On the Contact Us page, we have a pretty obvious disclaimer about hate mail. To quote ourselves:
If we choose to, any hate mail we receive can be mercilessly mocked in public. In Smart Bitch legalese, this translates to: “We hereby reserve the right to publish your ranty asshattery as an example of fine ranty asshattery and protect therein our opportunity to mock the ever livin’ shit out of your ass.”
We will mock you for an email that says, “u suck and ur ugly i bet ur bad in bed so why dont u just get laid and stfu.”
We will not necessarily mock you for an email that says, “I am so upset at you and here is why.”
There’s a big difference. Those of you who don’t know it, e-mail us at your own peril.
Yes, we get hate mail here at Smart Bitches HQ. Like the one I received tonight in response to this review. From 2005. About the Carpathian series by Christine Feehan. I’ve read a few of the early ones. I really liked the first one, especially the psychic connection in the beginning where Emo Vampire McMiserable is all about to off himself and this psychic human starts chatting to him over their telepathic love connection – it surprised me, how much emotional pain was packed into the opening pages. But, as I said in the review, the series became predictable in a way that I couldn’t maintain my interest, especially with the Sees in Color and Maybe Can Tell the Twins Apart Presto Insta-Love Thing going on. But enough about me. How about some HATERZ!
From the inbox o’ me:
I’m very upset (im trying really hard to to cuss you out) at you and here
is why. You obviously didn’t read hte whole carpathian serie s(or if you
“did” you must be a really bad reader to have not one not two but three
different mistakes in your review of the series) let me clarrifie a few
things that you obviously can’t or wouldn’t understand (and one fact that
i laughed when i read you got it SO wrong)also i don’t mean this as hate mail (too much) (ok so a little) (alright a
lot but read below and you’ll see that im JUSTIFIED)1.)Lets start with my laughing fact.
“Males lose their ability to see color at about age 21” uh sorry but your
off, WAAAAY off. They lose teh ability to see in color AND FEEL EMOTION at
about age 200!!!! this is so laughably mistaken that i seriously have to
wonder if you read the series at all.2.) on that last fact more or less no where did i find mention about losing
there emotions. YOu didn’t even includ all facts.3.) “They can only drink fruit juice” eh hem you really didn’t pay
attention. tehy can MAKE themselfs drink it but it can’t stay down, they
have to get rid of it soon.4.) (wait there’s more than three??? you really might want to read the
book’s, ALL OF THEM) ” The leader of the Carpathians is going to kill
himself because one of only two female Carpathians has been murdered and
he’s distraught ” tehr eare MORE THAN TWO CARPAHTIAN WOMEN! did you even
finish the book ellanor, celest, and Diedra are all in this book as well and
that’s three aside from Noelle. also he is not distraught he can’t feel
emotions.5.) (while this is not exactly something that you got wrong i am like WTF)
Whats wrong with ehr throwign in Doggy style?? really?? if it was all
missonary it would get boring. the style that they have sex oin should not
reflect anything about how good the novel isf.6.) “some weird dance involved with casting and uncasting a spell” its not
a spell idiots, or at least not exactly they dance to draw power from motehr
earth (kinda wiccan or whatever) also which book is this in referance to im
wracking my brain and im thinking Dark Slayer btu teh review was in 05 and
DS jsut came out last year.7.)So there you have it. You don’t have to read them now, because every
single book follows this formula. *deep breath* you obviously didn’t read
Dark Melody, Dark Dreamer, Dark Guardian, Dark Ledgend, Dark Prince, Dark
Celebration or – you know what i don’t feel like typing out the 20 book
titles.IDK if you can fix your mistakes or not, also if you want to make a public
mockary of me have the decencie to Email me first. “smart” bitches?? i
think thee not, you can’t even get the age of losing colros AND EMOTIONS
right. Well im a bitch too so
STFU
AND
FUCK YOU!
I swear on doggy style that I cut and pasted that exactly as it appeared in the gmail. At first I thought it was a joke and someone was pulling my leg. Hell, they might be. I’m still SO AMUSED. I mean, WOW. Can’t you just hear the desk chair tapping on the floor with the shimmering incandescent rage? That’s just amazing.
So I tweeted about it, and received a FREAKING MARVELOUS idea from Maya Banks: Share Yer Haterz! In the comments, or via email, share your hate mail, your least favorite or your most suffused with WTFery. Blogger, Writer, Customer service professional, I don’t care. Bring on the Haterz! I’d totally offer a prize, but I think most people would want to submit anonymously, so you win the thrilling catharsis of laughing out loud at the truly barking bugfuck barmy people.
