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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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It's Not for Everyone: Letters
Remember I said some people would even whine about my follow-up? Of course they did, but the smart people really came out of the woodwork and wrote in too. A few of those letters are published below.
Weekly Weird News
Before the letters, a couple of comments. I continue to be amazed at the people who really don't get it. True is a social commentary column; it uses news items about "dumb people doing dumb things" as the vehicle for that. To say it with fewer words: True is about laughing at stupid people. Yet some people who have been reading it for years don't seem to get that; they think I'm "upset" at people who protest. No, I make fun of them. They think I need to "watch my blood pressure". What, in this job? I get to laugh for a living! I say what I think in order to spark thought. So many thought I was off my rocker for challenging people so much that they unsubscribed. Not even!
If people are so scared of the opinions expressed in a free newsletter that they flee in terror, they're not the kind of people that I really want reading it, are they? It's simply my way of weeding out the true morons so the vast majority who are left make the reader pool that much more "the cream of the crop." In other words, I challenge my readers on purpose -- and it works. But even more than that, those who truly get it are very entertained by such letters and my responses. And that's True's Number One Mission. "Doc" in Mexico grasped it instantly:
- "First, Randy, I'd like to seize this opportunity to thank Jude for freeing up some space for someone else. Then, I'd like to congratulate you on thinning the crop a bit (by 517, at least SOME of whom were probably dead-heads). The folks that can't grasp the concept of thought-provoking journalism are folks that are in no great danger of having any original thoughts provoked! I, for one, don't want you to change your style one bit. Even when I disagree, I find that considering your position at LEAST makes me see that another point of view may have some merit."
Speaking of a different perspective, Brian in New Zealand:
- "I think that Mark and Jude have both gotten their terminologies reversed. Broke is an immediate state of financial difficulty, while Poor is a state of mind. It seems to me that Mark, while saying that he is poor, is actually quite rich in the bigger things in life. He is rich in his love and commitment to his disabled wife, rich in his ability to access free services, rich in being able to get his point across succinctly -- all of which put him ahead of those who either lack those traits or worse, those who have abilities but refuse to use them. Jude, on the other hand, appears to be poor; he seems not only to lack Mark's qualities, but appears to have in their stead a fair amount of negativity."
Even high-schoolers can get it. Here's Christy, who didn't give a location other than "USA":
- "I can't believe that some people were actually offended by what you had to say in your last newsletter. I understood from the beginning that it wasn't about calling your readers idiots, but rather to encourage new subscriptions and to praise those who actually do 'get it', and that's saying something since this is coming from a 16-year-old. I'd think adults would be much more rational than some high schooler, but I guess some aren't. Life would be incredibly boring without this weekly newsletter to interrupt the monotony of homework and school. I always look forward to the day I get this in my inbox, because I know I can expect at the least something to think about, and maybe even get a couple of laughs along the way. I don't see why some people would want to give that up, all over some imaginary insult."
But the real question is, can the sort of straight talk I publish here actually change minds? Yes. Wal in New Jersey:
- "For more years than I care to acknowledge and all too often, I had been a whiner, indefensibly defending my failures or hurt feelings rather than learning something from the experience. It wasn't until not long ago I realized I had to get off that treadmill before making any real progress. I have found your True feature to be a valuable weapon in my war against my own ignorance. Most enlightening are your responses to readers' comments and reactions to the stories or your editorials. The blatantly idiotic rants aside, at times I find myself agreeing with, at least to some extent, the arguments made by the reader. That is, until I read your response. And while I may not totally agree with either side, it always provokes an analytical response on my part once I get past my ingrained, defensive whine mode. I find myself attempting to anticipate your response, and while I have a long way to go to achieve that, it certainly does make me think beyond what I ever would have before. Had my 16 years of formal education included more of this, well, who knows? But it is never too late to learn and I hope I am doing just that. Perhaps the current curriculum of I Deserve to Feel Good No Matter What 101 could be amended with Cut the Crap 201, straight out of the annals of This Is True."
Thinking is a powerful tool. Knowing that I've sparked it in people is truly gratifying.
I got a great laugh from Tony in Japan:
- "Re: Your rant. If I weren't in an office full of people, I would give that a standing ovation. I was almost inspired enough to click on the upgrade link, but then I remembered I already am getting it."
