Try saying that with a fat lip

Yesterday I observed, from the safety of my Twitter profile, the continuation of a schoolyard fight between Tom Scocca, who blogs on Slate and Chris Jones, who writes for Esquire and has his own blog called Son of a Bold Venture. A couple of months ago, Chris Jones wrote a post outlining the basics of profile writing. This post was intended to help young writers (like me).

In the post Chris Jones gives some advice on how to pick the proper subject for a profile:

Not everybody is interesting: In the way that a bad idea will doom a feature from the start, choosing the wrong subject will doom a profile..........For instance, someone like Albert Pujols is obviously an outstanding baseball player, but I think it would be very hard to write a good profile about him. I’d be willing to bet that the bullpen catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers would make for a more interesting story. That dude—and I just looked him up: Marcus Hanel, who apparently has enormous hands—would be my pick every time.

Tom Scocca took issue with the post:

It is, in fact, great advice for any writer who wishes never, ever to compete with Chris Jones for the finite amount of space and money available for feature writing in major American magazines.

And he continues

No one will be more thrilled than I will if Chris Jones goes off the reservation and interviews Marcus Hanel, bullpen catcher of the Milwaukee Brewers, and somehow forces his bosses at Esquire to put it on the cover of the May issue. If Marcus Hanel is on the cover, I will find Chris Jones and pour him a manly drink of congratulations, writer to writer, from my own personal bottle of Pikesville Rye. I might even buy a copy of Esquire.

Otherwise? Tell it to your priest, pal. You're in the Albert Pujols business.

Somewhere in that argument, Tom Scocca may have had a point. The point however, was lost in his delivery. Snark seems to be his writing style of choice.


Which lead me to a couple of questions.

 What the hell are they doing? Is society too comfortable behind Twitter profiles and Google monikers to notice how petty they are becoming?

It's truly amazing what people will say to each other or about each other behind the arms length safety of their computer screen. In the example above, I find it hard to believe that Tom Scocca would have the guts to say what he did about Chris Jones face to face.

I am not saying no-one should ever post a negative review or critical comment on a blog post. What I am saying is those comments should be constructive. Calling someone a hack because you don't like or appreciate their work isn't constructive. It's petty and shows a complete lack of respect.

I had a teacher in high school, Mr. Fisher. He had a unique way of resolving spats. Mr. Fisher was a large man with no tolerance for snark. His favourite one liner when someone got mouthy in his class was: "Try saying that with a fat lip!" He wasn't kidding. I learned that the hard way.

So let that be the new test.

Before you write an acid tweet or attack someone on a blog.

"Try saying that with a fat lip."