Emily Bronte was a Shameless Self-promoting, Cocksucking Whore
"So where's the article on Wuthering Heights? I'm afraid I can't find it amongst the self-promotion of something not Wuthering Heights."
Last Night's blog on romance brought an interesting little woodlouse out of the www.woodwork - the I've-Got-You-Sussed-Bug.
This bug has a very special habitat, being the obscene phone-caller of the internet, always scuttling about as a self-appointed policeman, making sure no-one is exposed to shameless, self-promoting, cocksucking whores like me.
Self-promotion is an odd term. Meaning, quite simply, someone who promotes themself. Only it doesn't. Self-promotion really carries all that other unspoken shameful whore baggage with it. Although it technically isn't a pejorative term, it very definitely is . Call someone self-promoting and you've just insulted them. And what's more you meant to insult them.
So why is it so evil? Well, at one simple level it's evil because people hate advertising. All advertising. It gets up their nose. We see too much of it, have it rammed down our throats when we don't want it, and, possibly worst of all, a horrendous amount of it is plain lies. No wonder people don't like it, they've been lied to over and over - why should they trust it? Do you?
But a self-promoter? A little harder to lie, because you haven't got all that clout behind you (if you had it behind you, you wouldn't be self-promoting, would you?). Also because you have a little less incentive to lie. Massive profits are seldom part of the equation in self-promotion, and you're far more likely to get caught out. So why, then, do self-promoters get so much more stick than ordinary 'legitimate' advertising?
Well, mostly, because they can. You can try writing to Nike about their latest ad starring Tom Cruise and Madonna, but you know Mr Nike won't be reading it any time soon. Because it will never reach Mr Nike. And there isn't any Mr Nike. And because, most of all, he doesn't care. After all, who you ?
But the self-promoter is there, right in front of you, a real, living, breathing human being you can attack - anonymously, of course. In case he hits you back. What's more, they will care. After all, they are promoting themselves, so any attack is a direct attack on them. It's an attempt to belittle and degrade, and it's meant to hurt.
So why would a stranger what to hurt to you? Again, simply because he can. It's harder to punch your wife, insult your mother, tell your boss he's a cocksucker. Instead you can go on the net, find a complete stranger and export all your frustration onto them, and they will never know who you are. Just like the obscene phone-caller who phones you up to offload his sexual frustration or his anger or his impotence.
And it is that impotent resentment that separates him from any advertising watchdog.
On the whole, advertising watchdogs don't much care if Nike has the 'right' to sell shoes. Nor do they care if they've been given the seal of approval from the public as "Real Shoe Salesmen". They only care if Nike is making the shoes it claims to make, if their shoes are dangerous, if they advertise too much to children, use unfair peer group pressure to sell more shoes, encourage kids to drink, take drugs, have unprotected sex. In short, genuine, tangible problems.
On the reverse of the coin, our I-hate-self-promoting-artists bug has a personal, deep-rooted antagonism and resentment - based on what?
The worst crime a self-promoter can commit is being where he is not wanted. A simple delete is all that is required. It's like turning off the TV when something you don't like comes on. Yes, you can write to the BBC, but why would you do that when you can just turn the fucking thing off?
And yet people do. As if somehow they are being personally insulted by the existence of something that offends their universe. As if the universe should be designed solely for them, to their tastes and needs. A nice idea, but, happily, completely unrealistic.
And yet they are listened to and often wield scary power. I remember hearing about a TV programme where 3,000,000 people had watched it and they got 16 complaints. Which was high, apparently. And they made a public apology. A public apology for offending 16 people out of 3,000,000. Do you realise what percentage that is?
Now that's power. And completely insane to me. But it does show the BBC's mentality. And explains a lot of their programming.
So, the self-promotion hater then, what exactly is his resentment?
I don't know, I'm only guessing, but I can't help feeling it's got a lot to do with people having the nerve to do what he daren't.
I got told off for not being Wuthering Heights, although I never claimed to be, and the article was about Wuthering Heights, in relation to other 'romances', including mine, and in spite of the fact that the posting I made clearly started with, If this is not of interest please disregard. No subterfuge. I said who I was, what I was. All clear, straightforward and above board. If he wasn't interested why read it, why write to me, why the need to put me in my place?
Because I'm out of it, that's why. My place, as ever, is to wait till I, too, am recognised as a "A Real Novelist" with "A Real Novel".
What he, and everyone like him, conveniently forgets is that once upon a time Emily Bronte was a big fat zero; her book was nothing, worthless. No-one knew who she was and cared less. And the person who changed that, gave us Emily in her present raiment as A Real Author, A Classic?
You guessed it. The promoter, the legions of promoters, over the years, who advertised her book, pushed her book, pushed her; the people who promote it still because they think they can make money out of it.
And every time Emily asked a publisher for help, sent copies for review, used any means she could to get her book known she, too, was a shameless, self-promoting, cocksucking whore.
