Dear Open Letter Writer,

While I appreciate the time and effort you put forth in stringing various words together into often complex sentences, and while I also appreciate you usually starting with a positive and complementary tone before going on some sort of impertinent rant, on behalf of literates everywhere I feel I must respectfully request that you refrain from future compositionary activity and stop writing open letters.

I fully understand that writing open letters is all the rage right now and fewer things have contributed to this tiresome trend greater than the marvel of the electronic interweb and its various addictive time-vacuuming social media outlets, but before you jump on the metaphorical exhibitionist bandwagon there are some things you should probably know.

First of all, your addressee does not read your open letter.  This is because open letters do little more than belittle the recipient.  You probably don’t realize this because you are stupid.  You write rambling diatribes addressed to Colin Kaepernick and Christians and ‘The Media’ and Wells Fargo and misinformed voting blocks and by the third paragraph you are using rhetorical questions to insult them and call them names.  Are you so lacking in intelligence that you think writing an open letter will get people to change their ways?  Are you so eloquently persuasive that after one page of your egocentric drivel your reader’s views and/or behaviors will suddenly match your own?  Why are you such a big pig-headed jerk-burger?

Is your open letter suddenly going to make Donald Trump a likable socialist?  Is it going to make Hillary Clinton an ethical capitalist?  Is it going to make Colin Kaepernick realize the irony of his protests?  Hardly.  Open letters accomplish nothing.  This is why I am writing this open letter to you:  to get you to stop wasting everyone’s time by writing open letters.

Everyone knows what you are really doing.  You are not writing to the addressee at all.  You are using clever sardonicism (not to mention obscure words) by addressing the addressee but are actually writing to those who, like you, disapprove of the addressee.    You never see An Open Letter to The One I Am Voting For  or  An Open Letter to My Favorite Player.

While addressing the subject, you actually write to those who agree with your narrow-minded opinions in an attempt to foment discontent while simultaneously garnering the all-important likes and retweets such discontent inseminates.  This is supposed to give you meaning and make you feel good about yourself through superficial affirmation and acceptance.   Such pandering to one’s own ego is hedonistic and childish.  (Like and Share this post if you agree.)  My viewpoint on this is obviously the correct one.  Why are you so ignorant?  Why can’t you be more open-minded and agree with me?

Beyond opinion pieces, you often write open letters to people in the future.  They can be found on any number of nauseatingly sappy websites that make me feel the need to pop testosterone and turn on some sort of game.  An Open Letter to My Future Husband/Wife is a popular title.  Hmmm.  Perhaps you would already have a significant other if you weren’t nagging them in public before you’ve even met.

Then there are the open letters you write that air dirty laundry.  These are like Facebook only longer:  An Open Letter to My Stepdaughter’s Mom  or  An Open Letter to My Ex are titles I have seen recently.  Really?  You can’t just pick up the phone and have a private conversation?  Shoot an email?  Send a text?  You have to chronicle it for everyone to judge?  I’m not sure, but I think I know the reason you have an ‘ex’.

In short, Open Letter Writer, we are on to you.  You are being selfish, offensive, controlling, and you need to change your behavior.  You use your open letters to do little more than insult people and tell them what to do.  Stop being an idiot.  And stop writing these open letters.  Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tim