Bring on the Haterz!
Eek! I couldn’t get past page 50 of the very first Carpathian book; I hated it so much. I’ve suffered some freak-outs from Feehan lovers who worship the series when they heard of my dislike, but sounds like I’ve lucked out so far that I’ve never encountered that particular fan—I’d be killed with misspelled hate.
What gets me is that this hater is bitching about accuracy and not reading all of the books, ohnoes, and yet they obviously didn’t read Sarah’s review properly.
And from the original:
*face palm*
Julia Spencer-Fleming,
If you want to see some amazing nastiness and hating going on over Christian fiction now, you could check out the kindle discussion group on Amazon. The kindleers have been getting a bit restive recently over the fact that so many Christian fiction publishers are making limited-time free book offers on kindle, and some of these freebies are not clearly labelled as Christian fiction. So people download what looks like a romance, and find that it’s stealth evangelizing. Some people have been asking that Amazon label the books more clearly, and other people argue against this. There’s one guy on there now who is writing long rants against identifying Christian fiction clearly, and calling everyone who disagrees with him “theophobes” and atheists who want to suppress religion. One woman wrote in and noted that her young daughter was reading a Harry Potter book at school one day and a teaching aide told her that she would surely go to hell because she was reading such an evil book. The nasty ranter then wrote a hate-filled message saying that it was right to tell the child that she was going to hell and that the mother should not have complained to the school about the incident …
You want real hate? Point out historical errors in Gabaldon’s work, then say Outlander was so bad you simply couldn’t finish it . . . apparently there’s a special hell waiting for me (filled with Gabaldon books, no doubt).
That’s some quality hate. I have to say, my favorite line:
Yes, using the word “Dark” is every single title is clear evidence the series couldn’t POSSIBLY be formulaic.
That line sounds like it’s from an SNL sketch. In fact, this letter writer should be half of a sketch with the “Bitch Pleaze” character. I would watch that shit.
I follow a celebrity/pop culture blog. After a few angry teenagers shared their well-spoken (ahem) opinion, someone (ie a regular, mature poster) developed the handle “luvlindsay” (as in lohan.) “luvlindsay” now writes in from time to time to let us all know “u suk b cuz lindsay is coolr then u haterz will EVA b! hr self-tannerz n leggings r the awesomest! STFU! WTF! BBQ!” we’ve come to love luvlindsay.
Man, I can’t wait for the day I get hate mail from actual strangers. I’m just starting out trying to get published, and the only person who sends me hate messages is my fiancé‘s cousin, who leaves comments about how useless I am on my Facebook profile.
@ bounababe,
I have Wild Fire and a bottle (or two) of wine ready for whenever I finish Lover Mine by Ward (another cracktastic author). I also still have Street Game by CF in the ol’ TBR mountain for more fun.
Clenching wombs remind me of montly cramps, not sexy times.
Ahh. Hate mail.
Since I am still working on publication in romance, I don’t get romance hate mail. Yet. I get it at my blog. I write about whatever strikes my fancy, and most of the hate mail follows the usual pattern—“You made me so mad I had to write, even though I’ve never written to a blog before!!! You are stupid/don’t know what you’re talking about/going to Hell/breaks finger off in the exclamation key!!!!!!!!” Of course, there’ s plenty of grammatical errors and misspellings involved as well.
I also used to get some world-class hate mail when I wrote for a NFL blog. How dare any female comment on professional football, especially when she’s proven right? I don’t write or comment there anymore, but I have visited since. They’re now complaining because I’m gone.
😉
To Julia Spencer Fleming, please don’t stop the 50 year old cursing w/porn you write so beautifully. I needs me some Russ and Clare. Don’t make me send you a Haterz email about how long I am having to go without my fix. 🙂
Inga,
There’s one guy on there now who is writing long rants against identifying Christian fiction clearly, and calling everyone who disagrees with him “theophobes” and atheists who want to suppress religion.
Ironically, this past Sunday’s Gospel reading was, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples; if you have love for one another.”
Sigh.
BWAhahahaha! Yeah, you idiots! How could you possibly think that a kinda wiccan or whatever dance to draw power from mother earth is “weird” dance or a “spell”? UR so dum! Learn to read! Or stfu! Oh my, I’m going to be giggling all day.
I don’t get hate e-mails, but I’ve been in retail and customer service for a lot of years, and I get some doozy in-person freakazoids. The one that comes to mind right now is the woman who called me a cunt for refusing to give her a refund for something she bought at another store in the mall. Because they had closed, and we hadn’t. And aren’t we all the same?
