Then came my favorite tweet from Colleen Lindsey from April 6, 2011--"OMG would you people please STOP with the "indie" vs. "legacy" thing! These are meaningless buzz words that make you all sound ignorant."
Donald Maas stepped in the cow patty when he said writers needed to be culled. (Moo!)
Now, we had Amanda Luedeke fuck up last Thursday and call writers "schmucks". And fuck up bad she did. [Note: She has since changed the wording of her blog post, but the original paragraph wording can be seen at The Passive Voice.] But she apologized and tried to fix the problem.
Only to have her efforts torpedoed by her own boss, Chip MacGregor. Read the comments he left at TPV, and you'll see what I mean.
What is it about agents, who are supposed to understand PR, who berate writers for doing stupid things, who are supposed to be professionals, that makes them stick their foot in their collective mouths? They are doing all the things that they chide us writers for doing.
I've said it before.
Fear.
Fear of losing power in what is a really, really small industry. Fear of losing their livelihood. Fear of losing their prestige.
Maybe some agent somewhere will post the following list to their wall (and hopefully, some writers too):
1) DO NOT EVER insult the people you depend on for making a living. In the case of agents, that means writers. In the case of writers, that means readers.
2) If you do accidentally insult someone, say "I'm sorry." That's it. Nothing else. Anything else is an excuse to justify your actions.
3) If you screw up, fix the problem. It you can't fix it, own your screw-up and vow never to do it again.
4) DO NOT EVER post anything online while tired, angry, upset, drunk, etc.
5) Always remember Wheaton's Law, aka "Don't be a dick."
Angry Sheep doesn't like seeing people lose their jobs and is feeling very sad right now. But she doesn't feel sad about agents who call commenters from super popular blogs "dicks". That's not very professional, Mr. MacGregor.
Anyone that gets her feed through feedly will also be able to read the original post. Even when people in Blogger delete entire posts, I'm still able to read the original through Feedly. Love that.
ReplyDeleteInternet is forever, Whisk. Including all my blog's typos. LOL
DeleteThat's the reason I sat on this post for a couple of days. I was very offended by what she said. But she's also young enough to be my daughter, I did a lot of stupid shit at that age, and she did try to fix her mistake, so I wanted to give a little slack.
Then her boss roars in and blew all that good will away. When he was called on his bad behavior, he played the cancer card. The only thing that pisses me off more than the race card is the cancer card.
Well, I tell you. She is young and her inexperience and lack of understanding shows. Even how she puts together an article, is well, very green - and in itself, is in need of editing. Too wordy.
DeleteThat being said, I do believe how she wrote it the first time (as is still on Feedly for anyone who wants to read it), is honestly how she felt.
And hey, she can feel that way. But don't then say, that's not really what I meant to say, or I said it wrong. No, she wrote schmuck because she meant schmuck.
I believe.
That being said, I wasn't offended by the remark. This is how she feels.
PS: I didn't read about the cancer stuff. I only went into Feedly to read the original post.
Marc Cabot, who's an IP lawyer is RL, said these type of posts from agents are a good thing because writers now know how they regard us.
DeleteAmanda's boss Chip MacGregor called Marc and Dan Dewitt names on the comments on Amanda's port, then deleted his and Dan's comments, but left Marc's.
Later in the comments section of TPV, Chip claimed he was under a lot of stress because he was getting biopsied for possible cancer when all this hit the fan. This is a prime example of why you don't say stuff on the internet when you're under duress. But I don't have much sympathy for him because LA Clipper's owner Donald Sterling claimed he had cancer last week after his racist crap was recorded and released to TMZ.
It's sad. It's just sad the excuses people come up with for their inappropriate behavior.
Deleting comments and changing posts. Good thing Feedly captures things forever.
DeleteThe cancer card, yeah, weak.
Wow. Well, hey, I was willing to give Mr. MacGregor the benefit of the doubt, at least until he opened his mouth. [wry smile] And his employee still needs to learn what "most" means, and how people are going to take your comments when you use the word "most," regardless of how you backpedal later.
ReplyDeleteAngie
LOL Yeah, Chip's response is an excellent example of how NOT to deal with a problem.
Delete