March 7, 2002 

(Note: Ample profanity in today's edition)

Got some hate mail yesterday for my comments about Ted Rall's cartoon, but it wasn't really choice hate mail, so I think it's a good time to offer up a primer on How To Send Me Hate Mail. Please pay attention, since these are valuable tips for composing winning hate mails that will stand out from the crowd.

First off, let's be clear that I do make a distinction between hate mail and people who disagree with me and e-mail to say so. E-mail me with a legitimate comment or question, no matter how negative, and I typically respond civilly. In Scalzi's World, it's not a crime to disagree with me, even if it does speak poorly regarding your judgment. However, if you just e-mail spew, I consider it hate mail and respond as such. Now that we're all clear, here are my Hate Mail Tips:

1. Don't Expect Too Much. The fact is, hate mail really doesn't bother me, since fundamentally, if you're not my wife, a member of my immediate circle of family and friends, or a client, I don't actually give a damn about what you think of me. Life's too short to sweat other people's opinion, especially the sort of algae-grazers who have nothing better to do than write hate mail. Really, what useful person has the time for that? So, despite your best efforts, I'm just not likely to collapse into a heap of self-loathing on the basis of your hate mail. Sorry to disappoint; it's just the way I am. 

Since I don't take hate mail to heart, what I'm looking for in hate mail is pure entertainment value. Which brings us to point number 2:

2. Be Creative. Honestly, if you're going to take the time to tell me how much you hate me, make some effort to do it in a way that's not going to bore me. I've been called an "asshole" so many times in hate mail that it's just lost all its charm, as have all the major profanities. So, I take points off for profanities, unless they're used in really new and exciting ways. Here's a quick workshop on that, using that old reliable, "Fucker":

"Fucker" -- No good. Plain. Uninspiring. Trite. Hardly registers a blip. Needs oomph. Needs... a modifer!

"Toad Fucker" -- Better. "Toad" is not the usual modifier here, so that's good, and of course it's an interesting mental visual. But let's assume that any single modifier of "Fucker" is already old news, especially when it involves a noun springing from the animal kingdom. What we really need to do is to fuse "Fucker" to a string of truly interesting words. Like:

"Choad Mongering Krill Fucker" -- Now we're talking. This insult works on so many levels. "Choad," of course, is a great piece of slang, not nearly utilized to its full potential in everyday invective, so it's still a nice fresh slap to start the insult. "Mongering," likewise a great verb: Sounds great, first off, but also obscure enough to thrill -- after all, who mongers very much anymore? "Krill Fucker" implies that you're so hard up you'd screw a baleen whale's morning snack and, inasmuch as krill are microscopic shrimp, it also says you have a dinky little wanger (otherwise, of course, how could you fuck a krill? It'd just break apart). Finally, the phrase lends itself to multiple variations: "Dick Whoring Shrimp Porker," for example. The possibilities really are endless.

(While we're vaguely on the subject of animals, if you're going to compare someone to an animal, remember that lower orders of primates are intrinsically funny. Some of my favorites phrases: "Trepanned Lemur," "Ass-Mastering Aye-Aye," and "Enema-swilling Loris." Best of all, you don't even have to modify "bush baby.")

Remember, I get a lot of hate mail. To really register, you have to do the work. The satisfaction of knowing I'm really paying attention makes it worth the effort.

3. Prepare to Be Graded.

If I don't think your hate mail is up to snuff, I'll send it back with the suggestion you try harder. For example, yesterday someone sent me a message which was, in its entirety: "You're a prick, an' so's your little fuckin' friend" (referring to Ted Rall). I sent back, asking if that was really the best this guy could do, mentioning that I'd gotten better insults from retarded monkeys (as you can see, I don't respond back to such slack efforts with my "A" material). 

The response: "Go fuck yourself, you nitwit." Again, not especially compelling. "A trepanned lemur could do better," I gently suggested, bringing out the lemurs in a bid to inspire my correspondent. "Please try again." He countered by saying Ted and I were "tremendous fucking idiots," which, in my book, was still rather disappointing. To his credit, however, he did appreciate the lemur reference. Which just goes to prove my point. 

Look, I don't think it's too much to ask for a little effort when it comes to hate mail, so if I don't think the effort's there, I'm going to call you on it. On the flipside, if you come up with a choice piece of spew, I'll compliment you on your form, and if it's really good, I'll probably start using it as a .sig quote for my e-mail. Here's one of my favorites:

"You can continue to be a negative force in the universe, spewing putrid venom, childish disdain, and unmitigated disgust for everyone who doesn't offer you sex or money--or whatever else it is that you might like."

I mean, how can you not appreciate the craft? I used that as a .sig quote for months. 

