Well, the thread was partly a metathread about our culture, so I don't consider it off topic. It seemed particularly tangible and demonstrative in a thread with a lot of subjective back and forth.

And maybe the comment would have been upvoted on its own. Maybe not. It's hard to draw a conclusion either way after the fact. I just did what seemed to be the right thing at the time. Anonymously upvoting and shaking my head didn't seem enough.