-
I read them for the same reason I am inexplicably drawn to the Family Freaking Circus… It’s similar to the reasons you watch Jerry Springer (there’s nothing else on TV and you’re just channel surfing anyway). I don’t actually know the reason I am simply compelled to go to the page and read the same damn letters they’ve been publishing for 30 years. And I can’t seem to find their columns on the internet (where I read the rest of my local paper), not that I’ve looked very hard…
-
I hate the “how we met” letters because they are all from Baby Boomers or older. There’s never a “How We Met” from some slack Gen-Xer who met the love of their life in the mosh pit at Lollapalooza. “He smacked me in the eye with his Doc Maartens and it was love at first sight, once I got my sight back. At our wedding we had matching tattoos and piercings done and then our illegitimate children tapped the keg for us.” I simply cannot relate to the constant stream of WWII stories, ad nauseum. Is there no other age group that writes in? Probably not… Gen Xers and younger would use the internet (or Jerry Springer, come to think of it) to publicly air out their dirty laundry, not write in to an insipid, head-up-her-ass newpaper columnist whose advice makes about as much sense as my senile grandmother’s. (Sorry Gramma. Love ya!)
-
I’m not convinced there’s two of them (The Michael/Janet Jackson Theory). In fact, I’m not convinced they even exist at all (like some Shakespeare theories). Evidence: when I was a magazine editor – due to budgetary contraints and pure GenX Slackness – I made up the horrorscopes myself. My thoery is that Ann and Abby died years ago (if they ever really existed in the first place – see anything with Betty Crocker’s face on it) and there’s some corporate conglomerate marketing firm who hires a couple writers every few years to write the columns. Same person writes both, of course.
-
I’m also convinced that Actual Humans do not write in to Ann and Abby. Have you ever met anyone who admitted to writing in? Nor have I! I think the staff of “writers” just make up the problems/questions, based on their internet surfing (or however people gathered information before the information age) and then make up the answers.
-
Try your own hand at this. It’s a lot easier than it sounds.
-
The “Would You Reprint” is a lame excuse to go on vacation for a few weeks without actually having to write anything.
-
Do you think that the mythical Ann and Abby are rich? Really, how lucrative could this be as a career? I’m thinking of looking for a new job…
For all the glurge and ULs they print, I practically stood up and applauded when I read yesterdays column. The piece was written by a reader and it was about having severe arthritis (although you could substitute any chronic illness in place of arthritis). It was so dead on I’m going to print off copies and carry it with me for every idiot that drives me batshit about my back.
At least they SOMETIMES print relevent info.
Zette
Of course, the best thing about the “how we met” letters is that they inspired Dan Savage’s collection “Sleaze in America”. Really, in Ann Landers do we ever get to hear about couples who met while one was puking and in the throes of heroin withdrawl, and the other coming down off’ve crack?
Ever read Dan Savage? Now that’s the way advice columns are supposed to be written. He writes Savage Love weekly for alternative newspapers. He freely admits that most times his advice won’t be helpful because the person will have already acted by the time the column gets published. When he doesn’t know the information, he consults experts who can answer it for him. When someone writes him with a truly stupid question, or is just oblivious to their own stupidity, he just tears into them in a such a laugh out loud funny way.
Anyway, about a two months ago, he devoted four columns to “how we met.” These weren’t the happy go lucky “Ethel and I met at the church picnic right after I came back from WWII, I took one taste of her chicken and we’ve been married for 53 years.”
These were “After throwing up all over myself after a swinger’s party, some guy I just met did me doggy style out by the dumpsters. I thought his name was was Ted, but I wasn’t quite sure just then. Anyway, the next night I was out clubbing and, accidently stumbling into the men’s bathroom after doing too much coke, I ran into him again. That was two years ago and we’ve been together ever since.”
Check his column out, they’re great.
Oh, and tracer, I read your comments and the first thing I thought was “Huh? I’m not 17.” beat. beat. “Oh shit!” And started laughing for about 30 seconds straight.
myrr21, if only I wasn’t at work, I’d have posted that first. Damn these assignments, they so get in the way of websurfing.
I’ve read Ann off and on for a long time. It seems to me that most of the people who write to her (and read her regularly) are middle-aged, Middle America social conservatives who have trouble talking about things like sex or drug use and think we’re all going to hell in a handbasket.
We had an SD topic about newspaper cartoons and someone said the reason they’re never changed is that the cartoons are mostly read by older folks – WW II era – and I think that’s a large part of her audience: well-intentioned baked potato people who like gossiping over the back fence about titillating subjects like body piercing, who truly are trying to understand their grandchildren.
She can be awfully annoying sometimes, but for the audience she speaks to, I think she can do a lot of good by educating people about how other people live.
Anyone interested in reading Savage Love the column (one of my favorite columns) can find it at http://www.theonion.com
He also has a few books out. I read Savage Love (the book) and almost hurt myself laughing.
This is so true. In my local paper both columns are on the same page. One looks like it was her high school graduation picture, the other is a little more recent, maybe mid 70s, but with a Tammy Faye coat of makeup on.
She once said that all people who are over 100 pounds overweight have psychological problems and need counseling.
I wish nespapers would stop running their columns. I like Miss Manners way better.