The readers strike back

First, and most obviously, is the reality that the newly vocal masses contain not only thoughtful and respectful readers but also large numbers of fools, knaves, blowhards and nuts. Moreover -- and this is a crucial point -- the percentage of letter writers who are fools, knaves, blowhards and nuts has exponentially increased. In the old stamped-letter days, the difficulty of writing in weeded out more of these types; letters tended to be somewhat more thoughtful, and letter writers usually adhered to certain conventions of etiquette and decorum governing communications between reader and writer. Not forelock-tugging subservience to their betters, but simple courtesy. There was a tacit acknowledgment of the implicit contract between writer and reader, one characterized by at least a modicum of idealization and respect on both sides. I don't want to exaggerate this -- certainly there were plenty of ad hominem and intemperate letters back then. But having edited several magazines in the print-only era, I can say that there were far, far fewer. Perhaps the unseen presence of an editor, the slightly formal nature of writing a "letter to the editor," led readers to be on their better behavior.

Now, in the glorious days of "disintermediation," when writing a letter or posting a blog is as easy as banging away on a keyboard for a few seconds and clicking "Send," that contract has been trashed. Formality? The context of online communication is more like being in your car in a traffic jam than sitting across a table from someone and having a talk -- and it's easy to flip somebody off through a rolled-up window. As a result, the kind of people who are prone to flipping others off, braying obscenities and ranting pointlessly are disproportionately represented in online letters sections and reader blogs. A friend of mine once commented, apropos of drivers who festoon the bumpers of their cars with stickers announcing their political and philosophical beliefs, "I am not interested in the opinions of my fellow motorists." Reading some online discussions, I know exactly what he meant.

The letters pages of Salon, like every other online magazine that doesn't filter its posts, is a classic spaghetti western -- the good, the bad and a really heavy dose of Eli Wallach. To pull out only one of thousands of possible examples, let's look at a particularly egregious discussion that followed an article by Lori Leibovich about the Yaskulka family of New York, whose father lost his mother on 9/11, and their painful struggle to overcome depression and put their lives back together. A number of readers criticized Salon for running the piece, arguing that it placed 9/11 victims on a pedestal and played into Bush's 9/11-is-sacred agenda. But several went further, criticizing the family itself. "Seems like all they are doing is letting the past rule them," wrote "SR." "They seem to be unwilling or unable to get past it. That's not 'recovery' it's 'wallowing.'" Another writer, "EM," criticized "these showy displays of forced grief" and commented, "The Yaskulkas would probably benefit from focusing more on their futures and less on their past losses, too."

Other readers jumped in to express outrage at these responses. One wrote that "for others to think that they have the moral right to judge and ridicule a grieving family's coping methods is absolutely disgusting. It makes me so furious that I'm surprised that I can even sit here and type this. Another poster who expressed similar anger to this situation, wrote, "'Christ, we're horrid.' I completely agree. Human nature at its finest." In the end, the family's mother responded herself, writing, "Judge us if you will ... We were not asked by Salon.com to be the 'Poster Family' for 9/11. We were asked how we are doing 5 years later. We are doing the best we can."

That other readers came to the defense of the Yaskulkas, and Louise Yaskulka responded, shows that letters forums can be self-correcting. But they are not always self-correcting: Sometimes the trolls drive everyone else out. In any case, the damage had been done. This example shows that online, nothing -- not even a grieving family -- is off-limits. Why should it be? An anonymous posting is a communication without consequence. Want to tell someone who lost their mom that they're not grieving the right way? Step right up! They'll never know who you are.

What should be noted about the Yaskulka comments is that, removed from their context as responses to an article about real people, in a forum where those people are sure to read them, they are legitimate. People are at liberty to judge others, and do so all the time, even regarding matters as intimate as grieving. We've all played amateur psychologist in private about people we know, and writers pronounce judgment on public figures all the time. What made this discussion different, and what many readers rightfully found offensive, is that it was a public discussion of a deeply private matter -- the very definition of callousness. But the letter writers who criticized the Yaskulkas clearly did not see the family as being private anymore: Because they were the subjects of an online story, they were fair game.

