I got this e-mail today from someone imaginatively calling themselves James Blunt. I get unprovoked messages like this from time to time and find it disheartening to think there are people out there so angry they’d bother to collect their hatred and send it to me.
Hi Eoghan,
I came across your website today and was compelled to email you.
I think your site is the most amateur, gaudish, ugly and unimaginative site I have ever came across.
You should be ashamed to call yourself a webdesigner!
How the hell did anyone give you an award?
How do you have a single client?
BTW, you are an ugly fucker as well.Keep up the pathetic work,
Regards,
James
Guess I’ll leave his name out of the hat, so.
18 Comments
You sure it’s not actually James Blunt?
Good point, Dave. I should leave all avenues of investigation open. It could indeed be 5-time Grammy Award nominated English singer-songwriter, James Blunt. But it’s still not a very nice thing to say.
You have to admit though, it’s pretty funny.
It’s hard not to let that kind of thing get you down. And if it was meant to be a joke, then UN conventions dictate that a smiley face should be added at the end.
Ah I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. People in this industry will put you down all the time. Generally when they’re jealous. I’m assuming this person sent you the mail from a web-based email account?
Can’t your hosting company tell you the origins by looking at the header etc?
I think this is top most form of jealousy. Why would someone bother writing that other than having the green eyes, no pun intended.
Criticisms of a website/design are generally fair enough because everybody has their own opinion, excepting:
* If you’re going to criticise somebody else’s work then you should at least have the balls to include your real name.
* The fact that he/she gets personal shows that it’s probably just jealousy.
Ignore it, you don’t need to listen to criticisms from people who wont put their name to what they’ve written.
Eoghan, I manage an online discussion forum for about 5,000 members and you wouldn’t believe the kind of abuse I’ve received over the years for moderating and banning people. The thing I always console myself with is that they wouldn’t be so abusive if they didn’t value the service so highly! Translated, no-one would take the time to write such a message unless jealousy was at the root of it.
Hope you gave him my details as an incredibly satisfied client.
You didn’t happen to track the IP address?
I would have have to agree with “James” that your blog isn’t the prettiest. That’s what RSS feeds are for though :)
It’s the lack of “prettiness” that bothers me, what I am really curious about is why you use a single green pixel as a background image?
Des: Well spotted! It’s to account for the differences I’ve noticed in the way Safari interprets colours. I’ll try get an example together and show you. Maybe someone’s worked out a better fix or maybe I’ve just got it all wrong.
Aha, I figured it was either an inconsistency in colours, or you were just doing it to make the design a bit more mysterious.
Just to clarify, my comment above was supposed to begin with “Its *not* the lack of prettiness that bothers me”
The only thing worse that being talked about like this is *not* being talked about.
Jame’s blunt email is a compliment. Really.
Paul
wandering off topic here Eoghan but the colour differences may be because Safari is using a different colour space, or that a ICC profile is being added to your graphics - it’s a problem that becomes obvious if you are moving files between Macs and PCs - though I would have though the problem would have been caused by, rather than solved by, using PNGs.
That’s the thing about the net full of jealous cowards. Still you must be doing something right to make people jealous, he went to the trouble writing all that, so he must be having little success himself…