Here’s an email I recently received in response to a “Food News Roundup” I wrote on the Mercury website, from a person named “Rhonda” (who’s apparently quite proud she’s never heard of me): “Just thought I’d check out your article, never have heard of you, but interested in the restaurants coming and going. [You’ve probably figured out that I’ve left the grammar of this email intact.—Steve] It was informative and pleasant until the chick filet part. Then your true, profane, liberal ugly head reared itself. So sad that you had to stoop to that level. You’re part of the dark, ugly underbelly of what passes as ‘journalism’ these days.”

At first I was like, “THIS IS FANTASTIC NEWS!” Why? Because that “chick filet” part—where I wrote that Chik-fil-A restaurants are owned and populated by bigots who should go fuck themselves—was at the very end of the article. This was extremely satisfying, because according to national research, people who read the entirety of a newspaper article (all the way to the end) are extremely rare! In fact, studies show that on average, most readers only stick with an article for 15 seconds before moving on. 15 FREAKING SECONDS?? If true, you probably stopped reading this article a long time ago! (Most likely when Rhonda revealed herself to be an asshole homophobe.)

Then I was like, “HOLD UP, ACTUALLY THIS IS TERRIBLE NEWS!” because—if the “15 seconds rule” is true—that makes Rhonda a “unicorn” among newspaper readers. (An asshole homophobic unicorn, but still a unicorn.) Could it be that only my enemies read the entirety of my articles? Like the people who “hate watch” those terrible Netflix Christmas movies, are my biggest fans actually “hate readers”?

Because protecting my ego takes precedence over any other Mercury duty, I refused to write another word until I got to the bottom of this conundrum. Clearly, THIS WAS A JOB FOR ANALYTICS! Intriguing fact: Most newspapers use some sort of online system that gauges and provides data about their online readership—ours is called “Chartbeat.” With it you can see in real-time how many people are reading your articles, how long they’re reading them, and how they found them. It’s interesting stuff, if you’re not a person who’s easily bored to death.

ANYWAY, I did a deep dive into all my most recent articles and made TWO remarkable discoveries: 1) Homophobic Rhonda isn’t the only person reading my articles—in fact, there are thousands of you! And 2) FUCK YOUUUUU, 15 SECOND RULE! A whopping 65 percent of my readers read my articles all the way to the bottom—and you can’t all hate me, right? Wait. Are you still reading this? OH, GOOD!

In short, “THIS IS FANTASTIC NEWS AGAIN!” Instead of being a special unicorn, it turns out that Rhonda is not special at all. She’s just your average, run-of-the-mill, grumpy, asshole homophobe who’s so basic she actually likes Chik-fil-A and thinks it’s worthy of being defended in a grammatically problematic email. Boo-hoo-hoo, Rhonda! Go dry your eyes!

As for everyone else, thanks for reading this all the way to the end. And the rest of us who make up “the dark, ugly underbelly of what passes as ‘journalism’ these days” thank you as well.

Yer pal to the end,
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Editor-in-Chief
Portland Mercury