Hate mail is nothing new—I've been at this so long that my hate mail used to come in envelopes with stamps on it—but this just popped into my inbox...

Fuck you u gutless, ignorant piece of shit excuse for a human being. I hope u choke on the next cock you suck.

...and it got me thinking about what is new about the hate mail. What's new is this:

Sent from my iPad

I didn't use to know the gadget preferences of my haters. Now I do. Thank you, Steve Jobs!

(It's odd how this person shifts back and forth between "you" and "u." And that one sad, lonely, piece-of-shit comma after "gutless" kinda breaks my heart. Where are his buddies? Where's the comma that belongs after the first "you"? Where's the comma that belongs after "ignorant"? And where are the hyphens that belong between "piece," "of," and "shit"? I mean, use punctuation in hate mail or don't use punctuation in hate mail. But a little punctuation is worse than none at all.

Sigh.

The hate mail was of a much higher caliber back before email. I honestly believe the whole draft-hate-mail-find-envelope-insert-hate-mail-address-envelope-stamp-envelope-leave-house-drop-letter-in-mailbox routine set the hater bar just a bit higher. Particularly the leave-the-house part.)