What's a writer without a reader?
2006-03-14 11:54
I have recently started reading "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About" again. I was reminded about Mil Millington, the site's author, by a link on Moby's website.
Mil is an English writer and frustrated boyfriend of Margret, a German harpee who makes his life very interesting. Moby has obviously recently discovered him and his website.
As an aside, what I find interesting about this whole weblog thing is how internally referential it is. While I am in no way at all comparable to either Moby or Mil Millington, we are part of a triangle of people who are published online and who read about each other in each other's stories.
But, to get back to the original point, I have started reading Mil again. And what has changed since the last time I read him is that he has left a smattering of his writings online available to the general public, and the rest can now only be accessed by subscribers. I immediately signed up.
Although he doesn't make clear reference to why he has taken his stuff out of the hands of the general populace, I can guess at the reasons.
On a couple of occasions, he makes reference to the type of comments he gets from his readers. Here is one such example: "this is just, like, sad n stuff, like, y dont u just split up n stuff if u dont get along????????!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?! :-( ~~tammy~~ Idaho"
Granted, I suspect that this is an amalgam of general sentiment, rather than a specific comment, but the tone was so immediately recognisable to me that I shuddered in sympathy.
Writing for the web
The moment writing is published on the internet, you are exposed to the lowest common denominator of human intellect.
The second thing that you have to contend with is the people who vehemently object to your opinion. Which is fine, there are lots of opinions out there that I object to vehemently too.
But I think that the thing that drove Mil offline was that he had to contend with thousands of people reading his tongue-in-cheek comments about very real arguments he has with his girlfriend, and then contacting him to tell him that his blog is pointless.
Rather than continue to provide humorous insights into his combative life with his girlfriend, people out there feel that he should just break up with her and accept eternal mediocrity as his reward.
Here is a similar actual comment that I have had from one of my readers: "Serena, U sound very much like a person who hasn't gone to school at all. They way u make your points to be heared... We want good researched topics not about who's got what and what do u do with poor boyfried when out shopping !!!"
Do you see the similarity? There's identical overuse of exclamation marks, the inability to write out words where a letter will suffice, the atrocious spelling.
What my reader has introduced that Mil's has pleasantly omitted is the direct insult. What is brain-searingly ironic about my reader's comment, however, is that the insult she has directed at me could be applied to her with twice the impact.
As I believe I have commented before, if you don't like what I have to write, don't read it. If you disagree, feel free to let me know, but if you just think that some of the content is pointless, then why waste your time? Stop reading.
But enough of that. I am frequently moved to comment that writing would be a fantastic career if it wasn't for the readers. But without them, there wouldn't be much point, now would there?
So thanks, again, to all the lovely people who get me, and a big nyah nyah to the rest of you. Go and read Mil Millington.
Serena de Souza did quite well at school, particularly in English.
Send your comments to Serena.
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