Our readers respond!

Every once in a while, we share our mail.

Today, as our popular and influential site nears its first anniversary, the otherwise-anonymous "Stella V" takes time from her busy day to write:

A few observations:

At the end of your book you seemed to be growing an adult conscience along with a sense that it was time to do something that mattered with your life. Now I look at your website and you seem kinda lost. Most of your posts fall into one or more of the following categories:

a) Bragging about how someone is doing something you started 20 years ago and not giving you credit.

b) Shamelessly (and quite transparently) "reporting" on a huge buzz (which in truth is a completely nonexistent buzz) for a very minor project (a movie, a concert tour, etc) that one of your old buddies is doing - as if your readers will actually be fooled into thinking that you just tipped them off to the next big thing.

c) Bragging again and again and again about how one day you'll be vindicated for your Howard Stern theory or your McDermott theory. And hey - you might actually be right - but come on - one or two mentions is enough.

d) Plugging "Tabloid Baby".

e) Bragging about how popular your site is (despite the fact that your comments section is DOA proving no one cares enough about your stories to even write in).

f) Sounding bitter that the younger generation is either stealing your ideas and/or not doing them right.

g) Writing completely ridiculous conspiracies theories like California Pizza Kitchen "racist" survey.

h) Telling us what the "best of" something or other is when you have absolutely no more qualifications than anyone else. You're just some guy who has his favorites and thinks there's some reason why we should care what they are. There isn't. (Tip: Call them "my favorites" and then at least you lose the pretension.)

i) Quoting "Tabloid Baby" as if it's written by someone other than the person quoting it. Funny how the person quoting the book thinks that person who wrote the book has such important things to say.

j) Sounding morally outraged that the younger generation draws a different moral line in the same gutter that you helped create.

k) Using the editorial "we" when it's obviously just you.

I think you were a superficial, amoral, bullshitting, tabloid baby for so long you're not exactly sure how to move forward any other way. But the tabloid world has passed you by. You keep writing these things as if you're still a player but you're not.

At one point, many years ago, you did achieve some degree of notoriety by lowering the standards of "journalism". Sure - you knocked a few pompous jerks off their pedestal along the way (which was a good thing), but mainly you pandered to the lowest aspects of human nature. And along the way you also came up with a few rules and boundaries so that you could still look yourself in the mirror (after a pint or six). Now a new generation is doing what you did, only they have even fewer rules and boundaries - and you're trying desperately to stay in a game that you feel, with some justification, you helped create.

But you know what? That train has left the station.

Sorry to be so blunt but I actually do think you have the potential to do something really great with your life. Something that will leave the world a better place. Something that will counteract the cheapening of human dignity that is everywhere around us.

Something to think about . . .

All the best,

SV


Sounds like a straggler from the TVgasm crowd! Thanks Stella! And to everyone else, email us here!