Mum! People are making fun of me on the internet!

There are two kinds of novelists - those who write for themselves, and those who write for others. The former often produce autobiographical or semi-autobiographical work (Bret Easton Ellis is a good example). The latter usually make stories that are more escapist. I am one of those - you’ll rarely see me exploring my own psychological issues through a novel.

I have photography for that.

I don’t mean to make the other kind sound selfish. They’re not. Writing is an excellent way to exorcise your inner demons, and afterwards, you’re entitled to try selling what you’ve written. But it’s just not the way I work - I write to entertain readers.

This means the more people read my work, the more I consider it to have been worth writing. So whenever I write a novel, I do everything I can to promote it. And whenever I write a blog post, I post links to it on MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter, as well as submitting it to Digg, Reddit, etc.

This means finding more readers. However, it also means giving my critics more opportunies to condemn me.

The other day I discovered that one of my old blog posts, Nothing is more dangerous than an idiot with a quotation, had unearthed more haters than usual on Reddit. It would be an exaggeration to call it a storm of controversy, but it was certainly a gust.

“I like how you misunderstand the quote,” commenter go24 said, “and then do a whole article making an ass of yourself demonstrating how you don’t understand a bunch of other quotes. Are you really that stupid or are you just making an awkward attempt at self-deprecating humor?”

Luckily, I didn’t have to repond to this. Commenter toastmill immediately sprang to my defence: “Prick. Pricky pricky pricky priiiiiiiiiick. Priiiiick prick prick prick. PRICKY PRICKY PRICKY.”

I would have liked a more articulate explanation of my article’s virtues, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Ah. Another literary giant,” go24 said, not easily rattled.

“Omg y thank u! i gayv it my best!” toastmill replied. “In all seriousness you’re an asshat and your mom dresses you funny.”

Go24 got indignant at this point. “Because I called a sh*tty article for being sh*tty?”

“No,” toastmill said, “because he didn’t misunderstand the quote, that’s the only quote in the article not from the author, and all you did was talk a bunch of sh*t about the author without offering any kind of meaningful/useful criticism… Also please read your last comment. You seem to be missing a word… Oh the irony.”

My knight in shining armour didn’t seem to know what irony was, but I told myself that wasn’t a big deal.

“You seem to think Jack Heath is a competent or possibly good writer,” go24 said, “which, again, destroys any credibility you might have had.”

This went on, and on, and on. Eventually it was revealed that toastmill, my supposed savior, was only trolling - he hadn’t liked my article either, and was just trying to make go24 mad. (Trolling, for those of you who don’t know, means pretending to hold an opinion in order to start a fight online. When you succeed, you say, “Guess what? I don’t even believe any of that stuff I just said! Gotcha!” It’s what children - and childish adults - do instead of prank calls these days, and it’s exactly as hilarious as I just made it sound.)

i.e. as hilarious as armed robbery.

This realisation depressed me, but there was some relief to be had. When I looked at go24’s comment history, I discovered that the list of people he hated included Canadians, Democrats, poor people, “the liberal media”, everyone else on Reddit, women in general, and his wife in particular. At least I was in good company.

What strikes me as strange about all this is how few complaints I get about my books and how many I get about this blog. After all, if you read Remote Control, it probably took you two weeks and cost you $20. Reading one of my blog posts takes only a minute or two and is free. (For you. For me, it cost quite a lot to make, host and write this blog so as people could read it if they wanted to.) Surely if you’re disappointed with a blog post, it warrants less complaint than if you’re disappointed with a book, because you had less at stake.

And yet, while I have a page specifically designed for book-related hate mail, it’s hardly ever used. Meanwhile, the comment sections on Reddit and MySpace (and, increasingly, this blog) seem to have a limitless supply of bile to spill at me.

You might say this is because my books are significantly better than my blog posts, and you’d be right - that’s because I spend three months editing each book, instead of three hours. Of course the quality is going to be different. But I don’t think that’s the reason. I think the price is actually the cause.

When you’ve paid $20 for something, you want to like the product. You wouldn’t have bought it if you didn’t think it would be good, but more importantly, you don’t want to believe you wasted the money. So you’re looking for things to like about it.

This is how Apple convinces people that they make good products - by overcharging them. (As I’ve said before.) No-one wants to admit to themselves that they paid hundreds of dollars for a phone that can’t make calls.

When something is free, on the other hand, you’re suspicious of the quality. You figure if it was worth money, it would have been sold rather than given away. You expect it to be worth what you paid for it - nothing.

Based on this, maybe I should start charging a subscription fee for my blog. The readers would probably like it more if they had to pay for it. But remember the two types of writers, those who write to understand themselves, and those who write for the enjoyment of others? I think I just realised that when I’m blogging, I’m the former kind. I’d still be here, doing this, even if no-one was reading. (Which no-one was, for several years.) So why bother charging people, just to trick them into liking it? That would be childish.

Which leads me to my conclusion: go24 is indeed an “asshat”. And while toastmill’s motivations may have been less than pure, and while I’ve never personally met go24, I feel that I can announce, with confidence, that his mum does indeed dress him funny.



MITIFOTIT:
Most Interesting Thing I Found On The Internet Today

Don’t make toastmill’s mistake - let the Oatmeal teach you the three most common uses of irony.