Jokes by the humorless: The 'OMG' saga

With 24 hours or so to reflect on the oh-so-slight Internet phenomenon (within the horse racing world only) that one post of mine has become, I'm compelled to try and wrap it all up in a tidy package with ribbon and a bow and set it aside. But I'll admit, bows are for decoration only, and a little tugging at the ends later could result in reopening the box.

I'm more than willing to believe that Ron Mitchell, who writes the "Tracking Barbaro's Brothers" blog at bloodhorse.com, was making a joke when he relaxed his journalistic formality for a moment (as we all do occasionally) and clacked-out the headline "OMG! Nicanor Scratched Due to Leg Injury when reporting the scratch of Barbaro's baby brother, Nicanor, from today's Virginia Derby.

Whether I wasn't amused is a result of my just being dumb that way, or the joke's being a clunker, or a measure of both, I'll leave for you to judge for yourselves.

And I know quite well that jokes by journalists -- even jokes by comedians -- sometimes land with a thud.

Sometimes readers just don't get it. Writing for a general audience as I do daily, attempts at humor can't be too obscure or you're leaving the bulk of your readers on the outside of an inside joke. That's frustrating at least for the reader; it can even become offensive.

A well-written, prudently timed and carefully calculated joke agitates primarily those who were its butt, and they're usually madder the more they had it coming.

The very worst of a writer's jokes are those that offend most everyone. Or those that end up turning the joke on the writer.

Clearly I lobbed the joke back toward that venerated publication, and in a way that seems to have been more amusing to readers than was the original joke, posed as a headline.

Comments on my earlier post, and some readers in private e-mail to me, have suggested that the Blood-Horse knows good and well the type who usually frequent the "Barbaro's Brothers" blog. Its audience is composed of Barbaro fanatics (duh, I guess), some or even many of whom are youthful, female and perhaps don't care much, if at all, about horse racing otherwise.

Having read some of the comments over there -- and there are usually lots of comments on that blog, though often from the same users -- I think there could be some truth to that theory.

And certainly some Blood-Horse patrons have no use for the "Barbaro's Brothers" bit.

Wrote "TomasinNM" responding to my prior post: "The Bloodhorse recently sent out a survey to ascertain I assume, where they could improve. ... One of my comments dealt with the blog issue -- it seems that they're pandering to 13 yr. old horse-crazy girls. Good grief."

Other, anonymous posters here suggested the blog moderator screens out any comments from those who might poop on the "12-year-old" Friends of Barbaro party. (Though some posts he or she mentions being ignored or deleted, such as one comparing Barbaro's and Nicanor's injuries now seem to be present ... a change of heart from reading comments over here? Still, other critical posts that were mentioned, are not.)

"If you like the Nicanor saga (zzzz), this was actually a two-sided blog before a new moderator took it over," that person wrote on my blog. "... Now it's but hearts and flowers with NO racing interest, or knowledge. ... It's a joke, and real race fans know it."

Well, not everyone agrees. At least one person thought I was unfair -- among other things -- in making fun of the Blood-Horse's treatment in blog form of the Nicanor scratch.

The commenter who took me to task for my comic criticism of the Blood-Horse fired off a few personal shots about my writing here lacking creativity and substance. That's fine; I think he's wrong, but I was taught not to dish it out if I can't take it, and I'm a big boy (a very big boy) who has learned to withstand criticism. Turnabout is fair play.

But how about the Blood-Horse? According to that critic, the "OMG" headline was posted as an attempt at sarcastic humor, so when I in turn crack wise about the headline, where's their own sense of levity? ... Even Nixon could play a credible straight man on "Laugh In."

Former Daily Racing Form bloodstock editor Sid Fernando, now president of ematings.com, speculates that my critic was Blood-Horse President and CEO Stacy Bearse. (Note for the sake of full disclosure that Fernando has his own issues with Bearse, and is very open with his disdain.)

The critic being Bearse makes sense, because the poster also took an unwarranted and somewhat non-germane swipe at Ray Paulick and his independent racing news and content aggregation site, paulickreport.com. Much as newspapers are at odds with Google over aggregation, and considering Paulick's site is garnering thousands of user visits daily and cashing a few precious racing industry ad dollars in a weak economy (a huge concern of Bearse's), in part by linking to Blood-Horse content, the frustration of Paulick's ex-boss is practically palpable. And Bearse when prodded is known to be a loose cannon at the keyboard.

(A brief aside here: An e-mail like that one apparently from Bearse to Paulick -- if sent by me to anyone, particularly to a former employee whose personnel records and privacy I'm obliged to safeguard and respect -- would have gotten me fired on the spot.)

But it isn't Stacy Bearse -- if he does happen to have been the harsh critic -- that has intrigued me the most since comments on my post started coming in yesterday. It was the very first response in the thread; the one whose contributor I can no longer track because my Sitemeter counter was (emphasis on "was") the free variety, and only maintained information on the last 100 visits.

Others have hinted that this author's comments also originated in-house at the Blood-Horse. I can't research or prove it, but I do wonder.

That writer chided me a bit for not being in on the "OMG" joke. But it's impossible to miss the animus toward the blogosphere itself -- I'm guessing specifically the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance posts that now are, by some sort of agreement, also imbedded at bloodhorse.com to help drive traffic and justify advertising rates.

The post reads: "I don't know if you caught the irony that the Blood-Horse is well aware of what a joke these nutty people are to the industry -- certainly not to themselves, as they are too obsessed to realize they are embarrassing. They do bring hits to the Bloodhorse.com site, however, so Blood-Horse is very happy to feed the fire, all the while joining in the snickering at these fools."

Whether that author is in-house at bloodhorse.com or not, the implication is that the Blood-Horse doesn't take blogging (or specifically TBA bloggers?) seriously, and by extension, could also not really respect the users who visit bloodhorse.com specifically to read those blogs. They're probably all "nutty ... fools" whose embarrassment must be suffered in order for bloodhorse.com to pay the bills. But it's OK, because the Blood-Horse is laughing at them, too.

I'd love to know, though likely never will, whether that was written by a BH staffer. And exactly toward whom the writer's disdain is directed (all bloggers, some bloggers, only the people who read the "Barbaro's Brothers" blog?). But the negative sentiment is unmistakable.

On the topic of new media, blogging (to which I'm a newcomer), and the need to attract more and younger fans to horse racing, I happen to agree with one of my more recent commenters, who identified himself (or herself) as a journalist, though not of the turf variety.

"I must say ... that racing needs all kinds. Even annoying kinds," the individual wrote. "We have to take them wherever we can get them and if that means we get the Barbaro-obsessed types, then fine.

"I'm of the opinion that (part) of our job in the press ... is to find out what people are interested in, what they want to read, and (within reason) give it to them. ... If they want to read a gushy blog, then give them their gushy blog."

From a business sense, I largely concur. But then don't make fun of the reader for liking what you gave them.

The Critic-Who-Could-Be-Bearse wrote: "The Nicanor blog that had 'OMG' in the headline was an attempt at sarcasm. The people who follow that blog are pretty obsessed with anything Barbaro related, so it was an attempt at humor."

And that's where my bigger problem lies now with the joke in the blog headline. It wasn't just a clunker of a joke that I for whatever reason didn't appreciate. It was a joke seemingly aimed at -- rather than for -- the readers of the blog itself.

There's a not-so-fine line between laughing with your readers and laughing at them.

One is great for business. The other -- unless you're Triumph the Insult Comic Dog -- probably not so much.