I got this email a few weeks ago from a Film.com reader. It will be relevant for you to know that my author bio at Film.com says this: “Eric has been a film critic since 1999, and a beard wearer since 2008. He holds a degree in journalism and used to work in ‘the newspaper industry,’ back when that was a thing.”
Hi Eric,
May I call you Eric? Ok, how about Mr. Snider? Mr. Mencken? Mr. Pulitzer?
I ask because it appears that you consider yourself a “journalist.” It appears that you seem to feel that writing movie reviews for a Web site puts you above those who write for newspapers — or, at least, when newspapers were actually “a thing.”
I mention this because, as a fairly recently retired sportswriter for a decent-sized paper in Massachusetts, I am fascinated by the cultural change I must face; a change marked by the total reliance on the electronic media by teenagers.
And we all know that, as Al Capp said, “the only thing a teenager is better at than me is fixing cars and acne.”
I’m sure that Capp won’t mind your stealing his line and using it as your own, mostly because he quite dead. You may Google Al to find out who he is.
At any rate, after spending 40 years pounding keyboards — many that were part of … GASP … a typewriter — I am reasonably upset by your dismissal of words on actual paper. [Yeah, I don’t think “reasonably” is the word you’re looking for.]
Exactly what are you giving the world of journalism, other than your arrogant use of the word “journalist” to describe yourself? Well, you are helping to prove that a world of limitless electronic “paper” anyone and everyone can find a publisher. You are giving us the letter “u” as a pronoun, and countless other bastardizations of what used to be a beautiful language — the language of Shakespere [sic], Keats, Shelley, Lardner, and, even in their own way, Woodward and Bernstein.
What used to be essays — some thought-provoking from people like Barnicle; some fantastically funny, from people like Buchwald and Woody Allen — have become “tweets, simple, rarely pithy, often moronic and mostly just another way from Sally to tell the rest of the teenage world that, in the last half-hour, she’s applied “vagina pink” to her fingernails, broken up with Jimmy, and taken an absolutely wonderful crap.
Yes, Eric, you are a 2011 journalist. Aren’t you proud?
M.B.
Agawam, Mass. [His email has this signature line at the end of it:]
A sense of humor is what takes a problem and whittles it down to a size where you can handle it. — Billy Clyde Puckett, Semi-Tough
My response:
I think there’s been some misunderstanding. I’m not a teenager; I’m 37 years old. I’ve only been an “online writer” since 2003. Before that, I wrote for newspapers for 18 years, starting when I was 10 and did a news column about my elementary school for the community paper. I earned a B.A. in journalism (print journalism) in 1999. Like you, I love the English language (particularly the word “pontoon”), and I haven’t done anything to bastardize it — nor can I imagine where in my writing you’ve found any indication that I have.
As far as I can tell from your email, your objection is not to anything in particular I’ve written but to the wording of my bio paragraph at Film.com. When I made light of the declining state of the newspaper industry, it was from the perspective of someone who loves newspapers and was part of that world for most of his life, not that of some 20-year-old brat snarking about his forefathers’ ancient means of communication. I’m sorry if your feelings on the subject are too sensitive to allow for jest, but as a wise man once said, a sense of humor is what takes a problem and whittles it down to a size where you can handle it.
In short, your assumptions about me are entirely incorrect. For a journalist, you sure jump to a lot of conclusions!
Best wishes,
Eric D. Snider
I didn’t get a reply.
We have met the enemy, and he is Stupid.
That’s great Eric, REALLY great. I’m sure you had a grand ole time responding to that letter and then posting it on your blog. You probably thought it was funny, right? Because you are a funny guy, RIGHT?! My problem with you is your general disregard of the classic (and non-barbaric) form of ‘journalism’, writing it down on paper with your hands! Do you think Shakespeare wrote down his drafts of Othello on an iMac? No he didn’t. He got his quill and wrote it out BY HAND. You call yourself a ‘journalist’, meaning ‘one that writes a journal’. You know how journals are written? BY HAND. I find it quite hypocritical that you call yourself a journalist yet write everything by typing keys with your Cheeto-stained fingers! I would ask you if you had any dignity, but you do a pretty good job of answering that with everything you write! I hope you are happy with yourself, and I await your non-handwritten response most eagerly. Good day to you, sir! Jeremy Sollie (@jeremythesollie) P.S. Oh and by the way Mr. Snider, before you try to turn the tables by noting the hypocrisy that I am typing yet chastising you for it, I handwrote this and then had my maid type it. She has no dignity already so it is fine.
Oh and good article by the way
Get off my lawn!
I wonder what whiny people did before the internet.
I love the picture of Grandpa Simpson. Perfect! Although I am curious to learn more about this “typewriter” of which he speaks.
M. B. may have been a journalist, but perhaps he wasn’t big on the whole investigative aspect of the job.
Using his own quote against him was very sublime if not pontoon. Love it
I actually enjoyed reading Eric’s response – it’s the classic Dale Carnegie-approved method of neutering disagreement through common ground and reasoned discourse.
The tweet thing is interesting, regardless: I would initially have expected that tweets would take the place of Facebook status updates, but for a wider audience, but instead, they seem to have supplanted blog posts. Back when we were writing blog posts, we were just looking for an easy out enabled through a character limit. Go figure.
Your reply is BRILLIANT.
And I was missing Angry Letters.
And I thought Jeremy was serious until the end of his comment! “Handwrite THIS,” I thought.
For a retired sportswriter, he sure seems to know an unsettling amount of information regarding the goings on of modern teens, especially the fingernail polish shade description (*cringe*). I especially enjoyed his digital signature of irony, which should be mandatory in the workplace.
Fair disclosure statement: I do NOT love newspapers. But I do love Snide Remarks, even though I prefer catamaran to pontoon.
Which came first, the internet or the whiny people?
Holy crap! Eric is 37 years old?
Looks like someone just retired and is completely bored sitting at home all day with nothing to do! You should write him back and let him know that golf would be a better hobby than angry letters. At least he could get some fresh air!
Does anyone know where I can find “Vagina Pink” nail polish?
Yay! Angry letter! I missed them so much! While I am very happy that you got one (and it was a good one!) I’m sad that they have become so rare that this one merits its very own Snide Remarks 🙁 Still, you take what you can get, and I loved your response.
I believe “Shakespere” is an accepted spelling in certain snooty circles.
That said, I appreciated your takedown of this angry letter. Nobody does it better than Eric D. Snider.
Love it! Also, the second comment made it even better.
Retirement is not flattering on this guy, though I’m skeptical of his identity. What’s he doing following teenagers on Twitter? If he is who he says, he’s not only a crab, but a creep.
It’s not creepy to follow teenagers on Twitter. *shifts eyes*
I thought I would look up “vagina pink nail polish” to see if and where it is available. The only result was a line in some book. Without quotes, however, I got many more hits. None of which were useful.
Wait, aren’t sportswriters to journalists what tweets about icky nail polish color are to Shakespeare?
Aw, don’t pay M.B. any attention, Eric, he’s just a bitter old guy whose “retirement” was probably more like a layoff. As someone who loves both print journalism and the internet, I wish both would survive long into the future, though probably newspapers are doomed sooner. Love your reviews!
angry letter! That made my day.
All of a sudden I am nostalgic for the Daily Herald (print version) and for the goldmine of angry letters which it drew towards Eric like moths to a flame.
Man…I’ve missed angry letters. Time to mine the Snide Remarks archive .
Oh snap!