Repetitive
Somehow, I'm not tired of pointing this out yet. Mark Morford's column today ran a bunch of his hate mail. It is, indeed, awful stuff. But in eighteen letters that absolutely excoriated him, not one commented on his looks or suggested that he be raped. I'm jealous.
posted by Megan at 11:22 AM
8 Comments:
I'm not so sure. That "Tiffany" DID suggest "Why can't people just kiss and stuff?" and while kissing is generally quite pleasant, the stuffing part sounds pretty threatening!
[I]f it were at all possible under any conceivable legal precedent, I would sue you to recover the wasted electrons that pinged off of my CRT monitor to display the swill that you vomited into the body politic.
Megan, I know this wasn't your point at all, but I am cheered and refreshed to be reminded I am not alone in my deep and utter contempt for this fine gentleman.
--OtherMegan
Hey Funnier Megan,
I can't believe we socialize as much as we do and have as good a time as we do, considering that we disagree so much. I think MM overdoes it on his language, but I pretty much agree with his sentiments straight down the line.
Fortunately we seem to have perfected the agreeing to disagree and then the very fun getting-along. Dinner tomorrow?
Yes! Splendid. Dinner indeed! I'm anticipating it with great, er, anticipation.
--OM
Not really disagreeing with your underlying point, but back when I used to get MM's column as an email, the hate letters almost always included both anti-gay and death threat-like stuff. My point being that the homophobia stuff is pretty similar in intent and concept to a lot of the misogyny that female bloggers deal with, and that death threats/wishes, while distinct in important ways from rape threats/wishes, aren't exactly civil disagreement. I'm actually surprised at how tame these letters were, compared to what I recall from a few years back.
Also, the one letter from the midwestern guy who actually thinks someone with a nice, small car is jealous of someone driving an F-150 and that tract houses are nicer than Bay Area housing stock is hilarious.
Ooh, I just had an idea. Someone should come up with a Word Verification tool that would weed out not only spambots but also malicious trolls. Perhaps, instead of typing in some wavy letters, you have to write 25 words about how great Twisty is. You'd need some sort of sincerity-testing module, but that should be simple enough.
Get to work, Google!
Jroth,
That's probably a good analogy, between the homophobia and misogyny, and also the death threats (which I don't think I've ever gotten) to rape threats.
My understanding is that MM is pretty enthusiastic about straight sex, though.
Oh, I know, which is why the homophobia is so funny. He does talk about anal a lot, so perhaps that's what his interlocutors are keying in on.
Ha! The Word Verfication below is buuttk.
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