- Dale in Illinois: "I have read your comments on those who shouldn't subscribe to the premium version and wasn't the least offended. But more importantly, there are any number of your comments that do offend me. That is why I enjoy This Is True so much. If it never offended me, it would be no more than the pabulum that you can find on millions of Internet sites, not to mention in newspapers, magazines, radio and television everywhere. You can't write good news or provide good stories without offending somebody. I don't know if Jude will always remain poor or is lazy, but his attitude that he will always be poor is obviously a defeatist attitude. If you assume you will lose, you have gone a long way toward losing already. I don't care how poor I am or will become, I always know I have the chance to change that. No matter how many things go wrong in my life, as long as I am alive I can do better in the future. If you don't believe that to be true, you are already dead, they just haven't thrown the dirt on your body yet."
- Robert in Oregon had a question that proves he's thinking too: "Randy, you noted you didn't have time to read marketing books. But it's rather obvious you DO read a lot. If you're short on time, then I'll surmise that you read really interesting stuff. So: what good book have you read lately?"
A good question indeed, Robert. I have a huge stack of books that I'm trying to get through, a few minutes at a time. Right now, I'm two-thirds through one that is intriguing me very much: it's about how the Internet is changing the entire world's economy. As someone using the Internet to reach the world (True is read in nearly every country, after all), getting that Big Picture is very important to me. The book: The World is Flat (A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century) by Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist. But it's not for everyone: you have to be able to read and think about the implications. ;-) -Amazon link-
Finally, Patrick in Missouri was the most succinct. He upgraded and appended this note to his order: "I've been wanting this for years, so here's a present to me. Thanks for making me think -- that's a Real present." To join Patrick in the ranks of the Premium edition readers, please upgrade.
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5 Comments on This Entry
All comments in this blog are reviewed prior to being published. Spammers: don't waste your time. The posting criteria are simple: if a comment is worth visitors' time to read, it's approved. If not, it's not.
Posted by Chris, Melbourne (AU) on June 3, 2008:
(Caution: Long.)
"True is about laughing at stupid people"
So's a lot of things. (I can show you plenty of web sites that focus on laughing at stupid people. I waste many hours there... no, take that back. It's not wasted time.)
"I get to laugh for a living!"
Oh you lucky thing. I only get to laugh AT what I do for a living. :)
"So many thought I was off my rocker for challenging people so much that they unsubscribed."
Now, here we find the crux of the matter. In one sense, these people are right; only an idiot destroys his own business through poor customer service. (And there are a lot of idiots doing exactly that. But I digress.) If you were to, for instance, make a real mess of Premium subs, and end up sending renewal notices six months after someone upgrades, or overcharging people, or things like that, then I would expect that people WOULD abandon you, and rightly so. If you accept our money and don't give what you've promised to, I would expect to see www.ihaterandy.com registered and accepting postings of "Isn't Randy Cassingham an idiot" by the dozen.
But then there's a whole different kettle of fish: Offending people by doing precisely what you set out to do. Would you vehemently unsubscribe from "Blonde Joke Of The Day" (I've not gone looking, but there probably is one) because, after "X" years, you suddenly realise how offensive the material is? (Hey... if it takes you years to realise that most blonde jokes offend blondes, then you'd probably make a good source of material.) Do you walk out of a theatre because the comedian told a political joke that's lampooning the party you vote for? ("You can't tell the difference between a lump on the head and margarine? Leadership of the Conservative Party is yours for the asking!" --Spike Milligan.)
I've been a Premium subscriber for some time, even though some of the stories and their taglines annoy me. I'm a Christian, and sometimes there's a story portraying Christians in a very bad light (usually the story is perfectly accurate, but the write-up and tagline imply that all Christians are like this, which isn't fair). Have I unsubscribed? Is this my "big whine" post before going and unsubscribing, and cutting myself off from any chance of a response? Not likely. "True" is funny. It's funny because it pokes fun at stupid people. And there are stupid people everywhere. (Before I offend TOO many people, I'll insert a caveat: I am myself stupid at times. And when I am, I deserve to be written up and mocked. "That idiot just spent days trying to figure out why his program was crashing, and it was because he'd free'd the same block of memory twice! What an idiot!") So when one of the stories strikes home a bit, even undeservedly, I just put it down to Randy trying to write about so many areas, and not necessarily understanding them all perfectly (nobody can), and so he paints with too wide a brush occasionally. This, I can handle. Good humour is worth it sometimes.
You know, the weirdest thing about people who "don't get it" is that there are still such people around. Here's for some fun stats. Plot a marker on every date that one of these X-whiners-unsubscribed posts goes out, talking about people who don't get it. Now, for everyone who unsubscribes, count off how many full explanations they've received, before they went off the handle because of something you said. There. You've just done a whole lot of useless work, but at least you can state the precise "idiot factor" of your unsubscribers! Seriously though, there've been several of these since I joined (which isn't all that long ago). How can someone have been a subscriber for years and then get offended enough to unsub? It doesn't make sense.
