Snarky responses on the letters page?

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You know how in "hip" "edgy" "alternative" publications how the letters page always has snarky, ironic responses from the editors, sometimes insulting the writer, sometimes self-effacing?

I'm trying to track down where this practice originated. Who started it, who adopted it, who does it now?

― Kevin Erickson, Monday, 21 November 2005 00:20 (twenty years ago)

creem?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:26 (twenty years ago)

i mean: possibly creem started it

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

plenty of this in the NME in years gone by

― jim p. irrelevant (electricsound), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:06 (twenty years ago)

whizzer and chips?

― estela (estela), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:14 (twenty years ago)

Y'know, I don't like this. When I was editor of an alt-weekly, I didn't allow any responses other than the occasional editor's note to clarify some reference in the letter. My feeling is, the letters page is for the readers. It's bad form to invite comment but then reserve the last word for yourself. If a letter was really unfair or grossly inaccurate, we wouldn't run it, but otherwise just let people have their say.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:19 (twenty years ago)

Yob from Mean Machines.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:46 (twenty years ago)

Smash Hits did this a lot.

Haha I got insulted by the editor of Juke once. Something about Cocteau Twins and closets... I dont remember.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:11 (twenty years ago)

i agree with gypsy... i think it's kinda cheap*

*unless it's really funny

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:15 (twenty years ago)

Yob from Mean Machines.

GREAT days

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:27 (twenty years ago)

mad magazine originated this in 1908 in the LETTERS AND TOMATOS DEPT.

― howell huser (chaki), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:31 (twenty years ago)

Getting smarted by an NME letters page writer was one of the bitterest disappointments of my teenage years. Subsquently, I have never used the letters page to take a stab at readers, even the guy who wrote in and said: 'Peter W, is he a short man?'

So we tend not to do it at Time Out, but I do sometimes reply to them in person (or by email).

― Pete W (peterw), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

Context: i'm writing my undergraduate thesis on R3LEVANT magazine, an evangelical christian publication focusing on hip popular culture. One of the ways they try to demonstrate their relevance, and by extension, the relevance of christianity, is by appropriating as many traits as possible from mainstream hip music magazines. The sarcastic responses on the letters page is one thing they borrow.

― Kevin Erickson, Monday, 21 November 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

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