Get A Life

 

This week, for your reading enjoyment, I’m proud to present a quick how-to-send-e-mail guide for those of you wanting to flame me and/or psychoanalyze me. Those of you writing to express delight or agreement with my essays are obviously geniuses and wonderful people for agreeing with me, and need not read further.[i]

Step 1: Get another e-mail account

Obviously, if you’re planning on flaming me, you probably don’t want to give me your REAL name or use your REAL email address. That means that you need another e-mail address, hopefully one you can access from the public library or something, so I don’t track down your home address, and send rabid chickens to you through the mail. Because one can still send chicks and ducklings through the mail, unlike the hydrophobic lemmings I was originally planning on.

What I would recommend then is either a Hotmail account or a Yahoo account. Both are free web-based accounts, and, although you get a lot of spam at those accounts, it’s safely anonymous. (For those of you who don't know much about the internet...). Or AOL. Avoid customized domain-names, which can also be used to figure out your real identity, if anyone cared enough to.

Step 2: Addressing the e-mail

When addressing the e-mail, please remember that any e-mail you send to any member of Heartless Bitches International will be politely forwarded to me, so it’s not really that important that you remember my clever, designed-to-trick-you address of . Completely disregard the possibility that a member of Heartless Bitches might:

§         Delete mail clearly not pertaining to their work

§         Delete obvious hate mail

§         Have a spam filter so clever, so monstrous, that it will automatically chomp your message from a web-based mail service with all of the haste and gusto that Cerberus might consume a one-ton, lightly marinated steak

§         Open it and post it for the world to see, laughing hysterically at your feeble attempts at insult and innuendo. Or lack of basic sentence structure.

 

Step 3: Choosing a subject line

 

For the subject line, I would totally recommend that you use a devastatingly witty subject line sure to fool me into opening your pithy critique of not only the essay topic at hand, but my writing in general, and my personal habits. For example, “Your essay SUKS,” or “Hat you esay” will guarantee that not only will I open your e-mail, but I will be overcome by your clever rhetoric, repent of my evil ways, and become a better person overall. Then write you to thank you.

 

Step 4: Writing your message

 

I encourage you to do one or more of the following:

§         Use 1337 SP3@K.[ii] This will not only shatter my feeble brain, but will also cause me to realize that you, dear flamer, are the superior geek, and that I know nothing

§         Make personal comments. The knowledge that you were unable to find coherent fault with the essay in question, and instead must speculate on my sexual habits, appearance, and in fact, imply that I like boy bands, will reduce me to a weeping ball of misery. Because you know, someone writing for Heartless Bitches International obviously cares what you think about her

§         Misspell your words. This will demonstrate your contempt not only for me, but for writing in general. Nothing cuts like knowing that someone hats me.

§         Ignore the basic principals of grammar. This will impress me with your obvious intelligence

§         USE ALL CAPS. I’ll be sure to read your message then.

§         Presume to know me. ‘cause, like, it’s obvious that I’m using my real name and stuff, and my essays are so revealing about who I really am, and my obvious mental illnesses that have made me be so mean

§         Assume that I was writing about you, and you alone. Not that I was making fun of a stereotype, but instead, have stalked you for months with the sole purpose of mocking you before the entire world

 

Step 5: Sending your e-mail

 

It’s always important to review your e-mail before you send it, to double-check that you’ve suggested that I “suk my left tentacle,” not “suck my left testicle,” and so on. It’s also important that you pay no attention whatsoever to the terms of service of the e-mail account that you’re using, because, really, what are the chances that I’ll report you for violating the terms of service?

 

It’s also important to disregard the fact that threats made via e-mail count as a felony.

 

Don’t forget to sign it with a clever alias, like “Supreme Geek” or “Testosterone Man,” or something of that ilk. If you haven’t had to create a screen name before now, because nothing on the internet has enraged you quite as much as my pretentious and obviously-not-researched scribbling, you need to invent one now, so I won’t guess who you really are. I suggest that you chose something descriptive and indicative of your personality, like “Chicken Shit,” or “Waste of Space.”

 

So to review, your e-mail should now look something like this:

 

Hit send, and sit back to enjoy the sixth, and final step.

 

 

Step 6: Feel self-righteous

 

Now you, too, have e-mailed a complete stranger on the internet, from behind the safety of a fake id, to make personal comments because you disagreed with her perspective on an essay she wrote for a website called Heartless Bitches International. Sit back, relax, and feel good about a job well done.

 

You stud, you. You sure showed me.