Hey, you there. Yes, you. Are you currently drafting a statement in response to an exposé about your sexual misconduct? Two pieces of advice: One, make sure to actually apologize.
Two, get someone to fucking proofread it.
I know that grammar and punctuation don’t matter as much as what you did to your victims and how you’re “going to do better from now on,” but handing in the rough draft of your soul-searching open letter kinda makes it seem like you’re not taking this whole thing seriously. Would you submit a resume with typos on it? Just kidding—I know famous people don’t submit resumes. But for real, take a minute to copy edit.
It’s too late for these asshole pervs, but maybe you can learn from their shitty, shitty examples.
Louis C.K.
Louis CK has put out a statement. "These stories are true," he says. pic.twitter.com/8oCH7YhqnF
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 10, 2017
Buddy, you had years to work on this. There is no reason to be arbitrarily switching between one and two spaces after periods, botching line breaks and indents or starting sentences with lowercase letters. This reads like you were jerking off while writing it. And the phrasing! I refuse to believe that syntax like “I was widely admired in my and their community” and “people who I work with and have worked with who’s [sic] professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this” looked correct to you. Garbage.
Harvey Weinstein
If you’re going to blame your serial sexual assaults on the culture of the ’60s and ’70s, don’t goddamn write “60’s and 70’s.” These are not possessives. And if you’re going to just dash off a ton of run-on sentences until you get to your Jay Z reference (I’m sure he appreciated the shout-out, you psychopath), then maybe figure out where to put the commas, because all I see are splices. It wouldn’t kill you to learn how to type an em-dash, either. The last paragraph is so stupid that reading it aloud would kill my houseplants.
Kevin Spacey
— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017
Did Harvey Weinstein ghostwrite this crap? More missing commas and splices, extra spaces and a superfluous “signature.” It’s most remarkable, though, for the clumsy extra words, which show him stalling for time in every big wind-up of a conditional clause: “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been… .” You can stop talking about this like it took place in an alternate universe, Kevin.
Ben Affleck
I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) October 11, 2017
Well, you really poured your heart out here, didn’t you. Add a period, a comma, and maybe another sentence or two, and you might have the makings of the world’s worst Hallmark card. Better yet, just tweak the Bat-Signal so it says “I grab tits without consent” and shine it over Hollywood sometime.
Jeremy Piven
— Jeremy Piven (@jeremypiven) November 9, 2017
Nobody believes you, but get this: “Absolutely false” and “completely fabricated” mean the same thing. And that’s not how polygraphs work. Also, you can just use a period instead of typing out the word “Period.” Full stop.
Robert Scoble
TL;DR. But points for an hilariously awful and unnecessary title and the declaration “I have rejected my lawyer’s advice to not make a statement.”
Ed Westwick
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbSJdyahdKK/
“Provably untrue” is an interesting concept some philosophy professors could spend a decade screaming over, but what the hell is going on with “there are some in this environment who could ever conclude”? You sound like one of those dumbasses in Plato who try to argue with Socrates. Get a grip.
Dustin Hoffman
So something you “might have done” is “not reflective” of who you are, huh. Try this again, but not as a pep talk delivered to your bathroom mirror.
All right, enough. There’s no time to go over the statements from the other eleventy billion men recently outed as sexual predators, but rest assured that even the ones who ran spell-check on their mea culpas didn’t put in any more effort than that. RIP language, semantics and my hope for the male species.
Miles Klee
Miles Klee is MEL’s resident tank-top dirtbag, shitposter and meme expert. He’s also the author of the novel ‘Ivyland’ and a story collection, ‘True False.’