I hate the word “haters” and I hate Will Smith for bringing the slang it into the mainstream on ‘Big Willie Style’. There has been 13 years worth of that insufferable word thanks to him.
KeriM,
I’m afraid your neat typing, correct spelling and failure to use even a single exclamation point marks you as completely failure as a Hatr. (Haitr?)
You’re just mad ‘cause he got floor seats at the Lakers. And you see him on the 50 yard line with the Raiders.
Hater.
H8r?
Everybody step back, Sarah’s getting jiggy.
Darn my mom for drilling into me, “If you can’t say something nice….” that and “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!”, but that is another story. 😉
Should have kept those old mails… My favorite was when a fellow member of a former community, who was all sweetness and light on public posts, had a brainglitch and wrote a really nasty email about all my horrible qualities to another community member—accidentally cc’ing the whole community. I was utterly aghast when it happened, but in hindsight it was pretty giggleworthy. Tarnished that angelic halo good and well!
Probably doesn’t count, but at work we had a very long letter of complaint from a dissatisfied customer which is now pinned up in the staff room. The basic jist of it being “I came to your tourist attraction and it was terrible – I hate old houses and birds and that’s all you had. You suck”
I work at a falconry centre in a stately home. That is the point of the attraction and the only thing advertised. Goodness knows what this bloke was expecting….
I guess we will keep each other company, then, because I’ve been saying that for years. Not so much due to historical inaccuracies, though. I couldn’t finish it because the book bored me to tears.
@KalenHughes and @Tina C. save me a seat!
(british38, LOL)
I once received multiple hate mails from a whole forum of conservative women for the snarky review I did of an absolutely terrible book called Happy Housewives, by Darla Shine. Luckily, the comments supporting me were almost as numerous, and a lot more entertaining.
After Darla called me a feminazi and banned me and anyone else that critiqued her from her web site, I got even more incoherent attacks: http://imponderabilia.blogspot.com/2006/02/hypocrites-and-feminazis.html
Ah, those were the days.
Not exactly hate mail, but I did think this was funny (emphasis added):
“Drop any first-person stories you have and continue with third-person. You are way, way better with this style of writing & seriously ROCK ON because for forever I’ve always thought, well, she could be better and it’s so great to see you’ve found a style of writing that you’re so comfortable with & good at.”
My captcha is may78. Ah yes, I remember it well!
@ Tina C and Tiferet
If you’re going to be in Nashville (or wherever RWA ends up now that the Oprey is under water) PLEASE come find me. I’ll buy the first round and we can be mean girls in the bar. *grin*
You just made me remember a guy at the airport where I used to work on check-in. I did about six months either side of 9/11, although it was a London airport and our flights were all European, the terrorist threat was really ramped up (and it was never exactly low-key: we did about six daily flights to Belfast and every one of them was screened for terrorists. Every damn day).
One day this guy was having a screaming fit at the woman next to me on the Sales desk. I don’t know what his problem was, but it’s amazing how intelligent, rational people become Haterz the second they enter an airport. He decided that whatever the problem was, it was the airline’s fault, and after they failed to solve it he walked away and shouted loud enough that about two dozen check-in desks and all associated passengers could hear, “I hope all your planes fall out of the sky!”
Now, even from day one, we were trained that if anyone even jokes about guns or bombs or whatever, to automatically treat it as a threat. It was well within the law to actually have someone arrested for saying they had a gun (even before 9/11. Like I said, what with the IRA and Lockerbie, the UK’s been quite sensitive about terrorism for a while). My colleague said, “Sir, that’s a terrorist threat.” He said he didn’t care. She picked up the phone and said, “I’m calling the police.” The passenger glanced around, and saw the airport police (who, unlike regular UK coppers, are armed. Very visibly armed).
It was amazing how fast he apologised.
I get too much glee from laughing at bad hate mail.
I have none to share (yet) and hopefully I won’t…I hope anyway.
Okay, so I don’t have any hate mail for you, but I do have an awesome RESPONSE for hate mail via H.L. Mencken an early 20th century humorist. It goes like this:
I am sitting here in the smallest room of my house with your letter of criticism before me. Soon it will be behind me.
