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merlin:

Why Merlin Mann (Whom I’ve Never Heard of) is a Complete Jackass

Metafilter comment on someone called, “Merlin Mann,” who had been declared a “complete jackass” upthread:

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Anyone who does THAT dance to THAT song is never, under any circumstances, EVER a jackass.

Plus, I once saw how many cherries this guy puts in a Makers and ginger. That’s like anti-jackass tonic right there.

Wait, unless we’re talking about the Top Secret Cool Jackass Club. GODDAMMIT DID I RUIN THINGS AGAIN YOU GUYS PLEASE KEEP CONSIDERING MY MEMBERSHIP

Honestly, there will always be some jitbag - in real life, in a magazine, on the internet, on whatever platform - going “hey, I don’t know shit but I’m going to talk about it anyway - and I’m going to tell YOU how YOU’RE an asshole.” The bummer is that for the 1,000 people who tell you how much they like you, the one jerk with the megaphone telling you exactly which dongles you suck is always, always the loudest - and that’s always the stuff that stings the most.

I’m not a very loud voice, nor a particularly important one, but I think you’re great. Beyond great, if you must know.

Here is a story: For a few years, I was an advice columnist, in a very interesting context: I was the advice columnist on IGN.com from late 1998/early 1999 to 2001. Along with a brilliant guy named Julian Rignall and some other super smart dudes, I helped shape IGN.com into the crazy site it is today, and along the way became a bit of a personality known as Ask Leah. Yes, that’s right, I gave advice to guys aged 13 and up. Not just any guys, but videogamers. For 2 1/2 years. My job included writing a feature a week, plus answering letters in two to three smaller columns per day. For the harder stuff, like the medical questions or the really serious answers, I had a medical advisor/ghost writer (a doctor - my mom!). The columns were:

- Ask Leah
- Tough Love
- What’s Up With My Penis?

This is not a joke.

During those 2 1/2 years, I had a fairly large readership. I had to do publicity, like go on radio shows as the “sex & love columnist,” and one time spent 70 miserable minutes taking punishment on Opie & Anthony, when they were still on regular broadcast radio. I stayed on the entire time (even The Rock hung up on them), weathering some serious on-air abuse, because I knew that as bad as that abuse was, the abuse I’d get via email would be worse if I hung up.

The letters I got varied, of course, from “What are these lumps on my nuts” to “I’ve never talked to a girl and I want to ask her out” to “I feel suicidal.” I had moms writing me, begging me to answer their kids. I had kids arguing with me, disagreeing with me, sometimes telling me I was an idiot, and stupid, and ugly, and awful. After a while it felt like I was writing Cosmo for teens who did nothing but fondle their nuts in between playing rounds of Tekken 3 and Quake II and Zelda and fired off notes to the editor about how they were SHOCKED AND APPALLED about some stupid omission on a frigging website, of all things. Guys, go outside.

But you know what I remember now? Besides the horror that was Opie & Anthony, and the occasional desire to punch myself in the face, and the jokes and eye-rollings, and how bitter I was about the crappy treatment I received when I was laid off by a company I had worked very, very hard for - I mostly remember the good. From the readers. The people I helped. The respectful kids. The ones who started thinking and behaving a little differently. The guy who had never talked to a girl - and who ended up with a date to homecoming. There are some other great stories in there. I really treasure them.

So this long, silly aside: I’m sure you know all this. But those fuckers? Are always going to be fuckers. You really do make a difference to a lot of us. Whether by getting us to think differently, to see the world differently, or to laugh when we’re sitting here feeling like slamming our heads repeatedly into the space bar. We’re your little readers who should probably stop fondling our nuts and playing games, and should go outside. Occasionally we do, and we figure things out. We owe you, man.

Don’t let the fuckers get you down. Now, get back to work.

Source: merlin