My day always begins with a mug of highly caffeinated coffee, the precursor to an energetic plunge through the world’s headlines, courtesy of the websites I’ve bookmarked on my Mac. Naturally, I start with my employer, the Chicago Tribune (suck-up sentence), segue over to The New York Times and The Washington Post, peruse the easy to read headlines of BuzzFeed andMashable and throw in a wildcard site, out of curiosity.
I recently explored Breitbart, where I learned that Donald Trump had won all three debates, held a triple-digit lead over Hillary Clinton in polls and was just announced as the Cubs’ starting pitcher for all remaining World Series games.
And then, invariably I come across a headline that begins, “An open letter to…”
More and more, penning open letters seems to be the preferred method of bloggers and columnists to reach their intended targets. In combing through my portfolio of columns, I discovered I was guilty of this infraction once, recently penning an open letter to Mick Jagger, imploring him to stop having more children. But now that I have reread the headline, I realize how dumb it sounds. Did I really think this phrase would increase the chances of Sir Mick seeing the column? Blimey, some chap from America wrote me a letter. How I love getting mail! I must forward it to Keith, Ron and Charlie.
Even the phrase itself reeks of a Jerry Seinfeld setup. What’s the deal with open letters? When was the last time you read a closed letter? In high school, I once tried to read the contents of my report card by holding the envelope up to a bright light, but that didn’t work. Eventually I had to tear through the adhesive, revealing the disappointing results.
Sometimes these open letters seem downright silly in their specificity: “An open letter to the guy sitting in seat 15B on American Flight 1267 to Washington Reagan who kept clearing his nasal passages while I tried to sleep!” If you have already identified the focus of your wrath, simply tap that person on the shoulder and discuss your beef. Then hand him a Kleenex.
Yes, when we are upset, angry or frustrated, we fire up our laptops and write open letters, as evidenced by the results that appear when one Googles “An open letter to” and waits for the search engine to complete the query. Thousands of open letters floating around cyberspace include “An open letter to the Christian right;” “An open letter to the woman who told my family to go back to China,” and “An open letter from Amy Schumer to Trump supporters who walked out of her Tampa show.” After reading about the Schumer dustup, I expected to find “An open letter thanking the guy in front of me for leaving the Amy Schumer show, thus improving my view of the stage.”
The open letter concept has even garnered its own Wikipedia page, a must read for all prospective open letter writers. Wikipedia defines open letter as “a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. “
So that explains it. We write open letters because we hope they go viral and feed our egos, even though we couch them in the belief that they are intended for a lone individual and this is the best way of reaching them, surpassing say, a Twitter message or a call to Amy Schumer’s publicist. We want to nominate ourselves as the voice of a particular issue, no matter how mundane. I’m proof that it doesn’t work; nobody has contacted me and told me they agree with my stance on Mick Jagger’s libido.
It’s time we outlaw open letter writing. If you feel this is somehow a violation of your First Amendment right to free speech, feel free to discuss it with me. With the exception of an open letter, contact me any way you like.
