Do you have lots of pent-up anger and frustration?  

Do you find yourself looking for an axe to grind, and undeserving people to grind it on?  

Do you lie awake nights dreaming about how to write the perfect flame and have it not be ripped to shreds by nasty webmistresses like me?  

Do you have no life?

If so, then this is the guide for you!  Read on and learn all about....

Flaming

Flaming 101

How to not get deleted before the subject even opens your email:

• Avoid using insulting, yet catchy subjects as "God Dang You Suck" or "Hi BITCH"
  Such language tends to make the subject instantly subtract 100 points from your assumed IQ and the flamee will often delete the offending email before it has a chance to be read.  A smart way to have your flame disguised is to put something ambiguous in it, such as "About Your Page" or, "Re: Hatemail".
• Don't use obviously fake email addresses.  
  A mail from someone called "JurkOff" or "BigStud69" is not going to be taken seriously.  Also avoid overly egotistical screen names, such as putting "Dr" or "Esq" that try and make you sound more important than you should be.  Strange titles and names are tip-offs that the content of the email in question is either a spam or a flame.  Either way, likelihood of deletion is high.
• Never, never, never swear in the subject of an email!!!
  I cannot stress the importance of this enough.  Most recipients will either instantly delete it, or even worse, forward it to your domain's TOS cops.

Flamer's Checklist: Five Mistakes of a Typical Email Flame to Avoid

Poor grammar, spelling, and composition.
 This is so common that anti-flame expert Erich Zann developed the famous Zann's Law of Flaming:
"The hostility of the writer is inversely proportional to their spelling and grammatical skills."
Remember the golden rule... spell-checker ON and caps lock OFF!

Weak Basis for Flame
This is another common one.  Too many flame authors make the mistake of writing a long-winded rant, and then have no real excuse as to why they did it.  Such poor flamers fall back on lame excuses such as "I was looking for a snowmobile and all I found was your dumb cartoon page", or "You made fun of a show I love, so I spent hours searching all over your site to find a flames page and an email address to flame you at too!"  If you resort to one of these explanations, make sure you have a good story as to why your browser's back button didn't work, or why you felt a little gripe justified a fifteen minute long search through a site you hate and a 10K rant.

Excessive Vulgarity/Swearing
So many flamers resort to this that I feel the issue of cursing deserves a second mention.  Comprising a flame of all statements such as "you suck", "your a gay bitch", "your pages are a eyesore", "Hi you fucking bitch", or the like is NOT the way to get your flame taken seriously.  Alternatives to these statements might be words such as, "I do not agree with your opinion, and find your statements offensive", or "Your pages could use a bit of an organizational overhaul", or "Hello <insert screen name>" Civil, yet critical wording will carry much more weight in the eyes of the flamee.

Giving Away That You Have No Life
Be careful that when you write your scathing hatemail that you don't inadvertently embarass yourself by admitting to how much time and effort you have put into a flame.  Take our poor-flamer example Stone Cold, for instance.  His confession that he spent an hour in the middle of the night sitting around waiting for me to flame him back, before writing a second flame when I did not, showed the entire web community that he indeed has no life.  Make sure that when you write your flame, you make no such inadvertent slips, lest your flame be dismissed on the "No-Life Flamer" Dismissal Clause.

Uncreativity
The most effective flame is one that the flamee will always remember as an example of something unique.  Sadly, creativity is the thing second most (next to grammar and spelling) neglected in a flame.  Too many trolls fall back on overused insults, often not even picking ones they came up with themselves.  (I.E. Quoting South Park and saying that Thundercats "Suck ass", just to get a reaction out of the flamee).  Even worse are flames that are copycats of others (such as our pal Whiddaw's "cut and paste" version of the Irate Voltron Fan's flame), since the author didn't even have the originality to come up with his own nasty insults.  

And so concludes our first lesson in flaming.  If you think you've grasped these basic concepts, and still want to send a *worthy* flame, the address is Cheeezey@yahoo.com.  

Warning: You will be graded.  Any poor attempts at flames that I deem unworthy will *not* have the honor of appearing anywhere on my site... or even worse, I'll forward them to Luna.

Oooooh... flames, Amok!  YES!!!  Bring 'em on!

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