I noticed this in my WordPress Spam folder today:
“The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.”
Intending to callously delete this comment, I abruptly paused with my index finger hovering over the left mouse button. What if this is legitimate feedback? What if the glaring absence of apostrophes is because the commenter had been moved to point out my whiny, attention-seeking ways on their android phone, but lacked sufficient time to insert proper punctuation?
I realize that I am, indeed, a bit of a publicity whore. From the beginning, I have spent a lot of time writing about myself and my pet peeves without so much as a infinitesimal thought of what anyone who might come across my blog might enjoy. I have even “borrowed” the work of others when I was too lazy to post my own thoughts.
At times, however, I did believe I had something amusing, or interesting to say. Whether this was simple narcissism – as the commenter suggests – or something else, I cannot say. I imagine everyone believes themselves to be witty, gracious, and a touch philosophical. I am no exception. I would even go so far as to say that an author must imagine themselves to be all these things and more, else their foray into the hazardous (to the ego) and mysterious world of writing would end before it even began.
Sighing deeply, I returned to the task at hand and decisively clicked the button. The self-reflection was fun, but I have to get back to writing.
Tawn Krakowski 
From the standpoint of impacting a writer constructively, that is, in my opinion, spam. It is the reader’s version of an audience hurling spoiled fruit at actors and actresses: mean, destructive and ultimately pointless. Good on you.
I am always interested in getting some constructive feedback. If no one tells me what I can do to improve, how am I supposed to grow as a writer? Thank you for reading, sharing your thoughts and helping me to strive to be better. 🙂
It isn’t spam. Spam sends multiple self-serving messages to any and everyone. While it’s rude, it’s still this reader’s legitimate opinion. As writers, we open ourselves up to this, and we have to be able to take it. Not everyone’s going to get the point of our writing every time, and not everyone is going to amicably disagree. There’s no reason to apologize for being who you are, or writing what you want. As they said, they didn’t have to read it.
I’m going to be honest, I think it’s spam. First, it was a comment on a short piece of fiction -no whining or anything to fix. Next, the commenter link goes to something about Marsala wine. And finally, this is not the first time I’ve received this exact same comment – missing apostrophes and all -on a post that featured a guest video.
However, your point about writing what you want and not worrying about what everybody else thinks is excellent advice. I do my best to filter out the feedback that isn’t helpful and let the rest go. Thank you for the reminder to just be myself! 🙂
It wasn’t spam, but I wouldn’t consider taking this person seriously either. Here’s why… The person who wrote it is a Troll. If this person had any intention of giving you constructive criticism about your blog posts, they wouldn’t have attacked you personally calling it whining and saying you’re only looking for attention. This person wrote what they wrote looking for a rise from you.
Don’t worry about what this person said. You keep blogging about what you want to blog about!
Thank you! Wait… A troll? I am famous enough to have acquired a troll?! That would be almost as cool as having paparazzi! I’m “unspamming” that bad boy right now! Sweet!
I smell Spam, too! Gak – I just went back to my childhood and remembered the horrid smell of fried Spam at my grandfather’s house. It’s an interesting new take on it, though – usually the criticism runs more along the lines of better ways to get higher hit counts on Google. Because, you know, we narcissists are alllll about the Google. I like the ones that tell me how informative and helpful my post was – especially when the post in question was a whopping ten words about whatever annoying song was in my head when I woke up.
It’s amazing how, now that I’ve put up this post, that I’m getting an exponentially larger number of messages in my Spam folder EXACTLY like what you’re getting. But fried Spam…mmmmm….I’m going to have to give that a try. 😉
Don’t feel bad, that creative “person” sent the first comment to me, too. I had to think twice, too! I was kind of upset at first but now I laugh 🙂
Good to know, thanks! It’s funny how complimentary and vague all the others I’m getting now are…