“I read the comments. I shouldn’t have read the comments, why do I read the comments”

Eindhoven Artist Erik Vermeulen got fed up with the xenophobic comments on social media, and how the messages on that medium are becoming more and more simplistic. The Brussels attacks on March 22, 2016 were the turning point for Erik. He started looking for a way to depict the underlying dynamics of social media and populism, by collecting the comments that irritated him; he also made a private collection of the commentator’s profile pictures.Who are the people behind these vile messages? And why would these people choose, for example, a lama as a profile picture? The ignorant could maybe become human again. By means of a coping-mechanism, Erik drew the profile pictures of the commentators he loathed. Every drawing is a portrait of the noxious innocence of the commentor. Drawing is a labor intense activity, in which concentration and focus are pivotal. These integral characteristics are seemingly opposed to the volatile character of today’s media landscape, and the transient context of commenting and the profile picture itself.