Sad Magilla Watch: Where’s the Hate?

OK guys, fess up. Is it you? Or is it me? Where is all the wonderful hate that was once directed my way?

It wasn’t all that long ago that a vanity search using “Ken Magill” on Google groups and blogs would return a slew of wonderfully hateful comments.

My personal favorite is one that still leads the results page on Google groups: “Ken Magill vomits out another editorial,” which was posted on anti-spam discussion group Nanae in 2001. Clicking on that link reveals a comment posted by “Morely Dotes” calling me “a used-car salesman in a nice suit. Trust him at your own risk.”

And even better than “used-car salesman” was the time anti-spammer Mark Ferguson called me a “fat toad.”

Ribbit.

Then there was the time someone pretending to be me posted a comment in a discussion group asking where to find porn.

“I'm new to Usenet, and I'm looking for good, clean-cut porn, no kiddie stuff, no animal sickos,” wrote my alter ego.

What’s interesting here is the poster obviously wanted to embarrass me by making people think I was inquiring about pornography. But the fact that my alter ego asked where to find porn isn’t remotely embarrassing.

What’s embarrassing is he was too stupid to find it on his own.

Then there was a 2003 Nanae post calling me illiterate:

“So which one of you tipped off McGill (sic) to the existance (sic) of Nanae?” wrote anti-spammer Ronald Guilmette.

“I know he didn't read about it, because he can't read, so somebody must have told him about it. OK, so fess up. Who was it?”

Hint: Before calling someone illiterate in a written post, use spell check.

And the hate didn’t all come from Nanae. In September 2008, Matthew Tarpy published a post on his Tarpification blog headlined: “Ken Magill is either a liar or an idiot (but probably both).

Sadly, since Tarpy’s post, the hate seems to have dried up. In all of 2009, near as I can tell not a single mean-spirited screed was directed my way. When people disagree with me now, they do it nicely.

For example, recently I ridiculed the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail for claiming that America’s loosely crafted Can Spam Act is the reason so much unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail is being sent from computers in the U.S.

In response, deliverability consultant Mickey Chandler came to CAUCE’s defense on his Spamtacular blog, but did so respectfully.

Damn.

I truly miss the days of lying, idiotic, illiterate, fat-toad Ken Magill stumbling around the Internet as the only moron on the planet unable to find porn while occasionally vomiting out another editorial.

So please. I beg you. Unleash the hate again. I am rudderless without it.