Or are 'open letters' painfully cringe worthy?

[Itllbefiiiiiiiiine]

"Dear lady who spoke to me in the shop...."

"Dear old lady who was handing out poppies..."

Yes yes it's all very lovely, or anger inducing depending on your topic of bullshit but it's extremely likely that the single person you are 'writing to' will have no clue and never see your 'letter'.

It's fucking cringey.

[WorraLiberty]

I agree. Totally cringe worthy.

And usually done because the OP never spoke up at the time.

Fine, not everyone does/can but why not just accept they missed the opportunity instead of trying to recreate it here?

[AuntyMag10]

It's attention screaming. Also those people just want a pat on the back.

[CherryBonBon]

YANBU.

They're arse puckeringly cringeworthy.

NOBODY FUCKING CARES!!!

[DeeWe]

I agree with OP.

Have a praise or a rant, fine. But the letters just cone across as cringy.

[LazyLouLou]

They make me smile... they should all start

Dear Person Who Did Not Realise I Am Queen of the World....

[mochindu]

I think it's absolutely fine to vent your rage and frustration later on. Go for it, rant away, etc.

Just don't embellish it so woman who tutted when I didn't let her go ahead of me in the queue at Lidl because she only had two items becomes bitchface sneery woman who told me I was unfit to live and hoped my house would burn hag because I clearly had no clue about manners and that my jeans were very 2012 and I couldn't reverse park well enough to be allowed out to justify your rantage. OWN YOUR FURY.

[Bubblesinthesummer]

YANBU

[WorraLiberty]

mochindu Fair enough I should never have said that about your jeans

But I stand by the rest of it

[TittyBiskwits]

YANBU

They are cringey in the extreme, whether it's on here or some celeb doing it in the papers or on a blog. I like a good rant as much as the next person but just can't stand the 'Dear Lady who gave me evils in Aldi this afternoon because my toddler was throwing a tantrum'-style crap.

I also agree that a lot of it is projection and embellishment.

[Bogeyface]

Sometimes they are, sometimes not.

The examples you gave, yes they are cringey, but sometimes they can just be a cathartic way of purging yourself of bad feelings or experiences. You know that the person will never see it, but the act of writing it down and having it responded to can be helpful. An open letter to an abusive ex for example can really help to put feelings and thoughts in order, so in those cases, no they are not.

[HowDdo2You]

I have not bothered to open the supermarket one. If they want a rant I can't see the harm.

[mochindu]

worra to be fair, you were absolutely right about the jeans. and also my parking

[HellonHeels]

I thought you meant those ones that various celebs seem to circulate, telling other celebs that they're doing it all wrong. Didn't Sinead O'Connor write one or two of them recently?

If it's those, YANBU.

If it's the ones you see on MN I can't really get excited about those, its just a means of starting a (usually vacuous but who cares) post.

[AuntyMag10]

It's so embarrassing and cringed. I find it all bs really, it's always the same thing: someone ranted at the op in great detail about every aspect of the ops life and yet the op just stood there, not moving, blinking listening to the entire thing.

[mochindu]

Celebrity 'open letters' are even worse. Ironically, they're only 3% about the addressee and 97% about the MEMEMEMEME writer. Why not just write a piece saying what you think about the topic in question, instead of condescendingly offering 'advice' to someone you've never met? I would absolutely love it if an open letter recipient one day took out a whole page to reply,

Dear "Concerned" Columnist,

FUCK OFF,

kindest regards,
A. Patronised Celeb.

[Itllbefiiiiiiiiine]

I'm talking about all of them, any of them. Celebs or not it's cringey.

Glad we are nearly all agreed.

[CatMilkMan]

Dear lady in the waitrose car park that tutted at me when I parked in the parent and child space.........SHUUUUT UPPPPPPPPPPP

[Bleakhouse1879]

passive aggression

[TittyBiskwits]

mochindu

I would love for that to happen too

[AuntyMag10]

I think celebrity letter are a bit different, they have 'fans' or followers who know them and have an interest in their lines. On here, nobody cares.

[HemanOrSheRa]

YANBU. We all do it, come out of a situation wishing we said this or that, but didn't and are left feeling a bit daft and deflated. But the urge to prolong the agony is something that passes me by.

I do like OWN YOUR FURY though mochindu . Makes me feel all growly and grrrrrr just saying it.

[MagpieCursedTea]

I wrote one once on a very popular football group on Facebook. It was to a so called supporter who was shouting vile homophobic abuse at an injured player.
I did it because I was (rightly or wrongly) too intimidated to say something at the time, because I wanted other supporters to be aware that this sort of thing was still happening, to have a chance to vent and mostly because I wanted to open up a dialogue about why it happened.
I got some nasty comments but most people were outraged about what was said and generally supportive.
I was left feeling that the majority of supporters were against that sort of discriminating/hate speech being used and I felt more comfortable about continuing to go to matches. What I heard could've put me off something I love but knowing that others felt the same helped me.

[StillStayingClassySanDiego]

All 'letter to' or 'to the lady at the bus stop/greggs/ park' are beyond awful.

Remember Gordon Ramsay's open letter to his MiL in the Evening Standard a few years ago?, why Gordon, why?