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You're exactly right: we're all dumb sometimes. We all do dumb things. That's why we can all identify with at least some of the stories. A typical response to a really funny story is, "Well, at least I'm not that dumb!" -- which is an acknowledgement that, yes, we can be dumb. And that's OK: that's human. That said, I don't know the answer to your ending question. A great example of the genre is the youth pastor who, after months of being a subscriber, suddenly wrote in indignation when he realized TRUE wasn't a newsletter put out by "a Christian organization"! I summarized some of the stories that he had read during that time which should have given him a clue.
And once he realized his own mistake, did he own up to it and take responsibility for it? Of course not: he blamed me. It led to a great discussion with readers, which is also represented on that page.
Does that mean all youth pastors (or Christians) are as idiotic? Of course not. I would never even imply such a thing, let alone say it. And I challenge you to find where I have. More likely, you are identifying yourself with the story, not me. That's your clue that you need to think about your own reaction and see if there's something you need to work on. I'm guessing you'll find that you do need to work on something: your reaction. Everything going on in your head is under your control, not mine. And if it's "out of control" it's because you let it become that way. Yeah, that's easy to say -- I'm human too, and it's something I need to work on too. But it's the secret to success as a human, and I'm trying. -rc
Posted by Chris, Melbourne (AU) on June 3, 2008:
"Does that mean all youth pastors (or Christians) are as idiotic? Of course not. I would never even imply such a thing, let alone say it. And I challenge you to find where I have."
No, you've not said that specifically. I can't point to anything, else I would have in the original post. (This is partly a consequence of my own folly in losing most of my archived True issues, though.) It's not so much that you've said it, but that you've not not-said it, if you know what I mean; and yes, it's more than a little my own fault, so I'm not blaming you. It was just an example of a way that your writing could cause offense (or, to be more accurate, a bit of embarrassment when the blow strikes home -- even though it's not really directed at me), but that offense is for the right reasons, and it does NOT lead to whining, unsubscribing (as if my unsubscription really hurts you... especially as the people who do this are usually free subscribers anyway), and other immature behaviour.
Keep it up. The world needs more humour... and ways to separate the idiots from the rest.
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Well no, I don't really know what you mean. It appears you're looking for me to say "THIS Christian was an idiot, but we know he's not like all Christians." In fact, I have said just that many times -- including the section you quoted! -- but no one expects me to say that about cops, or truck drivers, or hairdressers, or grocery clerks, or doctors, or school principals. So the thing to ask yourself is, why you're expecting me to say it about Christians? Especially in the face that I have done so many times; why wasn't none, or one, or 15 times enough? The "lack" is within yourself, not within my writing. And that's something to ponder. -rc
Posted by Steve Omaha,NE on June 3, 2008:
Insulting to Christians? I don't think so. I prefer to think that stupidity and intolerance transcends Christianity, occupation, education or any other boundaries with which we wish to confine it.
But to me, intolerance is worse than stupidity. We have all focused on details so much sometimes that we lose sight of the big picture. We are ALL stupid sometimes. Some of us more often than others.
Intolerance though, is a conscious act. People CHOOSE to get angry, to take offense and bully others. They choose to see with a closed mind for a filter.
My favorite examples of this are your Zero Tolerance stories. I consider those to be a bonus -- intolerance AND stupidity, all in one story.
Keep 'em coming. You provide entertainment for those of us willing to listen, and who knows? Maybe if people see themselves, they can learn to laugh instead of tilting at windmills.
Posted by Mike from Dallas on June 5, 2008:
Ah, that HALF logic again. People are so caught up in the concept of TACIT approval. IF you don't say something against it, then logically you must be silently for it. They don't stop to consider that it would equally apply to the opposite view; if you don't say something FOR it, then you must be against it. So, by remaining silent, you are both for AND against whatever the subject is. Now there's a Dilemma.
But why is it that the most complainers are the ones who are getting it for free? It seems that the ones who pay for something already believe that it has value or they wouldn't be paying for it in the first place. Yes, the free subscription would be entertaining enough, but I want more! And Groxx gives it even more value.
Posted by Jim, New York on June 7, 2008:
"So the thing to ask yourself is, why you're expecting me to say it about Christians?"
Because many Christians (with the help of their leaders) have convinced themselves they are victims, even when they are the dominant religion and run roughshod over everyone else. Not being able to put Christmas displays all over public property is somehow a violation of their rights.