Why I Love Hate Mail

As my regular readers know, I do get my fair share of hate mail.  In the 3 and a half years since I started this blog I have received hate mail from fanatical Christians, the Phelps family from the “God Hates Fags” fertility, charlatan therapists who claim to be able to cure homosexuality, pastors and most recently fellow homosexuals. In principle I do not mind hate mail.  After all if people are so offended by what you write that they will take the time to formulate their abhorrence for you in an email, you must be doing something right.  Right?  It wasn’t until recently that I realized that receiving hate mail isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I came to realize that I actually love hate mail and this is why.

Admittedly when I started this blog I was rather naïve.  I believed that I would put my mind meanderings down on paper once a week and maybe a couple of friends would read it.  And that is exactly what happened, at first that is.  Soon, almost like it happened over night, it wasn’t only friends and a few family members who read my blog and, to my surprise, I realized that I actually had build up an international audience and that my audience was growing.  This is something that is quite flattering for most bloggers.  But building and growing an audience also comes with a dark side.

You see, when your blog starts to get discovered and your Google search rating goes up, chances are that your blog will also get the wrong kind of attention; the kind of attention that will see you getting hate mail.  I distinctively remember the first hate mail I received.  I was sitting in front of my computer minding my own business.  I had a fabulous hair day that day and it had great volume.  I was in a good mood and looked only slightly surprised at the time because my Botox was starting to wear off.  I downloaded my email and there it was.  The subject line both confused and intrigued me.

“Faggots burn and so shall you” the subject line read.  “Curious title for an email” I remember thinking.  So I opened the email and right from the first line I could tell this was not fan mail.  The gist of the mail was that I will burn in hell and it had a superfluity of Bible verses to substantiate this claim.  As time passed and my subsequent hate mail piled up I became very well acquainted with the Bible’s Leviticus chapters 18, 20 & 22, Romans 1, Genesis 2, Mathew 8 & 19 and Luke 7 (to mention but just a few).  Every hate mail I received from alleged “Christians” folk was like a little Bible study lesson in hatred and intolerance.  And I never did enjoy Sunday School to start with.  But one day one particular hate mail flattered me with my suggested infamy.

The hate mail was titled “The Abomination of Humanity”.  I have blogged about this before; I was that impressed with the new title I was bestowed.  I even considered putting it on my resume and it would have read: Pierre le Roux, Veracity Expert, Profiler, Forensic Investigator, Blogger and The Abomination of Humanity.  I could just see how I was going to be head hunted by Fortune 500 companies.  After all I was not just An Abomination and was THE Abomination, a feat and designation that I think only the dark lord has been honored to have.  I mean who wouldn’t want to hire me when it is eluded that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just imagine what fury The Abomination of Humanity could release if scorned.  I was considering walking up the people in meetings and going “BOO!!” before handing them my business card.  But it is not just misguided fanatical Christian who has sent me their diatribe, the gays has done so too.

You see, queer folk even though we are suppose to be the LBGT community; we tend to be a bitchy, jealous and spiteful bunch at the best of times.  Some call this our flare for the dramatic, others call it spirited flamboyance, but in it is what it is.  I guess some of the articles I have written perhaps hit a nerve or a few tiaras too many and it encouraged a few limp wristed pseudo intellectual queens to take to their laptops and write me a few hate mails.  Now, one thing you should know is that no one writes better hate mails than gay folks.  Gays are articulate, sarcastic and mean spirited in a way that would make the Nazis’ Hitler envious.

Recently, one of my articles was published on a certain website.  It dealt with all the fucked up people who uses Facebook as their personal sex hookup site or platform to air all their dirty laundry.  It was quite an innocent and only mildly offensive article.  Or at least I thought it was but clearly some queens took great umbrage at the article and decided to comment on it.  When some noticed that I was ignoring their negativity like I ignore a freshly passed bowl movement that I flush away without giving it a second glance, they took to their Gmail accounts and in total I received 14 hate mails.

The first couple of hate mails attacked my writing style because apparently they expect everything they read on the internet to be of Pulitzer Prize quality.  Curious, seeing as their own writing style is on the same standard of twelve year olds.  Just because you know how to use a thesaurus and use big words doesn’t demonstrate that you are intelligent or have the ability to write literature (Just saying).  Then there were the others who attacked me like they have known me for years.  Well, those hate mails were interesting to read but mostly as fiction.  I could only wish that I was as immoral and that even ten percent of the debauchery they suggested I am involved with were true.  However, they did give me some very interesting ideas.

Yes, hate mail can sometimes make for some riveting reading.  Sure if you get them they can be quite disconcerting the first couple of times.  In the beginning they did cause me to behave like an emotional disturbed monkey in a Hello Kitty slasher movie and I did finance a significant portion of Häagen-Dazs’ South African operations.  But as time goes by and you receive more hate mail, you learn to see it for what it is and you can find the humor in them.  If you are a blogger you need to accept that these things will happen and you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it.  And if you can’t, then there is a lovely river in Egypt called de-nile, it’s best to get yourself a nice felucca and to sail down it blissfully.

Till next time.