Fan Mail

After reading that email I can think of only one response worth sending, "Just be yourself."

I usually reply with something along the lines of:

"Well, it's important not to rush into these sorts of things. They often take time and continual nurturing.
First, I'd offer to take your blog out to coffee and just see if you two get along. Don't feel compelled to complement your blog, just let the conversation take a natural turn. If you both find this meeting to be mutually rewarding, continue with others. Build up a healthy level of respect between yourself and your blog, and if all goes well, you'll find that your blog likes you just fine."

Then I usually add them to my mail blacklist.

Hey Jeremy, that is funny. I just got the following the other day:
_____________________________________________
Fundraiser | dallasdreams69@yahoo.com | scratchandhelp.com | IP: 70.85.237.58

A few questions from a blog idiot

How do you keep the spammers from eating you alive? i\’ve seen blogs with nothing but spam postings.

How do you keep some left wing extremist from posting racist or defamatory rhetoric? and if you cant stop them, what are you legally liabel when they do?

can viruses be posted to blogs?
__________________________________________________________

I replied shortly & semi-politely, but only because I couldn't tell if this was spam or not. Now that I have a stronger conviction that it is spam, I'll have to be more creative with my responses.

Your response should be something like the following:

Whadda up killa. Thx 4 da mad props. Yous need a niche dat you can own. Try cumin up wit da "mad props intwepter". Sometin dat can transl8 your crazed lingo to english!

Thx 4 keepin me real.

Jeremy "Da Bloggernaut" Zawondy!

Just say:
Belajar Bahasa Inggris!

The blog is a MySpace for Indonesian.
Indosiar is a national TV in Indonesia, they have a show that looks like your American Idol.
Fortunately their IT or someone there is high tech enough to make a free blog hosting.
So most of the blogs just some teens writing about their favorite singer.

I hope that broads your boundary, like Eric said.

Yeah, that was from me. Sorry. :-)

Whaddup. Word.

You could always use it as fodder to train your spam filter with ...

Maybe she found you on Yahoo! 360.

... :)

Wau. It is great to read this especially I am not from english speaking country.
"Thx 4 da mad props". I can understand a few words like "u", "4", but I see that is more and more words, which I can not understand.
Then want to understand you. Thank for you, that YOU write literary ;-)

*****
Thanks. I tried really hard but my blog is not as cool as yours though, you have that background image which I can still see when I close my eyes - and it goes GREAT with the red text. Where did you get your theme and can I copy it? Did you ever think of putting some Adsense on that because I bet the CTR would be amazing?

Plus that music is cool. I'm in a boy band too. I like to pop a tab of aspirin and stay up 'till 11 drinking the contents of my hotel minibar. ROCK AND ROOOOLLLLLLL.

Oh, and I'll always love you too. (Are you really in 7th grade?)
*****

Is she hot?

I appreciate all fan mail. I respond when it makes sense to. If I can't help them, I tell them.

Did you mean to leave his/her blog URL on that graphic?

I couldn't resist the temptation to view their blog, and I now have to physically restrain myself from straightening out a paperclip and poking both my eyes out so that I don't ever have to see a GUI that bad again! Can we say "animated gifs in bg images"? Horrid!

Isn't whipping still a punishment used in that country? As UIs go, that one is virtually a whipping offense.

For response, just based on their UI, I'd suggest:

"Hi, I'm flattered you like my blog, but your blog's design sux and hurts my eyes. Could you do me a favor and walk off into the forest on your island until you locate some of those headhunters that may still live secretly in the jungles and ask them if they'd like to invite you for dinner? Thanx!"

That is the language of myspace.

I get notes like those every so often, too. Amazingly (or not) they seem to show up with the waves of other comment spam ... especially those offering SEO services. If I weren't too consumed with other stuff I might keep track of them and try to quantify the trend.

Hi!

That looks similar to some of the SPAM I get.

Cheers,
-Brian

Probably the best ones I get are apparent submissions for the Redneck Yard of the Week feature on Blue Collar TV or whatever it is. I wrote about it once, and now I get a lot of web traffic from searches. I'll tell ya I have received some difficult to decipher and interesting emails. That and Pimp My Ride. Heh. Maybe I need to write a post about the emails I get from those two posts. :)

lolz!!!!111oneone11eleven
thx itz coll u like my blog i like it 2 lolz and your blog is coll 2 baby i likez it az well hope 2 hear from u sooooon best matez Jeremy.

Something like that.

I agree with Zakaria. She must be from Indonesia.
Tell her politely,
"dear tsujhanna21,
Senangnya dapat surat dari lo. Sayangnya, gue kagak ngerti bahasa Inggris yang lo pake."

The above Jakartanese means:
"Nice to have your mail here. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand the bizarre english you used. "

And don't forget to add

"PS: Don't blame me if I'm rude,
I was told by someone how to answer your mail.
I don't even understand what the above words mean"

How about "I love you too".

hmm...jeremy..do you know me?

oh, she is obviously an Indonesian teenager. try tell her "pakai bahasa inggris yang benar dong"

I do receive those kind of email all the time, asking a howto on making a blog 'famous' or some such, minus the i love you and the flower image part. you must be luckier than I am :)

I really respect Jason Scott's reply. There's no harm in responding if you understand. If not, simply tell him/her or just ignore if you don't feel like responding.

English may be an international language. But there are more non-english speakers out there and most of them have low education and lack the luxury of broadband internet access.

He/ she is definitely an Indonesian. Coming from a non English speaking country I really respect the sender for having the courage to at least try to interact in English. A simple respond would certainly make his day, rather than making fun of the poor chap.

Just my two cents :)

this is funny. great blog, good work¡¡¡

*LOL* She's no 7th grader, she's grade 17th! And to answer Billy: usually the crazier they get the hotter they are...
Yes, it's a weird way in composing message, but I doubt if you don't really understand it. No offend Jeremy but your last name is not exactly easy-on-a-tounge and comes with a battery :D
I say respond kindly or don't respond, don't make fun - it takes courage to write..

cheers

it's called spam.

Good reason not to write: some mail programs will automatically add anyone you respond to in your address book.

I was looking at my address book thinking I had some relatives I didn't know about before I realized those were just people who had sent an email to the wrong address and I sent them a correction.

She's my daughter!!

GGRRrrrrr..!!!