Look Ma, I'm A Wrestling Writer - by Terry Mathis
I hate bloggers. Yes, I hate what I pretty much amount to, but still think I have good reason.
When I walked out of college with my Freelance Writing diploma, I thought that my writing career was going to skyrocket. I believed (still do actually) that I am a damn good writer. Who would be stupid enough not to hire me to write for them. That notion was completely ridiculous to me. Then it happened. Blogging happened.(*Blogging has actually been around for many, many, many years. It simply reached a broader scale at this point) Everyone who had access to a monitor and a keyboard started writing their thoughts down and publishing them on any site that would let them. Which in turn caused assorted newspapers, magazines, websites and alike to ask themselves, “Why would I pay someone a huge amount of money to write for me, when these people will do it for free?” With myself not being very computer literate at the time (still not actually) I did not jump into the blogging world nearly as quick as I should have which allowed each and every single one of these “bloggers” to surpass me on many chains of writing. Hence, the hatred that I have fermented over the past ten years. The word “blog” actually depressed me for quite some time.
So, I told you that story so I could now tell you this one. I have moved on. I no longer hate bloggers. I now hate that fraction of people who have labelled themselves “Wrestling Writers” when they don’t actually “write”.
A young man, whose name will not be used as per my usual protocol, handed me a business card not too long ago. One writer handing another writer their card is a long standing practice that I too have employed on many occasions. It read, the person’s name, and below that, Wrestling Writer. So when I found that card in my pocket that evening, I decided I would search out this gentleman’s work for the sole purpose that some day I may say to someone, “Have you seen this guy’s work? He is pretty good.” He had told me that he did a lot of writing online. So I searched his name and did not find anything with his name on it. I then recalled him telling me that he worked a lot for a certain wrestling company. So I called up that wrestling company, looked for his name, and did not find it. I was beginning to think that this guy was jerking me around, for whatever reason, because jerking me around gets you absolutely no benefit in the end. Until the next morning when I was greeted by a message that someone had added me on a social network. It was, as I’m sure you have guessed, this young man. I told him that I had had no luck finding his work online. He told me that that was because he wrote under another name. He gave me that name and even provided some links to his work. I clicked on these links still hoping to come across masterpieces of literary art. What I found was wrestling results. As in, results of past shows that he had been to. Which would have been cool with me if not for the fact that these results were ONLY the results. As in, A pinned B, C made D submit, E won by disqualification over F when G interfered. There was no play by play or general commentary on any of the matches. I put a smile on my face (I don’t know why because the guy couldn’t see me) and politely asked if he had written any articles or hype pieces that I could look at. He told me, and I quote “I don’t have time for that stuff, I just do the results.” And at that moment I stopped talking to him and began hating him and that fraction of people.
You cannot write details in point form, post them on a free site and then have the privilege to call yourself “a writer”. That is a god damn rule of writing and if it is not it damn well should be. I have had this urge to write my professor and tell him to please set aside one day, just one, that he covers the fact that in order to be a writer, you need to WRITE something. Give an opinion, write some details, tell me what freaking color the walls were, I don’t care. Just give me something that adds up to a little bit more then a shopping list.
Now before you say “One person is a fraction of people?” Yes, by definition, one out of six billion is still a fraction. But you know… oh, I know you know, that this “wrestling writer” cannot be the only one out there in the entire world. Billions upon billions upon billions of people and this is the only guy that falls into that column on the census. I don’t think so. That’s just pure logic. Want more proof that he’s not the only one? I’ll give you proof that he’s not the only one. Six years ago, a guy had a business card. It read, person’s name, then right under that it read Wrestling Writer. Looking back, I realize that that guy did nowhere near enough stuff to warrant being a wrestling writer. He wrote results, he wrote a little bit more but he was still not a wrestling writer. So let me tell you, if I can’t bring myself to call what I did six years ago wrestling writing, then this guy can’t do it either. Period.
Terry Mathis
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