Dear Sirs and or Mesdames:

I’m not going to take the usual approach.  I’m not going to be hateful.  I’m not going to hurl a string of foul-mouthed yet literate abuse at you or imply that you should die painfully in a fire while you are simultaneously mauled by giant hogs wearing flame-retardant suits.  I’m going to assume that somewhere behind the paragraphs of misspelled offers of search engine optimization or male enhancement meds or Prince Mbale Ntubu’s missing Nigerian fortune there is a lonely soul crying out for connection, however fleeting.  And I just want to say, you know, it’s okay.

I know you’re just doing your job.  I know that you never dreamed when you were a child looking up at the stars that one day you’d be forced to try and put food on your table by advising humanity anonymously on the benefits of legal online horse betting.  No one grows up wanting to do that.  We want to announce our names in a clarion voice to the entire world and say that I matter, and what I believe about making $6382 a month working part-time from my laptop matters.

I just want you to know that I get it.  I understand the agony of thinking that you’re not being heard.  Of feeling like you’ve poured your deepest emotions into your words and bared your heart only to see it scattered, forgotten, upon the wind.  To see your most cherished thoughts flouted by a civilization that professes to care but can’t be bothered to spare a half second of its valuable time to click on the suspicious URL to see more, or to enter its precious credit card number for a once-in-a-lifetime offer.

How dare they diminish you.  How dare they ignore you.

So the next time I sweep my spam filter clean of your sometimes awkward observations, please know that I do so with a heavy heart and an understanding mind.  That I know you weren’t born wanting to do this.  That I know that behind every spammer is a failed writer who couldn’t get anyone to listen, and that spam comments are the poetry of the wannabes and the never-weres.

Unless you are using a computer to generate this crap randomly and you’re off sunning yourself in the Riviera next to a couple of bikini models, you degenerate moocher.  In that case, go f*** yourself.

Respectfully yours,

Graham