If you want you see what writers are really like inside, go onto a small press forum and criticize the local icons. In or out of academia, doesn’t matter. Even in communities that sing about open-mindedness, dissidence, freedom of expression, individualism and love, they will kick you like a Mexican dog.
The first thing they will do is make fun of your name. I’ve been called Mother, Motherfucker, Matherfucker, Cotton, Beaver, the Beave, Matherhorn, Matherscratcher, Madder, Doesn’t Mather, Mather Von Douchebag, Mathis, Puritan Mather, Mather Monkey and Snydley. This kind of school-boy stuff will often come from people hidden behind tags like Anonymous, Ozone-427 or Crackers.
If you do not immediately slink away with your tail between your legs, then they will get angry. Someone might threaten to find you and beat the shit out of you. Someone might put a post on the forum pretending to be you, in which he makes a death threat. Someone might say to you, “Come on over, cunt, and lick your mother’s shit off my dick.”
More common will be the smug suspicions regarding the clarity of your mind or your position in society. You will be reminded of the shame that “no one here has ever heard of you”. If you are a teacher you better be tenured, if you have a web site it better be modern and popular, if you’re a writer you better be published, and if you’ve published then your books better sell. But in the end nothing will save you. You could be successful in every area of life, but if you don’t respect their icons they’ll claim you’re jealous and trying to be a martyr. They will dismiss you as an idiot, whacko, whiner, failure, loser or troll. You will be told to get a life, to stop feeling sorry for yourself, to wake up, to watch your tone, that you’re pathetic and that you will “get what’s coming to you.” You will be accused of “pissing on the carpet” or “coming to the party uninvited and then breaking the stereo.”
No one will address your criticism in any logical, direct way, and if you repeat it, even once, you will be called a broken record. Someone will say, “I feel sorry for you.” Someone will say, “If you’re so smart how come no one agrees with you?”
All they see are numbers. Life is like a business. If you can’t accept the Starbucks model as the archetype for art, publishing and general existence, you have two choices: hide in a cave with your mouth sealed shut, or grease your ass.
It’ll be fun, stirring them up, but nothing will change. One morning you will turn on your computer and find some guy on a forum diagnosing you as “severely paranoid”. He will say this calmly, confidently, as if only a moron would doubt it. Severely paranoid… Maybe he’s right? Maybe you need to listen to people like this. What’s his name?
His name is Crackers.
Mather Schneider is the author of Drought Resistant Strain (Interior Noise Press, 2009).
