Hoyt's Internet Box Thing Dispatches from the Renard Parish Road Crew

It all started with a tweet.

Note: This post is written OOC (out of character).  In just a few minutes, Hoyt will go back to droppin' his Gs.  Promise.

First off, I want to say that although this particular tweet hit the stream happened about a week ago, I just found out about it yesterday, so my reaction is still relatively fresh.  The best thing to do, really, is probably to read @SookieBonTemps's reaction to this tweet, as she's given it a bit more thought than I have.  Then y'all can come back if you like.

If you want to read what I have to say, it's after the jump.

I just found out about this in the last 24 hours.  And like Sookie did, I'll tell you just how I've felt since:  Immediate anger > Dismissal > A little more anger > Confused?  We'll get back to that in a bit.

After thinking about this for a while, I've got three things that I want to say.

Number one:  Though I play my character for the entertainment of myself and of others, I'm normally not too concerned about public opinion when it comes to how I tell the story.  Just ask Charlaine Harris about that one.  Show me a character on a page, and I'll show you someone who disagrees with the way they were written.  That much will never change, and no self-respecting writer (of any medium) should let it get to them.  Truth be told, this one got to me, but not for the reason you might expect.  Read on.

Second:  As I just said, I can take criticism.  That wasn't criticism.  If this commenter had given any indication whatsoever as to why we're "not especially well done", then I feel it would qualify as criticism.  Now we have no idea what -- in their opinion -- we should all be doing to improve.  I'll tell you this: I've seen a lot of Bill/Eric debate from some pretty serious "Sookieverse" fans over the last few months, and for the most part, even the most rabid "shipper" (research that one in the yellow pages) will normally qualify a comment with "I like Eric better because"...

And finally:  Though I won't name the commenter, they do tweet a "Mad Men" character the same way that we tweet "True Blood" characters.  No problems there -- "Mad Men" is a great show, and the "Mad Men" Twitter characters do a great job.  The kicker is that I have (personally) only ever seen one negative comment thrown at our "True Blood" Twitter characters -- And I'm writing about it right now.  That's funny to me, because if there were anyone else that I would expect to know how challenging and all-consuming this is, it would be another Twitter character -- a pioneering one, I might add.

So, several paragraphs later, this is where my confusion comes in.  I have absolutely no idea why this particular person would publicly make this particular comment.  At worst, it's horribly insensitive (especially considering their personal experience with the medium).  At best (as objectively as I can look at it anyway), it just seems really petty.  There's no way you don't end up looking bad when you throw mud for no reason.  So I ask our mystery commenter:

What could you possibly have been thinking when you tweeted this?  What purpose does it serve?

Seriously. Email me. (reCAPTCHA link)

In closing, I often jokingly refer to my character, @HoytFortenberry, as a doorstop -- He's been (up until now) a background character, and so I play him in the background of Twitter Bon Temps.  What really upsets me about this comment is that we've got really hard working foreground characters who really move this story along.  Go check out @KitchenBitch and @TaraMaeThornton -- Heck, we've got a whole list of people.  Then come back and tell me that we're "not especially well done".