There are very few good reasons to be a Daily Tar Heel columnist. It has little impact, no financial return and a bad photo of you that is widely disseminated in print. I don’t know how so many people have been swindled into taking up this mantle.
Personally, I joined to magnify my already substantial ego. Had I known beforehand that the Tab was the best publication on campus for pointless pontifications, I would be writing there instead.
However, I have come to praise the position, not bury it. There is one truly blessed part of being a DTH columnist: personal feedback from DTH readers. This feedback is singularly beautiful, but it comes in a variety of forms.
Unfortunately, many of you will never experience this nirvana. In order to rectify that in some small way, I will take you on a tour of the three most common kinds of feedback I am blessed to receive, in ascending order of bliss.
The baseline level of feedback are emails. I had no idea the extent to which I was a misguided nobody until one such email had the good sense to inform me of the fact. Some e-mails are a tragically short paragraph, but others extend into manuscript length. I appreciate the effort of every respondent, but I am always disappointed when someone only takes a few sentences to set me straight. I certainly never reflect in horror on the violent vitriol I would receive if I were non-white, non cis-male or, worst of all, both. Luckily, this is just the filler feedback.
The most spontaneous kind of feedback is the physical world response. This happens both purposefully and by the grace of God. Accidental feedback often takes the form of an overheard conversation in class, and it can include helpful comments on my diction, my belief that sexual assault is real or my “dumbness.”
Purposeful physical world responses are best relayed through this very paper. The ideal version of this is a direct critique with my name from a vice chancellor, but I’m not picky. I’ll settle for an admittedly fair kvetch about the fact that I am a stereotype of a pretentious DTH columnist. It doesn’t have the same long-lasting impact on my digital history, but it makes a better Facebook cover photo.
As great as both of those feedback pipelines are, neither one compares to the joy of receiving online comments. Some people might tell you that reading online comments is toxic. Those people would never know that Hugo and marcedward are the William F. Buckley Jr. and William F. Buckley Jr. of the modern age. The near constant feedback chronic commenters provide to the paper is generally useful, but as a columnist, it is particularly invaluable. It is the only way I find out that slavery wasn’t stolen labor and that real adults don’t affirmatively consent to sex.
I don’t just enjoy the feedback. I passionately love those who provide it. Occasionally, I get terrible feedback that expresses curiosity or civilly disagrees with my writing. Luckily though, most people aren’t that silly.
