Please Share Your Emails With Hollywood's Biggest & Smallest Dickheads
What do you get when you combine laziness, stupidity, near-permanent digital memory, and a suffocating, overwrought sense of entitlement? Thousands of horrible, unforgettable emails filling up Gmail archives across Hollywood. (Just ask Harris Wittels. Or me.)
So this is a call to arms. Please send us the emails, the tweets, the scanned-in photos of ridiculous angry notes that have been left on your desk. From actual power players or mailroom sycophants, send them to us. The more condescending, batshit crazy, degrading, the better! Both you and the offender(s) will be kept anonymous, if you so choose.
The best (worst?) entry will receive some sort of prize at arbitrarily deigned intervals throughout the year, most likely in the form of respect you would never otherwise receive at work. Or, uh, maybe some free Oscar screeners from 2009? I heard Frost/Nixon was good?
Send them in to tips@defamer.com and we'll go from there. A good example to get you started is below.
**************
A few days ago, I wrote a post about the still annoying 40 Days of Dating: The Movie!! While I stand by my complete disgust of the project, the first draft of the post had a quickly rectified line about the dating life of one of the Warner Brothers execs on the project. In what can really be seen as a fairy tale for the digital age, I wrote her to apologize, and she wrote me an equally lovely reply. The internet isn't as dark and nasty as y'all think! Unexpectedly, however, was the unsolicited e-mail I received the next day from a separate producer on the project (emphasis mine).
From: [REDACTED@anonymouscontent.com]
Subject: 40 DAYS
Beejoli, I wasn't going to reach out but I felt it was important to do so. It was such a strange and angry move to attack our project by singling out our talented, supportive executive who is a champion to female colleagues and artists in this industry. It is my understanding from the early 20's folks who work around me that you are an aspiring writer and represented at an agency. If so, you should know there really is no place anymore for schadenfreude and cruelty in this transparent universe. There are so many good people who are talented that it is no longer easy to rise to the top being mean and jealous of people- especially women. I know that shitting on people's hard work and creativity and honesty — like Tim and Jessica's blog— is par for the course on defamer and I understand that's your job. But to talk about a lovely young woman's marital status is just so chauvinistic and undermining and wrong. I was stunned to know it was written by a woman. I know you are young and still learning how to best use your words to be seen and heard. I know it can be tempting to ask for attention at the expense of others for validation that you're [sic] work is funny or fresh or brave or clever. I've been developing with young writers for many years and have shepherded a few of them to become extremely successful. I've always tried to do it with the mind to be classy and grateful and believe that the good guys can win in this town. I hope this mistake and how graciously and lovingly it was handled by Ms. Schechter was a learning experience for you. Good luck to you and thanks for deleting what you wrote. Just know it was there and can still be pulled up and and read by people and that once you press "post" on mean musings on the Internet in 2013... They don't just go away. All Best, [redacted]
While it isn't the most vitriolic e-mail I've received during my brief tenure as Defamer overlord (Mom, please stop e-mailing me on my work account), it definitely climbs up there in condescension. Thanks for the free life advice! Perhaps as a young writer, we could grab a coffee and you could teach me your ways? I can reach out to the 20-somethings around you to set it up. xo
EARLIER:
- It's Because You're A Cunt, Harris
