Now, usually I try to refrain from criticizing other writers’ work – nobody is perfect and we all have misfires – but I stumbled across something this morning I just couldn’t keep quiet about.
Chris Surette, a columnist for The Mirror - Fairfield University’s student newspaper - has been making headlines around the blogoshphere because the reaction this column is garnering has placed the school in some hot water.
If you haven’t read the column in question, I would strongly urge you to do so before continuing to read this post. I’ll wait….
Done? Good.
Surette’s failed attempt at a humor column is the biggest, most offensive pile of dog shit I have ever read.
I am disgusted. And not so much with the subject matter – though I think Chris’s readers get a pretty clear picture of his opinions regarding the fairer sex in the piece – but more-so with the execution of the column itself.
Look, I’m not a great writer, and I don’t claim to be – but I like to think I’m at least decent at what I do. I also happen to be a recently graduated journalism major that had a fairly well read weekly humor column in my own student newspaper for three semesters, so I like to think I know my way around humor writing a bit (though some of you will surely disagree).
The subject matter Chris has chosen to expound upon is overdone and cliché in college humor writing. Which is fine!
Half of my material throughout my career in opinion writing has been overdone and cliché. However, if you’re going to dedicate a column to an overdone and cliché topic, the redeeming value for your audience has to be either a fresh take on the subject matter, and/or SOME ACTUAL HUMOR!!!
Surette’s piece fails to accomplish either.
Its offensive, douchebag-ey (that’s right, douchebag-ey), frat boy tone and horrendous grammar and sentence structure negate any potential for humor throughout the column. As for fresh takes, the closest this disjointed, rambling, pathetic excuse for writing comes to any type of deep reflection is, “There is nothing worse than the awkward wake up next to a girl, who is not as hot as you thought she was when you were 12 deep the night before.”
And why the fuck is there a comma after “girl”? Take some grammar lessons moron. Not to mention that the structure of that particular sentence makes it slow-paced and confusing, which will completely turn off any audience member still reading.
Instead, try, “There is nothing more awkward than waking up next to a girl who was much hotter when you were 12 deep last night.” Or just don’t write that sentence at all and come up with an ORIGINAL THOUGHT. Now there’s a novelty, an original thought!!!
But now I’m just nitpicking.
My real problem is this: Chris Surette is just another dumbass, Neanderthal male in a Red Sox hat trying to be something he’s not – a writer.
Since Bill Simmons' popularity has grown (sorry Sports Guy, I’m blaming you for this one), any illiterate idiot from the Boston area who follows sports thinks they can be the next Bill Simmons.
The problem is, the majority of them are just like this kid - hacks with no writing talent whatsoever who try much too hard to be funny and/or controversial. This absolutely infuriates anyone who actually possesses some level of talent.
Why? Because with all these Simmons-wannabes flooding the internet with their filth, most people tend to immediately dismiss anyone attempting to write a sports/humor column, blog, or whatever, as a writer of the same ilk. That leaves the rest of us who are trying to break into an already oversaturated market with fewer readers and far less credibility.
So thanks, Chris, for taking a complex art form that is dear to me and pooping all over it with your feeble attempt at a humor column that was no doubt solely for the benefit of you and “your boys”.
At least I can take solace in one fact, Chris – that after the women of Fairfield read that “though many may consider you a slut after witnessing your glorious Walk of Shame, just realize that you have given this lucky guy a story he can share with others at the Grape for the rest of the year,” – I’m fairly confident that “lucky guy” isn’t going to be you anytime soon.
- Seacrest out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
Nice response to that ridiculous article. How does that even get published in the first place?
No idea. Clearly the editor of The Mirror made a terrible judgment call on that one.
read most of your posts, although right on dbag surette, you're actually not that funny either...
^^ why do you read most of his posts then?
This is the first post i've ever read from you. spot on, i guess. although, as a chick who loves sex, and someone who hates douchebags who think sexually active women are 'whores', i am more concerned about the fucked-up stereotyping going on.
then again, as a journalism major and a creative writer, i'm kind of offended by his writing too.
in first grade i wrote a story about a family of happy beavers. it was more compelling than chris surette's "article".
Chris Surette is a disgrace to his family, his school, his gender and his self.
I might not go so far to call him a disgrace to his family, but he definitely didn't do anything to help himself, his gender or his school by writing that column.
Post a Comment