I try not to talk about work here because it bores the hell out of me to read this stuff later on. But I just had a revelation and I don’t know what else to do with it. And I’m waiting for a big mailing to deliver so I GOTS TIME.
We published a piece this week with a small political injection. I know better. I get skewered at the thought of my guys being smart enough to not vote Republican. I mean, my audience can be nuts. You can say “Obama was re-elected” and I will get 200 e-mails screaming “UNSUBSCRIBE ME FROM THIS LIBERAL GARBAGE YOU SOCIALIST SONS OF BITCHES.”
My favorite is the “I pay GOOD MONEY and you send me this trash.” And I’ll access their customer records and those fuqrs ain’t paid a dime in 20 years.
Or maybe my real favorite was today when, after publishing said piece from an Awesome Editor, I got a “(worst editor on the planet EVAR) is the most-brilliant economist on earth and your guy is a TREE-HUGGING NAZI.”
I mean, it’s hard to take this seriously. I quit reading when they said my worst nightmare (who I don’t supervise anymore THANK GOD) was the shit.
What did we say? That Sarah Palin was a moron about a specific issue that affects my constituency.
Now, I deleted the word moron. I wrote a disclaimer that this article may offend so basically it’s time to shoo the kids out of the room for the “dirty parts” or else turn off the TV because it’s adults-only time.
We also said Janet Yellen replacing Ben Bernanke was a Good Thing for our constituency. And said why.
OH DID THE LETTERS FLOOD IN. Between the “you fucked-up liberals” to “Sarah Palin is a TRUE PATRIOT” to “I want my money back” and they only paid us $49 a year for a product that benefits them by that much each week, some things occurred to me.
1. “Most Brilliant Economist EVAR” is always wrong. But states everything as fact. He is never wrong. He is always right. And he will call you stupid for listening to anyone else. This cocksure motherfucker has a following Warren Jeffs would kill for.
1.a. By basically almost-apologetically saying we might hurt people’s widdle fee-fees, they saw it as weakness. And attacked accordingly.
2. It wasn’t really Palin they had a problem with. They do like her. Because she will never amount to anything. She won’t take a job from a rich white male. She gets paid to be a dipshit. And she’s got a whole lot of dipshit left in her to entertain them for life.
3. They don’t like Yellen because that lady has balls of steel and the brainpower of all the 2013 Ivy League graduates combined. She’s a threat to convention. To THEIR convention. GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN WOMAN. That’s a man’s job!
4. These are the same assholes who don’t see slavery or sexism or racism or homophobia as a problem. They fight so hard to keep the world from evolving. But they KNOW revolution is coming. Because it ALWAYS DOES. But God damn you if you aren’t as OPPOSED TO IT as they are. By saying, you know, Palin has no business talking about shit she hasn’t studied up on and that Yellen handled herself well in front of the Senate Banking Committee this week, we are by default SOCIALIST TREE-HUGGING BASTARDS WHO GET PREGNANT JUST TO KILL OUR BABIES.
5. They want someone to spoon-feed them OH LOOK AIRPLANE WHOOOOSSSHHHHHH their own thoughts back to them. I admit my niche industry a big fat detour from the straight-and-narrow journalistic path I started out on. But for fuck’s sake I saw what happened with all these moonbats kept telling us Romney was going to win the election. I read the Rasmussen Report every single day and I also read Nate Silver. Both were calling different outcomes. Rasmussen was cow-towing to the Fox News crowd. Yet nobody learned that JUST BECAUSE FOX TELLS YOU MITT WILL WIN MEANS IT’S TRUE. DUMB. ASSES. GAH.
So yes I have a responsibility to interpret facts and publish them accordingly.
But it says something that I have to put a goddamned DISCLAIMER on them lest people think we actually have a fucking brain in our heads and use it to REASON OUT what is happening.
It says more that the highest powers said no more publishing shit like that.
Which, fine. My anxiety is a force to be reckoned with anyway. I would be glad to move away from it. But the plain-vanilla bullshit I’m going to have to put in its place is actually harder to swallow when I know we can do better.
So, how was YOUR week?