, 8 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
You should assume that anyone you've heard talking on the radio has listened to the segment you heard and cringed at the sound of their voice, even if their voice is beautiful. Emailing a stranger to tell them their voice is annoying is asshole behavior.
And that's before you even get to the fact that emailing a female stranger to tell her that her vocal fry is annoying is asshole sexist behavior, and more likely than not contributing to a torrent of assholery in her in-box.
I was once on C-SPAN for an hour under very challenging recording studio conditions. I was stressed and discombobulated. I said "um" a lot. I was aware I was saying "um" a lot. The strangers who emailed me to tell me I said "um" a lot were not helping me.
(I was in a dark room with a camera right in my face. I wasn't supposed to look at the camera. I was supposed to look at a post-it a few inches above the camera. There were monitors on the floor near the camera showing me and the host. I wasn't supposed to look at them, either.)
(The show was live—and national—and we had technical difficulties that kept me from getting settled until a few seconds before air. It was my first time on C-SPAN, and I couldn't see the host. Just the post-it. Right above the camera lens. Which I wasn't supposed to look at.)
(And then the first question that he asked me—literally the first question—was a one I wasn't expecting and didn't have a good answer to, so I had to duck it. Live. On air. The first question. Of an hour-long show.)
(So yes, I wound up saying "um" a lot during that hour. While staring at a post-it.)
And BTW, this was a few years ago, and I've done a lot of tv and radio since then—and I like it and I'm good at it!—and I still feel embarrassed talking about that day. So yeah, when you go out of your way to criticize people about stuff like this, it's painful and humiliating.
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