Bloggasm

Given that the blog Useless Advice From Useless Men specializes in answering questions all day, it seemed only natural for them to take a step further and answer interview questions. The blog consists of seven pseudo-anonymous bloggers who write in a Dear Abby form turned on its head with humor. Most the questions submitted to them are done so with the understanding that not the most sound–or serious–advice will be given.

Simon Owens: Tell me a little about the people behind the project. How do you guys know each other?

One Useless Man: Useless Advice from Useless Men started, in part, like many other internet friendships. I had been considering a silly online advice column when I noted a post on another blogger’s site that suggested he wanted to work on an advice column. After a few emails, One Useless Man and Another Useless Man, internet strangers, had a joint new blog. We spread the word through our own personal blogs, and blogs of friends, for readers to start sending in questions.

Along with questions, we also received application requests from new writers; other strangers from the web. I particularly liked the writing of one, and he was brought on as Just Plain Useless. To even out the workload, I invited a childhood friend to help as well, as Anymore Useless, I’d Be A Cat. (Oh, the controversy that name creates with our lady readers).

Along the way, we received an email from a woman who offered to help, and the idea was hatched to include an Occasional Useless Gal to the mix.

When the co-founder, Another Useless Man, stepped down from his blogging activities about 100 questions in, a co-worker of mine asked to participate. I asked him to submit a question to the site applying for the job. I didn’t mention who it was to any one else, but based on his request letter, the other writers quickly agreed to bringing him on staff. Thus, The Useless Wonder made us a band of 5 again (link to application)

100 questions later, Another Useless Man came back. And One Useless Brother. I received a question about my personal life that seemed silly for me to answer, and certainly no one else on the site knew me well enough to answer it, so I asked my brother to. He’s been answering questions ever since (Link to One Useless Brother)

Now we are a band of 7 writers. I know two of them. I’m related to one. I’ve spoken on the phone with 2 others. As for my co-founder, Another Useless Man? We have never met or talked, conversing only through email. I don’t know where he lives, or have I any confirmation of what his real name is. And I’m fine with that.

Simon Owens: Are all these questions submitted by real readers, or do you guys make some or all of them up yourselves?

One Useless Man: 100% of all questions are from readers. And every question submitted gets an answer. We’re unstumpable. But if we break that down a little, 96% of the questions we receive are from readers. Readers is a strong word. 60% of the questions are from occasional readers. 23% are from loyal readers. 1% we gathered from websites where people blog “This could be a question for the Useless Men,” but didn’t send them in.

If we can be honest, 4% of our questions may have been submitted by one or more of our own Useless Men. The early days of this site were lean. But no Useless Man has ever answered his own question. The exercise for the writers is in creativity, not in setting up a great punchline.

The final 12% are from Laura, but she just wanted to win a mystery tin prize we gave away in November.

Simon Owens: Like most comedy personas, you play characters in public. Stephen Colbert, for instance, doesn’t play himself in the Colbert Report, so it’s a little odd when you hear him interviewed and he sounds like a normal person. Do you ever break out of character in your blog? Are you breaking out of character for this interview? This question?

One Useless Man: Personally, I don’t think of One Useless Man as a character. Other people may say, “He’s quite a character.” But I don’t think it is in the same context.

We use pseudonyms and actively try not to be useful. But, for me, the style of writing, the beliefs and the humour shared is what I would normally come up with off the top of my head. I don’t have to get “into” character to start writing, nor am I able to get “out” of character. I can tone it down, reel it in, to keep myself from getting fired from a day job. But that inner monologue keeps running.

On the site, we exaggerate, but for the most part, if you’ve been reading for a long time, you’ll see we are pretty much who we say we are. In that regard, we are often caricatures of ourselves and we just can’t tune out the insanity.

That sometimes is the funniest part, knowing that the most useless information you just shared with the public is very closely tied with real life events. For example, my Dad is at the heart of this site, unbeknownst to him. For example, he asked me to pick him up recently:

“Get off the highway and turn towards the lake,” he advised. However, the location and directions he’d gven me to that point were miles away from any lakes. You couldn’t see a lake anywhere.

He is the most kind-hearted and generous person you could hope to meet. But let him help in home or car repairs, or in story telling, or traffic directions, and it will take twice as long as it should have taken. And twice as pricey.

Simon Owens: I see that you’ve allowed an “Occasional Useless Gal” onto your team. Doesn’t this ruin the entire blog’s philosophy?

One Useless Man: There are just some questions men shouldn’t be forced to answer. There are some things we don’t even care to answer about women. But to fulfill our mandate of answering EVERY question we receive, the Useless Gal gets a bone once in a while. Did that sound dirty? My apologies. (Useless Gal example)

Simon Owens: Some of the questions you get almost seem serious, while others are obviously in on the joke. Have there been any where you guys responded with a serious “you should seek some professional help?”

One Useless Man: There are a few questions that stand out. One longtime reader wrote to use shortly after her husband died suddenly from an accident in the home. Reading the question, I felt she was still in pain. There was sadness and hurt behind the “humour” that she was attempting. I replied to her, as I do all emails, but instead of a form letter, I asked her to reconsider her submission. Our site is meant to have fun, and poking fun at the expense of a real-life tragedy is not my taste of fun. After a cooling down period, she asked us to answer the question. She felt the laughter would help her. I hope it did. (Link)

We received another strongly worded letter just after Hurricane Katrina asking us why the government wasn’t doing anything. Again, poking fun at tragedy is not fun. I think we captured something in that answer, taking a humorous approach to helping one another in times of crises: Link.

The most often comment we receive is that our useless advice isn’t useless enough. And it’s true. While we try to come up with the most useless way to get to the answer, we do try to have an answer.

For those people that think we can actually help, and get upset when we spout off in our useless fashion, I have to question what they were thinking when they sent their problem to an email address called uselessadvice@hotmail.com. We’ve put a disclaimer of sorts on our page to remind people that if you need professional help, and we’re pretty sure they do, it’s best to get it from a professional.

Then again, we have free basic health care in Canada…

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