Posted on 04/13/2011 7:04:47 PM PDT by delacoert
2011 is shaping up to be the year of the open letter.
The general form of these open letters breaks down to the following format:
Every time I read an open letter I envision the person behind the post is reading it to me with a sweater wrapped around their shoulders and either leaning on a croquet mallet or walking along a pond.
I admit I have a higher hatred for this trend of writing open letters than most people. The reason is that it is superfluous in an online context.
The origin of the open letter was in the days when a typewriter, an envelope and a stamp were the best way to communicate your message to someone. Bill Gates wrote an open letter in 1976 to the hobbyist computer who were not paying license fees for his Basic software. Martin Luther King wrote an open letter from the Birmingham jail. These open letters were written in a time when something as ubiquitous as the Internet was an idea left to science fiction novels.
An open letter on today’s searchable Web is nothing more than a trumped up blog post with a salutation and valediction. Everything on a public facing web site is already open whether it is in the form of a letter, blog post or giant image plastered on the front page of Amazon. By formulating an online writing in the form of an open letter, the writer’s goal is obviously to present the content in a more formal manner in hopes that it will be taken more seriously. It’s not. If you want to impact real change within a company, mail the letter via the Postal Service or FedEx. A physical copy of a letter on an executive’s desk shows more conviction than a WordPress permalink.
The next time you think of writing something online and starting it with “Dear $Person” don’t.
You forgot to say, “Dear Persons.”
An open letter to open letters.
Where is the praise for the open letter writer?
Open letters are written to people who wouldn’t open a real letter from the writer.
I agree with your general disdain for open letters. More to the point, my first thought is that this mechanism demonstrates a certain vanity or self-importance on the part of the author.
To me, it’s one thing to express an opinion in an online forum, but it’s quite another to presume that the gravity of your opinion merits the public dressing-down of a prominent person or corporation.
I propose execution for anyone that writes an “open letter” or posts anything about a “straw” or “internet” poll.
The person to whom it's written wouldn't open it, still won't read it, so it's written for vanity to the rest of the public who might agree. A waste then.
Execution is okay ... I guess ... but a temporary physical disability with permanent disfigurement and hideous scarring is enough ... in my opinion.
Oh, I don’t know. I liked the cloud thing.
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