Who cares?

I am in rarified company as a Chronicle columnist. Before I started writing a column, I generally avoided even reading Chronicle columns, because the fact is, most of them suck. Not in that they are poorly written (though some, including mine, are), but mostly they just mind-numbingly boring. I doubt that anyone reads the Chronicle so they can read hard-hitting journalism or great prose, and if they did, they probably wouldn't do it for long.

Who cares about what some 20 year-old econ or political science students thinks about Harriet Miers or the war in Iraq? Does anyone care what you've read and regurgitated from the New York Times? If I wanted to know what was in the Times, I would read the Times, not your bastardized opinions of it. Instead of writing about the news, which despite what you think, probably everyone already knows more about than you, why don't you write about yourself?

Unfortunately, as trite and masturbatory as political columns are, columns about personal lives are usually far worse. Anecdotal musings about your dad probably aren't even interesting to your dad, and they certainly aren't interesting to me. When a columnist writes about themselves, usually they can't strip away the shimmer of narcissism and yet they simultaneously won't just give into it and become Tucker Max. And so the result is a steaming pile of crappy insights into Americana, which are as uninteresting as they are uninspiring that they make me read the advertisements to break up the monotony.

So here are my ready made writing-a-column-no-one-will-read rules for success:

First, assume no one cares about what you write and that the only way to make them care is to be offensive, say what they were already thinking but never put into words or to transcend your own talent and write a good column.

I am not positive, but in most cases the last one isn't an option. Stephen Miller, Shadee Malaklou and Matt Sullivan (his column that began "Dear Cameron Crazies, you suck." is perhaps the best thing ever in the Chronicle) are prime examples of the power of just saying whatever you want and pissing people off.

On the other hand, Adam Yoffie's open letter to Jesse Longoria managed to both be transcendent and say exactly what I had been thinking for a long time. Other than that, everyone else has been failing the first rule.

Secondly, if you don't have anything interesting to say, write about something everyone has an opinion about. I understand the pressures of not having an idea that is either funny, offensive or interesting-until I got this idea I was going to write about registering for classes. However, it is inexcusable to write about things like: your opinion about popped collars, a play-by-play of what it is like to tent or Hurricane Katrina.