The fact is that anyone who posts anything on the Internet is opening himself or herself up to every conceivable response -- from thoughtful comments to irrelevant ramblings to savage personal attacks. And, in a dynamic unique to discussion threads, those responses have a logic of their own, one that often has far less to do with the piece ostensibly being discussed than with the posters' obsessions and their quarrels with each other. A thread that starts out reading like an exchange in the New York Review of Books quickly degenerates into a brawl on "The Jerry Springer Show."

Open letter forums create and abet an insider-ish mentality where a certain species of poster can flaunt their egos and sense of superiority. These worthies may see themselves as keen-witted literary arbiters, but in fact they more closely resemble the extras who play outraged townspeople in low-budget vampire movies, oafs in lederhosen milling around angrily and waving burning torches. Besotted with their petty power and egging each other on, they often gang up on a single demonized writer. And if you happen to be that writer, you'd better have a really thick skin -- or have learned to stop reading your mail and Googling yourself.

The problem is, it's very hard for writers, who want to be read and want to know what readers are saying about them, to ignore letters or blogs about themselves. "Practically every writer I know has gone through the mill with this," says Salon senior writer Laura Miller. "Blogs, often written by idiots, are bad-mouthing you. You go through this cycle where you get interested, then you get angry, then you just stop reading them." But as Miller points out, even nasty comments are addictive. "There's a great Trollope quote from 'Phineas Finn': 'But who is there that abstains from reading that which is printed in abuse of himself?'"

Miller, who says the tendency of discussion threads to degenerate is an example of "the tragedy of the commons," believes that the worst online abuse is directed at writers who make themselves vulnerable by revealing intimate things about their lives. "I don't think people who write stuff like that should read their letters," Miller says. "If you write something revealing, people mob up and become predatory." Miller attributes this to a rampant cultural self-righteousness: "It's like a virus in society -- the policing of norms." As every online editor knows, pieces about child-rearing, sexual mores and the like provoke remarkably virulent outbursts of reader self-righteousness.

Novelist and former Salon columnist Ayelet Waldman is a case in point: Her pieces about child-rearing and sexuality caused a group of readers to become angrily obsessed with her. "For some reason there's a tendency for the very worst of people to be expressed online," Waldman says. "I've done it myself -- I once wrote something really snarky about a writer, and I got back a very thoughtful and hurt letter from them, and I felt really bad."

Waldman no longer Googles herself or reads reader letters. "From early on I realized that their bile said much more about them than about me," she says. "But inevitably, despite yourself, that viciousness does affect you. It makes me feel bad about myself, and I try to avoid things that make me feel bad about myself. It's too bad because I've also had amazing experiences online -- connecting with women who have lost children, things that have helped me as human being."

Waldman sums it up succinctly: "The entire blogosphere is a first draft."

It should be noted that some of these attacks have an ugly misogynistic aspect. At Salon, but I believe not just at Salon, a disproportionate number of nasty posts are directed at women writers. Often, the letter writers delight in using cutesy nicknames to belittle women authors, a tactic seldom used against male writers. It's hard to say whether this is a result of the tendency of women to write more personal essays than men, or simple misogyny (though many of the abusive posters are themselves female).

It's easy to say writers should just ignore these letters, but it isn't so easy to do it. For one thing, it isn't as if the posts are all simply cretinous vomitings by mouth-breathers; often they make some more or less legitimate point, then launch into their ugly attacks. And the relentless viciousness of the attacks -- a phenomenon that never existed on the same scale before the Internet -- is profoundly demoralizing to writers: They can make their job miserable and affect their writing. "In the old days, the mail had a completely different tenor," says Salon staff writer Rebecca Traister. "Even the hate mail was pretty well thought-out. But this has become about creating a spectacle of hate that everyone will notice. I did laugh at it for a long time. But to open yourself up to it every single time, to wake up at night imagining how someone is going to take what you have written and turn it into a personal attack on you -- it wears away at you." Traister adds, "I cannot say that it does not affect my writing."

Next page: The danger is that journalists will pull their punches