Dear Open Letters,

So it’s finally come to this, has it? We’ve had a fun run, you and I, but like the sun rises in the east, it must surely set in the west, and the sun is setting on our relationship, Open Letters. I’d say its been fun, but mostly it has just been annoying.

You started, Open Letters, as a neat way for angsty teens entering college to express their dissatisfaction with Mondays or Girls Who Wear Uggs, but now there’s just so much of you, and I am so tired. It seems as if every other article on Odyssey is either an Open Letter to something mundane or a clickbait article about How Great This School Is Despite The Rampant Rapists! or some equally inane drivel meant only for shares and pageviews.

But what happened to you, Open Letters? When Print Media was still a Thing you were the best way to talk to the public about political scandals or dissatisfaction with the status quo. You’re in the most sold book on the planet, Open Letters! Most of the New Testament in The Bible is written as an Open Letter! Sure, its all fun fiction, but you achieved prominence through fables and folklore!

Or what about when you broke the Dreyfus Affair in 1898 with Émile Zola’s J’accuse…!, that was phenomenal! You changed History itself and called out rampant anti-Semitism in the French government, Open Letters! Now the only thing you call out is the guy who sideswapped some college student’s Kia Sorento while they were in Starbucks.

But this open letter isn’t just for Open Letters, oh no, this open letter is also for the Open Letters that let Open Letters devolve into the putrid pile of festering garbage we have right now clogging our Facebook feeds. I am, of course, talking about the four awful open letters that appear in every Open Letter: O, P, D, and B – both their uppercase and lowercase counterparts.

How dare you, Open Letters! We trusted you! You’re part of a team of 26 that is supposed to protect the English language from this sort of gif-filled crap, yet there you are on the screen, complicit in all of this! You’re not even stopping this open letter right now. Shame on you! Shame on all of you.

And so, Open Letters and Open Letters, we’ve come to the conclusion of this open letter. What can we take away from this? How can we better ourselves? Well, Open Letters, you can start by preventing the writers who fart you out from using this easy and manipulative form of “writing” and instead force those writers to write something that takes actual effort. As for you, Dear Reader reading this open letter to Open Letters and Open Letters, you can stop clicking on every open letter you come across, and instead, search for writing that is more critical of and actually strives to discuss whatever issue may be contained within.

Except this open letter. Please share this open letter.

Sincerely,

Writes His Articles The Day They Are Due