nice to those people, Erik decides to stop pulling punches and "hit these people with the full force of internet comment etiquette". Namely, by going directly to Twitter, and tweeting out the link to that group to all his followers; it does not take long in the slightest for the group to get destroyed.
- Gory Discretion Shot: In the "Medical Advice" video, he censors a video of a pimples being popped by covering it with a Shakira music video.
- Gratuitous Russian: In the "Russians Dangling From Buildings" video, Erik begins the video saying that the subject might sound too weird from the show, before telling the viewer to just shut up and watch one of said videos, followed by him making a toast by saying, "Oooh, za tvoye zdorov'ye!" ("To your health!").
- Griefer: Erik constantly team kills people in video games.
- Greater-Scope Villain: In a sense: "Dr. DeWormer", the individual that shows up in Erik's video about people using horse dewormer as an alternative to the COVID vaccines, turns out to actually be Todd Clorox in disguise.
- I Am Very British: Nobbleberry crams every possible British stereotype imaginable. One Running Gag through the skits is two or more characters ending up saying "WOT?!" to one another, eventually ending up pogo-ing against each other.
- Implausible Deniability: In his video he posted to the Ivermectin subreddit, Dr. DeWormer goes into detail on how an alternate method of getting rid of COVID is to put some bleach into your body, before promptly stating he isn't Todd Clorox. Tellingly, the second people on the subreddit start to cotton on, he promptly has a meltdown on Twitter.
- Insistent Terminology: Erik never draws penises at the end of his comments, he draws rocket ships.
- Loophole Abuse: At the beginning of the "Crib Def" video, he shows a "Last Time on..." scene that shows his next episode will be on the subject of "crib death". When it cuts back to the main video, he announces that he will do as he promised and then proceeds to spend the rest of the episode talking about "prominent" YouTube rapper DJ Crib Def, who definitely doesn't look anything like Erik wearing sunglasses. Lampshaded and parodied at the end of the video where he pulls his next topic out of an envelope, only to reveal that it's "Lou Gehrig's Disease" and concede that there's no way he can twist the wording to avoid it. Being all part of the joke, the Lou Gehrig's Disease episode never actually happened.
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: His "...aaaand post." catchphrase tends to slightly vary depending of the social network he's posting in: If he's on Twitter, he'll say "...aaaand tweet.", if he's replying to a comment in a comment section other than YouTube (especially if it's on Facebook), he'll say "...aaaand reply." and so on.
- Mundane Made Awesome: After noticing that his hair had gotten too long and he had run out of wine in the "Crowdfunding" episode, Erik decided to raise money for a haircut and wine by pitching it as a short film called "Erik Drinks Wine and Gets a Haircut".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Erik broke character in his "How to Apologize Online" video out of genuine disgust at a politician trolling the memorial page for an LGBT teenager who committed suicide.
- Orwellian Retcon: "Tweets From the Class #25" sees Erik mention a desire to do a video on the Mandela Effect, hoping to one day broach the topic. The joke of course is that not only did Erik do a video on it, but he also remade it whole-cloth a couple years later... before privating both.note
- Overly Preprepared Gag: The occasional gag where a past version of Erik (e.g., pineapple Erik from 2017 or beard Erik from 2020-21) tells Present!Erik about recent celebrity deaths. Many of those clips had to have been prepared several years in advance.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Robot comes off as this a lot, due to being very anti-Semitic and racist.
- Refuge in Audacity: One of the biggest trademarks of the show, with Erik doing things like insulting Ted Cruz over twitter at least once a video and making a video on porn video comments.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: With elements of Enemy Without: "The Clorox Plan", the follow-up to "Don't Drink Bleach", runs into an immediate stumbling block at the start when Erik discovers that Facebook deleted his Todd Clorox account, effectively meaning the death of Todd himself... until Erik decides to leave a comment on a "MMS Testimony" video on BitChute, where he discovers that not only does Todd have an account there, but has also made videos about being deplatformed.Todd: (strained) I'm Todd Clorox. I'm the Clorox man with the Clorox plan. And I've been Clorox deplatformed.
- Reptilian Conspiracy: The Cloud People, a race of sky-dwelling lizard people who have infiltrated the government.
- Running Gag: Several:
- Erik throwing a shoe or drawer at Robot (or throwing Robot off the balcony) when the latter says something exceptionally racist.
- Erik sending demeaning tweets to Ted Cruz.
- Erik mentioning the Cloud People, George Bush's airplane holograms, and FEMA camps.
- "CEASE YOUR INVESTIGATIONS"
- Playing online games and teamkilling people for the slightest infractions. Or for no reason at all.
- If he finds a streamer playing a pvp game in a public lobby with friendly fire on, he will always stream snipe and teamkill them.
- Replying to cranks and conspiracy theorists on Facebook with pictures of shirtless old men.
- If whatever he's watching has comments disabled, he will inevitably post his comment in the comment section of Shakira's "Hips don't Lie" music video.
- Sanity Slippage: The raison d'etre of his alter-ego, Todd Clorox, who insists (and that's an understatement) that bleach can cure anything.
- Shout-Out:
- The Cloud People (a species of reptilian, sky-dwelling organisms that purportedly have infiltrated our government) are clearly modeled off the sleestaks.
- The Show Within a Show Nobbleberry seems to be mostly a parody of Sherlock, right down to the actor playing the title character having the convoluted name "Riddleymane Quarterchop", similar to Sherlock’s main actor Benedict Cumberbatch, and his Arch-Enemy Partner resembling Sherlock’s Moriaty, although the fact that Nobbleberry is described as being a "time-traveling detective" also seems to reference Doctor Who, a series Sherlock's creator Steven Moffat was a showrunner of. Nobbleberry's later partner Detective Nanny is an obvious sendoff of British Magical Nannies like Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee (minus the magical powers).
- The NordVPN wizard is a clear Gandalf parody, complete with a twist on his famous line "You shall Nord pass!!!"
- Show Within a Show: Nobbleberry, a series that appears whenever Erik promotes NordVPN, as it is supposedly a series Erik can watch when using VPN to appear that he's in the United Kingdom, and is available on the BBC Player and on BBC One… or Two… or Three… or Four. (One episode even showed it being a Channel 4 production.) There's also its apparent Russian adaptation, Nubleborski.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Although this is more one-sided, Erik has this in the form of YouTube conspiracy theorist Mark Dice.
- Team Killer: He loves team killing so much that he made a Battlefield 4 server just so he can TK as much as he wants without getting banned.
- Technical Virgin: DJ Crib Def takes pride in having all his girls be virgins (and even paying them to stay that way), despite admitting that he's done "butt stuff" and "mouth stuff".
- Troll: Over every social media platform conceivable to humanity.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In "Halloween Hangover Cures", the Cloud People take over all of humanity, and then attempt to bring him into their Hive Mind... then pull out of Earth immediately when they find the memories of the disgusting hangover cures he tried.
- Voice of the Legion: Erik talks like this when talking with conspiracy theorists (see Do Not Adjust Your Set above). Skjöldr, First King of Denmark, talks like this by default.
- Vulgar Humor: Often used in the series, with dick jokes abound and Erik's comments often involving disgusting situations.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Robot had shades of this at first, before Erik agreed to acknowledge him as his son, but it faded over time.
