[Prestidigitweeze]

Despite the irony in the tone and the obvious symbolism of the fictive group of people behind it, I'm against a petition on an activist's forum (i.e., change.org) that is signed by "the authors" -- particularly a petition in which the actual names of the authors do not appear. To know whether I trusted the writers who were thanking me by kissing my ass in public, I'd want to know their names and backgrounds. To speak for a vast and arbitrary group of people (let alone one that is class, culture and century-inclusive) on a grassroots petition site without their consent seems anti-democratic even in jest. To promote a phony petition in space devoted to activism also seems a tad demoralizing.

This petition's tone, backhanded compliments to Amazon, ostentatious modesty and sweeping generalizations are manipulative in a deliberately transparent way – which is part of a joke that is really just an excuse for a humorless message – but I still don't like being spoken for as a writer or editor. If I wanted to thank readers, I'd do it unassumingly, without an extravagant display of supplication that is the opposite of humility. And as a reader, I wouldn't be narcissistic enough to think, "It's about moo-hanking time those authors kissed my ass."

Besides which, the premise is made of cotton candy. Even though Howie's point is that all authors should thank readers (and Amazon), the presumption that all writers are modern capitalists, want their books to be published and/or posit a readership is false.

Even if every writer you know, read or respect wants a seven-figure income predicated on extensive readership, those desires weren't shared by writers like Emily Dickinsen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Wiener, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu or Henry Green. A number of writers write simply to write, just as American composer Charles Ives wrote music simply for the pleasure of the act and the sense of direction afforded by his progress.

Besides which, Colbert's mock encomiums are funnier and his writers better than Howie's.

And apart from that, I still don't like being spoken for. Even in jest, manipulative synecdoche in the service of championing any self-interested corporation makes living in a fine-print democracy feel even less democratic.