Dear someone important,
I am a quasi-celebrity so my opinion matters. More than most. I am a celebrity above the scale of, say, a reality TV hotshot who flames bright but soon crashes to Earth, but below, say, someone on the scale of Bono who can go anywhere in the world and be mobbed by crowds who just want to touch his leather jacket and weird, fingerless glove thingies that are sewn into the sleeves of said jacket.
That said, when I write an open letter of this nature, people react and say things like, "Oh, gee, thank you so, so much, quasi-celebrity, for saying what I was thinking," the implication being that person saying such a thing was unable to collect his or her thoughts enough to actually write a similar open letter, or that because I said what they were thinking, it validates their own thoughts which, apparently, didn't have value until they were confirmed by me and my open letter.
In my open letter, I will make obvious statements -- not necessarily all true, but obvious nonetheless -- and lace my prose with tugs at emotional heartstrings, angry sentiments, moral high-mindedness and threatening actions.
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Now, you may be saying to yourself at this point, someone important, "Hey, I just got wind of an open letter addressed to me from a quasi-celebrity!" And, no doubt, you and your staff (because all someone importants have staff) are wondering how this open letter may affect what you plan to do today and tomorrow, if not for years to come.
Well, here's where it matters, someone important. Being a quasi-celebrity, I hold myself in fairly high esteem already, certainly higher than most run-of-the-mill jamokes who write open letters to someone importants like yourself, and my feelings of self-esteem are further aggrandized by those who will thank me effusively for "having the courage" to write something so achingly, blazingly obvious. But -- and here's where the threats come in -- being a quasi-celebrity means I am a leader of these very people who thank me for writing what they could write and, perhaps, have written already. I am to this topic what Angelina Jolie is to adoption of third world babies... Well, except, she's a full-blown celebrity, so, in that regard, I'm thankful she didn't write an open letter to you on the same subject or my open letter would be dwarfed by her monumental celebrity-ness.
That's the great thing about this great nation of ours... Anyone can become a quasi-celebrity. Witness Balloon Boy's dad or the Obama state dinner crashers. (Geez, I hope the dinner crashers don't write an open letter to you today on this topic because they're still white hot.)
Anyway, what I'm saying, someone important, is that I quasi-command these quasi-fans of my quasi-celebrity status. So let that be a clear warning to you that I may or may not be able to draw a crowd for a rally I may or may not have at some point in the future about whatever it is you're doing that I am writing this open letter about.
In short, I feel personally betrayed by something you've said or done or not said or not done or may do or not do in the future. And there are millions more like me who I speak for primarily because I am a quasi-celebrity and I am writing this open letter that any one of them could have written themselves but this one carries the weight of my quasi-celebrity status.
I hope that by writing this open letter to you, someone important, many others will find their voices because, god knows, they have no outlets for expression, apparently, and I am their humble servant serving as a vessel for their own open letters. Or something.
Amen.
Your (formerly) trusted servant,
Quasi-celebrity