Dwight Schrute Approves of Her Latest Comments

On Tuesday evening, Gwyneth Paltrow attended the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, where she spoke about her website, Goop, and the great success of its weekly newsletters. It sounds like Paltrow is very proud of what she has been able to acheive online, but, like many among us, she has a problem with Internet comments. I have always believed that if you want to be mad at the world, the best thing to do is read comment threads on YouTube or Yahoo!, but Gwynie's problem runs deeper than I thought possible. Gwyneth Paltrow compared reading comments to fighting in a war and it was just another addition to her list of out-of-touch statements.

The speech makes it sound like Paltrow takes the Internet too seriously both in how it can be positive (it helps you get closer to your "truest self") and in its negative aspects (the war zone comments). So for this week's edition of Face of Pop Culture Responds to Pop Culture Event (we're working on a better title), who better than The Office's Dwight Schrute? He would agree with Paltrow's statements wholeheartedly. He makes outlandish comparisons, takes things too seriously, and — Okay, fine, I pictured Paltrow's speech being exactly like Dwight's Mussolini-style sales award acceptance speech.

"The Internet is an amazing opportunity, socially. We have this opportunity to mature and learn, which is the essence of being on Earth—to being the closest person we can be to our actual, real, truest self."

"But the Internet also allows us the opportunity to project outward our hatred, our jealousy."

"It’s culturally acceptable to be an anonymous commenter. It’s culturally acceptable to say, ‘I’m just going to take all of my internal pain and externalize it anonymously.’”

"It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I can see these things and not take it as a personal affront and a hurt. I see myself as a chalkboard or a whiteboard or a screen, and someone is just putting up their own projection on it"

"I kind of look at it as, ‘Wow this is an interesting social experiment.’ You’re talking about a blind stranger having feelings about you. It can only be projection."

"You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it."

"My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience."

Well done, you two. Internet comments are out of control, but I do think the war part was a bit too strong— No? No, you guys wanna stick with that? Oh. Okay then.

Images: Giphy (1,2,3,4); Octopussoir/Tumblr; Club.vivomiles.com; Dwigtschrute/Tumblr