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Monday, April 07, 2008

How TIRING it all is!

Reader-submitted complaint: what a bitter, sad lady you are...

AHAHAHAHAHA.

That's all you've got? I expected much, much more from you: at least a semicolon or two, a capital letter and a few subordinate clauses. Are your fingers tired from sending anonymous messages to all of the people who thought your last column was ridiculous?

Really, you need to do a better job of responding to your critics if you want to call yourself a writer. Especially if you're a narcissist who's going to come here every single day through a Google search for your own name. I'm just giving you a fair warning. You definitely don't have to come here if you don't like what I say.

Since you didn't provide one, I will do my own critique of that post in your typical style. Consider it a gift.

Megan, who apparently does not see fit to blog under her full name even though this could be determined with even the slightest bit of effort (although I choose not to expend it; life as a Toronto columnist is very arduous), has submitted
an assessment of my latest column, in which I, defender of all that is virtuous about Canadian journalism, dared to challenge the dogma which states that blogging is preferable to true journalism printed in the newspaper.

I don't know why I bother to read critiques from anonymous writers, although in retrospect, I suppose that if I truly wanted to avoid that sort of writing I would stop Googling myself on a daily basis. Clearly, that's not an option.


This "Megan" fancies herself a writer, but clearly she is not serious about it, or she would be a Real Writer like I am instead of an anonymous person on the Internet. I've written books, and I publish them under my own name. Not like people on the Internet, where there are no rules and where real journalists definitely wouldn't write anything at all.

Clearly, this "Megan" has never heard of The Long Tail, or she would have referenced it in her rambling, unfocused treatise. This groundbreaking new idea is fresh out of Harvard, I think. All of the cool people are talking about it, which is probably why "Megan" doesn't seem to know what it is: it is simply out of her realm for now. I, of course, am an early adopter, and I totally GET these new ideas and their implications for journalism in our society. I also note that she does not have a Wikipedia page, so I think you know what that means.


But I am not hurt by the criticism. Not at all. In fact, I don't care. I don't care so much that I am leaving anonymous messages of the kind you might hear in a bar, where I, naturally, spend a lot of time paying rapt attention to cool boys who say things like "LOL" out loud. It's RESEARCH. I hope to use this information to convince my counterparts, using colourful anecdotes, of the necessity of staying current, so as to better attract the younger generation to our newspaper. For example, there is nothing more "hip" and "now" than classical music, which is why I railed against the CBC's plans to scale back its classical programming, and blogging is certainly, if not already, going the way of the dodo bird, which is why I completely don't care if some nobody in the blogosphere thinks I'm not a very good writer.


Thanks for stopping by, Russell.

7 comments:

Karen said...

SO much more professional for Russell to leave an anonymous comment. That's not sad and pathetic at all! It's like he doesn't even understand you can track your readers and where they log in from. Unbelievable.

Perhaps you'll be the subject of one of his lame columns, now that he's definitely trying so hard not to notice you. Priceless.

Apparently, being a Toronto hipster doesn't suck all the time out of the universe, after all.

Anonymous said...

Megan, why don't you have a column in the Newspaper of Record? Truly, you write Russell to shame.

Russell, try living somewhere other than Ontario.

Torq said...

I think I am offended.

Is this dude actually saying that anyone who writes for the internet is not a "real writer." I think it would be fun to define that term. A writer is clearly one who writes. A real writer must then be a writer who exists in reality (most do!) or one whose writing is real. That's just weird.

What is the opposite of this? A fake writer?

Torq said...

Well now don't I feel silly. I will get you for this someday... Someday when you have forgotten all the tricksie little stunts you have pulled!

Panic said...

Thanks for the morning "lulz"!

Anonymous said...

Megan, you are one hell of a writer. A thousand x better than Russell Smith or Rebecca Eckler, who both seem to have something of a narcissistic/ vanity/ insecurity complex. Well, the latter has basically dropped off the face of the earth (thank God) and the former, well, I hear the CBC is waiting for his contract to be up at the paper of record. At any rate, the level of discourse on this blog is higher than most newspaper columns, so thank you for my daily fix.

Megan said...

Thanks for your kind words.