A Q&A With My Comments Submitted by White Readers
Like many writers, I tend not to respond to comments. But it’s time for some exceptions.
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
I have been told several times over the years that, as a writer, I internet wrong. That seems to mostly hinge on a personal rule I put in place a few years back: With rare exceptions, I don’t respond to comments on my work.
There are several reasons I’ve installed such a defense mechanism. The primary one is that people who post replies are generally a fraction of the people who read an article — and statistically speaking, those who make the time to comment do not mean the writer well. I spend hours writing, researching, and experiencing whatever I write, setting out thousands of words in the process, while the typical commenter reacts with the intellectual equivalent of “You suck.” Then there’s the fact that by the time someone reads and comments on an article I’ve written, I’m already on to the next thing. Turnaround is serious business in my line of work, which means I literally can’t afford to get bogged down in counting how many times someone thinks I’m missing my own points, let alone responding to them.
