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Monday, June 24, 2013

Open Letter to Open Letter writers


Lately open letters have been the new IT thing lately, the new trend. I can count, Open Letter to Mfundi Vundla, To Unathi Msengana, To Jacob Zuma, To Kenny Kunene and To Kenny Kunene.

The general form of these open letters breaks down to the following format:


  • Salutation
  • Praise for the person or product you are about to dismantle.
  • A breakdown of what is wrong and how miserably wrong it is.
  • An explanation of why this is bad.
  • Your solution for how the person being addressed in the letter can solve all your problems.
  • A close that again praises the person or product because you can’t leave on a sour note.
  • Every time I read an open letter I envision the person behind the post is reading it to me with a sweater wrapped around their shoulders and either leaning on a croquet mallet or walking along a pond.

I admit I have a higher hatred for this trend of writing open letters than most people. The reason is that it is superfluous in an online context.

We can not all be writing open letters. Calm down with this trend. We all have the freedom of speech but really? Nah.

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