4. Be Accurate.

The hate mailer in the first part of tip 3 called me a "fuckwit cartoonist," which would be a passable insult ("fuckwit" is okay) were it not for the fact that I'm not a cartoonist nor have I ever been. The guy just assumed that since I was talking about Ted, I was a cartoonist myself. I pointed out his error and the guy got all huffy -- like his erroneous assumption was somehow my fault! Just remember that when you assume, you make an "ass"-mastering aye-aye out of "u" and "me." I'll be watching for those little slip-ups.

Hopefully these tips will inspire those of you who aspire to write me hate mail to new and ever more creative heights. Good luck! I'll be waiting to see what you come up with -- and I'll be sure to let you know just what I think of your efforts.

****

March 13, 2002 

Some follow-up on the "How to Send Me Hate Mail" column from a couple of days ago, which is now apparently making the rounds in Blogdom:

* One correspondent was surprised I didn't make mention of the tactic of spewing insults in other languages as a way to spice up an otherwise bland and unimpressive piece of hate mail. While I do recognize this tactic, I have to say I don't typically recommend it because the whole point of hate mail is that the person you're sending it to actually has to be capable of understanding what you have to say to them. Also, I find that many people just use it as an excuse to say the same old things, just in another tongue. 

For example, scheisskopf is no more original than its English analogue, "shithead," although it's hard to deny that the German version does have that whole guttural German locomotive thing going for it. Said correspondent also suggested that German is possibly the best language for insulting, excepting maybe Russian. This may or may not be true, but I will say I've heard very good things about Arabic as a swearing language as well. Someone out there who speaks Arabic will have to let me know.

Ultimately I don't think there's a problem sending hate mail with choice bit of spite in another language, but if you're going to go down that road, I think it would be vastly more effective if the sentiment expressed was somewhat original, no matter what language it is in. Any fool can call other people scheissköpfe, but think how much more interesting Urintrinken FroschGebläse (piss drinking frog blowers) would be. Not only is it vastly more interesting, but it could also double as the name of an industrial metal band from Bremen. It's just something to think about.

* The same correspondent extolled the virtues of Latin in hate mail, offering up as an example the word Homonecropetapyrobestiphiliac ("One who who prefers sleeping with under-aged, dead animals of the same gender while they are on fire") for my consideration. Having taken Latin as a teenager, I am always heartened to see people using this language in new and exciting ways, which this certainly qualifies. However, I will take a moment to note that I think the suffix "-philiac" ("lover of") is kind of overused, the "go to" Latin suffix everybody hits when they decide to dazzle their hate mail recipient with their erudition.

In place of "-philiac" may I instead suggest instead: "-phage" ("eater of"), a suffix whose novelty has not yet worn off and thereby packs an extra bit of a punch, and also sounds better coming out of the mouth: "Philiac" sort of peters out at the end, but "Phage" hits you with an exploding fricative right at the beginning and never lets go. 

Also, it's just wacky. Try Homonecropetapyrobestiphage: Sure, you could see why someone somewhere might want to have sexual congress with a dead gay flaming pre-teen metazoan, but who on earth would want to eat one? It's still on fire. You'd burn your mouth. That's just plain crazy. 

* A different correspondent asked me to rate a particular insulting phrase he personally enjoys, which, in more polite language, translates out to "Pig loving, female genitalia striking enthusiast of National Socialism." The unmodified phrase has a certain pungency to it, I'll admit, but this is a good time to bring up an old rhetorical chestnut: Never involve the Nazis. 

Calling someone a Nazi just sucks all the air out of any insult -- it's overused and it's taking the insult nuclear at the same time. There are so many other discredited political philosophies that would be so much more interesting. Call someone a Fabian sometime. See what happens then. But when it comes to Nazis, the only people who should be called Nazis are people who actually are Nazis. And, of course, then it's not an insult (except to the rest of us). 

* Best hate mail in the last few days is this one -- kids, read and learn:

"You are an utterly subhuman scatology study with all the wit of a crack-addled porpoise preparing to play a game of Boggle. You are a deficient wang wrangler with nothing on his mind other than a cancerous growth attempting to create functioning neurons, and being mistaken by your pedestrian gray matter as a hostile organism. Were you to reproduce, you would surely spawn a creature that can only be described as hideous and mongoloid--no doubt it would spend its time clubbing pigeons to death and drinking the blood of rats to sustain its unholy life. I sincerely hope that you melt into a roving puddle of bile and live out your days enveloping and slowly digesting discarded disposable diapers in a landfill somewhere in a highly radioactive area, such as Chernobyl."

Excellent. The only misstep is "wang wrangler" -- too alliterative for my tastes, but otherwise a fine contribution to the form. Top that, folks.