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.

I wish someone had told Liz Kendall before she committed this over earnest cringe fest to film

LIZ kendall's open letter to the Labour party

But Magpie I simply don't 'get' the need for a letter formation.

So the bloke was a racist arsehole and you understandably wanted to vent/seek support from others also interested in football, so why not just post a regular thread? The outcome would have been the same, surely?

NOPE!
I got 21 seconds and had to stop the video because I was feeling faint with all the cringe.
Just no.

I think it was because I wanted to vent at him. Probably cringey but I felt better after writing it. I think because the group was so big there was a chance that he was in it (it's specific to our team) so it was like I could speak directly to him. It was cathartic.

But you couldn't speak directly to him Magpie

Not at the time and not afterwards on the internet.

Why not just compose a normal comment about how racism is wrong etc?

It was homophobia not racism. Like I said, I was too intimidated to say anything to him at the time. I really wish I'd been brave enough. I put the message on the group in the hope that he'd see it. I guess I could've used a different format but at the time I just wanted to tell him what I thought and it made sense to me. I was so angry and it wasn't something I'd normally do.
For the record, I also spoke directly to the club about the incident and it was investigated. In hindsight, I would've just gone to the club but it was just a way to vent.

I'm not saying that the way I composed the rant was right, just explaining why, at the time I wrote it that way.
I'll avoid open letters in the future

Dear OP of this thread,

I totally understand your rage about open letters and feel the cringe just thinking about them

From very entertained Aramynta

YANBU, especially the celeb ones, I always have a look at who has signed letters if they're in the paper and the authors go on my "wise up and stop being such a self serving dick" list.
On forums like this they don't irritate me as much but I still find the whole thing a bit drama llama ish.

YANBU

I think I've been thinking about this too much this morning that what irritates me about 'open letters' is that they don't actually invite a response. The writer gets all the satisfaction of addressing someone directly and landing some body blows, but there's no comeback for the recipient, not without the risk of looking defensive or a knob. And usually the 'advice' being delivered is of the 'maybe you should stop kicking those puppies and perhaps be nicer to your mum and don't buy any more nuclear weapons' Doh! School of Deep Thought, so what's the recipient meant to say? 'OMG, Bono. You're so right, I'm going to stop being a murderous warlord, thanks so much for putting me straight'.

MN open letters: just tell us how you got the rage with the woman who rolled her eyes when you parked a bit badly in the P&C spaces. It's not like you'll be the only one wanting to unleash some grrrrrrrrs. Open letters are only going to bring out the 'how do you know the woman hadn't driven straight to Tesco from her nan's funeral?' MN defence barristers.

Ah see Magpie, that does make a bit more sense if there was indeed a good chance he was on there.
Homophobic tosspot. I hope he did read it. That makes it slightly less cringey

However all the rest are very cringey.