Sincerely,
Have fun. 😀
Regan
My favorite part:
“smart” bitches?? i
think thee not,
I think THEE not? OMGLOL *dies*
Oh dear, I’m afraid I don’t have it on my computer, but I did get a lovely piece of hate mail from a student when I was a TA, all because I dared to suggest he visit the school writing tutor. He had a tendency to say smart things in class (though he rarely raised his hand to do so), but I couldn’t understand a thing he wrote. So I commented on his paper that I knew he had good ideas but he wasn’t getting them across. He wrote back that his friend typed up his papers for him, any mistakes were all his friend’s fault, he always got As on his work, and he was dropping my class and leaving the country!
I’m pretty sure I was speechless. And if he did leave the country, he was back the next semester, because my colleague had him in her section to give her grief.
I’m a child welfare social worker and I got a lovely “Christmas card” from a client last December. This woman and her husband had raised their two children significantly worse than most people treat their dogs and their parental rights were removed. She mailed me a long handwritten, letter ending with:
I’ve spoken with her sister and she does not have cancer. I guess I’m going to have my parental rights to 20 children terminated???
Yes, they do have me to thank for that, and that is one of the things in my life of which I am most proud.
Both of the kids are now in an amazing adoptive home and are doing extremely well.
Oh, my hate mails haven’t started yet. One email asking if I was going to write a book with a black-haired virgin heroine, but no hate mails. But I’m sure they’re coming.
@Julia Spencer-Fleming Amazing how the love bit gets missed, isn’t it?
@Emeth
Honey, you are doing God’s work (whatever god or goddess you so chose). Literally. That’s something I’d be damn proud of too!
Actually, scratch that. I have gotten hate mail. I was first chair saxophonist in my high school band and one day I found a letter in my instrument locker telling me I’d ruined every concert. I’m 99% it came from the second chair and probably only him.
I got some vindication when for my final performance I rocked my solo and my band teacher told the others to play better or he’d put hate mail in THEIR lockers.
I still wish he had actually punished the guy for it though.
Oh hell, most of mine would come from work and candidates who aren’t happy that they failed a test and try to put the blame elsewhere so they don’t have to pay for it again.
And then there’s my soon-to-ex-boss who said on my evaluation that “I’m hard to work with” and not ever giving an example of what the fuck she is talking about!
I’m glad you decided to share the email!!!
I participate in a chat room at work where the CSR’s can report problems before they can develop into full-blown disasters, as well as ask questions, and there is one CSR who wants to be the pretty little princess of the chat room. She is so determined to be the center of attention that she blows up indignantly at any other agent who would dare – horrors! – to try to get the mod’s attention while she is “talking.” She is rarely ever posting anything work-related, either. It’s usually overly cutesy meme-type stuff and little anecdotes about what celebrity she resembles, etc. Word is, she’s irate that she hasn’t been hired on permanently yet. Gee, I wonder why?
@Laurel: try mentioning Fanny Burney on a Jane Austen board sometime, and you will witness some literary hateration.
My favorite hate letter is ancient – a long time pre-internet. I was part of a college-based Star Trek group and we had been corresponding with a fan from another state. When we got a Christmas card from her that wished us, “Merry Christmas and Heil Hitler,” we cautiously wrote back. “Uh, sure. Thanks. IDIC and all that. But, er, just for your information, we are Catholic and Jewish and pagan and Muslim and white and black and hispanic. I hope that’s OK with you?”
We got a rant back that said, ” Never write to me again! You must be liberals! I don’t know exactly what a liberal is, but I know they are evil and so are you!”
Unfortunately, it was all spelled right.
I have a 19 page, drunken ranty email (yes, 19 pages!) that another author wrote to a friend (not realizing we knew each other) that details how I am satan.
If only I had that much power…..
Of couse I kept it but it’s much too long for any blog. 🙂
Srsly…..19 pages?!
Ah, Sharron. 19 pages. That’s when you know you’re doing something right. 😀
JT
Hee! My last review, I got “Well, you did what I asked you to, but you didn’t act happy to do it.” Verbally. On the written form, there was not a single comment. Just the scale marks (needs work, does well), which she had knocked down by one (out of four) across the board, because it’s against her philosophy to give “excellents”. So my scale marks ALL WENT DOWN, significantly, without a word explaining why. ‘Cause that wouldn’t be a red flag to a future supervisor. It’s like they lose all rationality when they move into management.
@Emeth, I ditto Kalen. You’re doing good things. Thank you.
Some time ago, 4 of my family members died within months of each other. It was a dreadful year, but my colleagues at work were very supportive and understanding, even when I was flying across the country regularly to see my dad through multiple cancer surgeries. At the end of that awful year, my boss gave me my performance evaluation. It said: “The only thing I can criticize is that she doesn’t have enough of a sense of humor.”
What a pig he was.