I was reading hyperbole and a half when I suddenly, very suddenly and very acutely, felt a sense of inadequacy. It wasn't the everyday sort of inadequacy that all human beings face, the sort that only people who have too much money and too little conscience can escape. No, this was a crippling sort of inadequacy, ugly and really really painful, to say the least.
I became convinced that I sucked. I sucked, and that I still suck, despite reading thick novels about questionable things and browsing the huge internet archive of even-more-questionable things. I became convinced that I was ignorant and childish and selfish (okay, so maybe this one was already a given). I felt insufficient and inadequate (I should stop using this word). I became convinced that my writing was complete and utter shit, and that no one cared about me or my long,emotional rants about strange topics.
Ironically (and here I paused and thought about whether I was using "ironically" correctly and whether I even knew what irony was, before deciding that I didn't give a fuck and that since the word looked and sounded nice at that spot, I shouldn't try to remove or change it), it was hyperbole and a half that pulled me out of this little bout of depression.
Well, the blog's readers, specifically.
Hyperbole and a half's authoress is someone who has something of a compulsive need to correct others' grammar. It's kind of repeated several times in the blog, and I picked up on it precisely because I have the same horrible, tragic habit. I'm not exaggerating - it really is tragic. It hurts my self-confidence, when other people roll their eyes when I correct their grammar for the, like, millionth-and-god-knows-how-many time.
Anyway, I was pitying myself quite a lot when I decided to scroll down and read the comments. I thought that maybe there would be other people, who, like me, had read the blog and suffered from an acute feeling of worthlessness. I expected the comments to go along the lines of "I felt so very worthless after reading your humourous and exciting posts that I shall proceed to delete every single blog post I have ever made and that I will never write again because in no way will I ever match up to your godly skills".
Instead, I found a plethora of people commenting about how insanely funny, how insanely gifted, and how insanely awesome the authoress is. That's reasonable. Her writing is good. It makes me laugh.
What does not make me laugh, however, are the many many many many many many comments missing the critical element called Grammar.
... Or, maybe, it does make me laugh a little. But it simultaneously makes my insides shrivel up, and I kind of doubt anyone can laugh while experiencing that particular brand of agonizing pain.
Did I mention that bad writing causes me pain? Physical pain? Physical discomfort? Physical violence towards to writer of that piece of bad writing?
No? Perhaps I should mention it again. Bad writing = violence, from me to you with much love.
Sometimes it's mental violence. I'll glare at the person (or my laptop screen) and think a lot of unhappy, bloody thoughts. I'll crumple whatever piece of paper that I'm holding at that time and clench my teeth while cursing the person to the High Heavens (mainly because Heaven is like my personalised version of Hell, for many reasons that are not relevant right now).
Well, most of the time. I'm a teenage girl who detests sports, and while that works for writing long, angsty posts on my blog, it hardly allows me to bash a bodybuilder's head. (No offence if you're a bodybuilder, I just needed an example where no degrees are required - or is there a bodybuilders' special bodybuilder university, I don't know.)
Back to the comments. They snapped me out of my cycle of feeling inadequately inadequate and made me cringe, which, while rather uncomfortable, was preferred to feeling worthless and short (which I kind of am).
I began scrolling and laughing, and scrolling and laughing... more scrolling and laughing...
And I thought, their comments must cause the authoress quite a lot of discomfort. She's said that she has a compulsive need to correct other people's grammar, which I don't believe is much of a hyperbole, which means that the comments- the commenters who lack a proper grasp of grammar - must cause her a lot of discomfort.
And I thought, how ironic. (Once again I am unsure about the exact use of "irony" and once again I've found that I really don't give a damn.) Her blog post about grammar has attracted so many people, people who don't use proper grammar, and they're commenting about how they can absolutely relate to her compulsive need to correct other people's grammar.
Ha, I thought. Ha ha ha ha ha hahahahaha.
Goodbye, crippling feelings of inadequacy.
I feel perfectly fine again - a.k.a. really fucking selfish and self-centered and too full of myself to care about anyone else... am I repeating myself? Whatever, I'm awesome.
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