My First Hate Mail!

We just wrapped a new website a few weeks back with the help of our good friends over at Fatkat:

Now, it’s not a masterpiece among websites, but we’re pretty proud of what we did for a handful of dollars, and hey – it’s a socially conscious outfit trying to make a difference, which is always a nice plus. Well sir, the site isn’t live for more than a few days, when I get this lovely email from a doting fan:


“You don't want to hear this, and I'm sorry to be the purveyor of the news, but the http://www.greenvehicles.com/ website really sucks. Forget the Flash and the cute stuff, and just stick with HTML. It works fine, and it's what 95% of the visitors want. At the very least, give your visitors the choice of the cutsy Flash site or a conventional Tried-And-True HTML site. It's the least you can do. Anything else is a disservice to your customers and their site visitors. Sorry.... “


The first thing I noticed was that you can actually feel his sincerity… he truly is sorry to be the purveyor of this news. Do you know what kind of pain you have to be in to use a word like "purvey"? I feel awful for the guy - what a load that must be to bear– but delivered with such poetic grace and grammatical perfection.

The second thing I noticed was how perceptive this guy was. In only a matter of days he managed to uncover my secret plot to demonize and crush the HTML community with my cleverly subversive Flash sites! Damn him! Why do I do it? For the same reason as any terrorist: I hate Freedom! You can see it in my work.

Oh, this guy is good… real good. He could easily get a job working for the NSA (clearly his HTML career hasn’t been taking off).

So here’s the question: when did it become okay to start delivering unsolicited hate comments through a company’s email? Isn’t that what blogs are for? Does this guy yell at the kid in Baskin Robbins for not telling his customers they should go to Subway and get a salad instead?

Bottom line, his rant falls on deaf ears (not just because my hearing is bad). It’s a good site. My Client loves it. My self-worth isn’t shaken by the criticism of an angry fool… but the method in which he chose to channel his anger is more than a little disturbing. I am an angry, angry man… I understand anger. But it’s never even occurred to me to take it out on a random stranger for their choice in web tools.

This may or may not be a picture of the emailer



I feel positively Ghandi-like now!

Is this guy dangerous? Is he crazy? Am I going to be stabbed to death with a Wacom Pen while trying to unlock my beat-up, ten-year-old car paid for with the meager profit margins of low-budget web work? Or is this just a way of compensating for impotence?

Anyone wanna weigh in on this?

T