500-WORD RANT #12

One Rant to Rule Them All

A trilogy for my readers and snake oil salesmen through history.

Three Rants for the Tech-bros bathed in blue sky, Seven for the Content-lords in their beds at home, Nine for Writers all doomed to cry, One for the Rant Lord ignored and alone In the Land of the Brave where the Shysters lie. One Rant to rule them all, One Rant to find them, One Rant to bring them all, and in its wisdom blind them, In the Land of the Brave where the Shysters lie.

The Poll results are in, and, sadly, the people for whom I have so much respect have spoken.

I have been asked to do that which I do so often and far too well.

Of the 61 people a̶s̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶, ̶b̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ harassed to vote on a writing topic, 31 of you were gracious enough to see your notification, scan the article to find your name, sigh in disappointment that I didn’t write something nice about you, and then grudgingly vote for a subject in which you probably had no interest.

The good news: this was a better voter turnout than 80% of most non-presidential election cycles.

The bad news: it’s the same as the good news. What the hell is wrong with you people?

With that kind of medium* response in political participation, how are we going to take back America from the people we disagree with who claim they want to take back America?

And that doesn’t even include the people who want to make America great again that are disliked by the first two groups I mentioned.

Here is the vote break down and my response.

• Random funny rant (17): hey, we all need to laugh.
• Heartfelt Story of Personal Tragedy (5): some of us need a good cry.
• Hacking Medium (4): some of us are just addicts.
• Two sports articles (4): a few people want to learn about the one subject where I qualify as an expert.
• The Difference Between Goals and Dreams (1): I get paid a lot of money to teach peak performance training techniques, and only one person wanted to get this information for free. Sad, so sad.
• Suggestion I never write again (1): the best I could do was block you.

And now, the “Lord of the Rants” trilogy:

Volume I: a rap song parody, “Writin’ in a Shysta’s Paradise.”

Volume II: biting satire to take a chunk out of people whose only real skill is making you believe they are successful.

Volume III: a history of scam artists, how to spot them, and how modern communication technology has increased their ability to do damage.

Here’s to better writing.

*As in “mediocre, ho-hum, meh, blah,” not “high-quality” regurgitated self-help generalities, or get-rich-quick schemes that vary from selling internet shovels to 100-year-old snake oil poured into shiny new virtual packaging.