For over a quarter of a century, whatsthatbug.com has diligently answered bug identification requests for millions of visitors. We have received more than 30,000 letters over the last 25 years.
But different folks, different strokes. Over the years, we have received some unkind and nasty letters. All told, they do not number more than a few dozen out of the over 30,000.
For your entertainment (and to keep ourselves from not being too smug), we have reproduced the top 10 of them right here.
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Letter 1 – Update: Reader Wants Book Thrown at Us!!!
Nasty Reader Award
For being educated women, your behavior in giving and posting your abusive rant against a reader who made an insulting comment is reprehensible. It was immature and spiteful. Inviting other viewers to contact the women you are angry with is vengeful and abusive. You should be charged for your violation of these women’s privacy. I hope they contact the police and your internet provider and although you are providing a valuable service, I hope your site gets shut down until the two of you grow up or learn some mediation skills. Shame on you for abusing your position.
Hi Terah (name taken from email address but not signed on anonymous email),
We will not be posting your email address to sic our readership on you directly, but we want to come to our own defense in this matter. It seems you want the book thrown at us and feel the judge should show no mercy. We never invaded anyone’s privacy. We did not seek out any random person to have an “abusive rant against.” People who write to our site do so with the understanding that letters are posted. If someone writes to us, we feel we have the right to respond, and our forum for response is an online posting. We are not cyber-stalking anyone, merely responding to a letter. We doubt that the cyber-police, the LAPD in our local station, nor our internet provider will find anything illegal in what we have done. We are providing a free and entertaining service, and we resent being attacked. People who want their privacy maintained should not be sending virulent emails to websites, and if they do, they need to accept the consequences of FREE SPEECH, our first amendment in case you are not educated enough to know about it. Regarding our maturity or lack thereof, we have always believed that a certain amount of immaturity is the key to youth.
Letter 2 – Fourth Recipient: Nasty Reader Award
Why is it that it is near to IMPOSSIBLE to find your email address CLEARLY displayed on your website? Are you guys COMPLETELY DAFT???? Since when is this an email address: Email the bugman AT Whatsthatbug.com ?????????????????????????????? ??????????? Are you truly dorks? —–ja Dear Jonathan Ayers (who can be reached at jonathanayres@mac.com), While the majority of the emails we receive are complimentary, occasionally we do get unsolicited derogatory and inflamatory letters that trouble us deeply. In an effort to confront our demons, we have created the Nasty Reader page and we want to congratulate you on being awarded the fourth installment of the award. Your prize include a high profile posting on our homepage as well as a permanent position in our archives. So that our readership will have no problems locating your email address, we will make sure we link to it several times. You must be suffering from severe performance anxiety as well as personal inadequacy since it is apparent that a large majority of the web browsing public has no problem writing to us by simply clicking the Ask WTB link prominently featured at the top of each and every one of our individual pages. We do receive over 100 emails a day. We strongly suggest you seek some rage management treatment and perhaps our readership has additional suggestions for you. Our readership can email you directly, and hopefully copy us on their letters so we can post their views as well. Have a nice day. Comment: (08/16/2008) How does it feel to be (in)famous? Isn’t that what you wanted– to vent unneccessarily at the Bugman and his Mrs? What is wrong with you people? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or are you naturally this nasty? You need a lesson in anger management and good manners, along with giving them an apology. They don’t have to have this wonderful page for us. I check it numerous times a day myself. I love the beautiful pictures that people send in and the commentary every day. Having this website is a wonderful gift to all of us, and you don’t appreciate it. You need to get a grip along with getting a life. Oh, in case you’re that ignorant and can’t find the email address, you’re supposed to click Ask WTB. DUH! SJ Another Reader Comment (08/17/2008) Dear Jonathon Does your mommy know you’re on the internet? Your email to WTB makes me think you are 8 or 9 years old. Even if you are older, I think you ought to be supervised. Get a clue. Joanne Faithful Reader gets nasty with Jonathan (08/17/2008) Dafty Dork Frustrations Dear Jonathan, Being that on a daily basis 100s of us are able to find the means to e-mail “What’s That Bug”, it leads me to the conclusion that it must be you who is the dork and a dafty dork at that!! And … when you apparently did locate the address, instead of feeling pride in your brilliant accomplishment, you didn’t share your insect pics, but instead chose to chastise the wonderful folks who provide this amazing website. This is what I envision occurred… it’s the only explanation for such rage and frustration: You wanted to share your bug pics, but said bug was up your arse. You set up a tripod, positioned your butt, attempted to get your camera in position. The lighting wasn’t quite right, you’re itchy and uncomfortable , what with the bug hopping around in there, just refusing to sit still for a photo. Finally , after 10 minutes or so, poor bug settled down, the lighting adjusted, butt position at perfect angle to camera, you got it! After all that work & discomfort, to not be able to find an e-mail address is certainly justification to spew venom at our Bug Folks friends. I hope your bug has been released and you feel calmer. Although no photos were shared, I thank you for the entertainment. Best wishes, A very loyal “What’s That Bug” fan More proof that What’s That Bug? fans are a loyal group!!! (08/17/2008) Oh Jonathan Ayres…what a hefty mistake you’ve made… Tsk, tsk. Your email to the Bugman, specifically your overuse of punctuation and lack of manners, points to the fact that you are probably a pre-pubescent boy with little to do other than use mommy’s computer while she’s at work. Clearly she needs to impose more parental controls, and may I suggest for you a class in basic respect. I think they call it boot camp. Perhaps you ought to be practicing your “Yessir”, for if that note is any indication of your ability to control your anger, I see extended jail time in your future. I vote you “Most Likely to End Up in a Tijuana Prison”…and my guess is you have very few friends to bail you out. M. Doy Macintosh Representative takes issue with email abuse!!! (08/18/2008) To jonathanayres@mac.com Macintosh is one class act! You have displayed you have none! I am Macintosh certified and am embarrassed for Macintosh that such garbage be associated with their name. I will make sure to pass this on to all the nice wonderful people at Macintosh and see if we can’t disassociate you from their name. Hope you have fun with that! Frank Attitude Adjustment Needed Dear ja, You asked the great folks at What’s That Bug if they were “dorks”….how insipid!! You must be less than a dork if your found it difficult to send them an email. I have always considered myself a dork when it comes to computer tech stuff but even with my limited PC abilities, I had no trouble writing to them. Your mamma must certainly be proud of your rudeness and bad attitude. My mamma knew how to do an instant attitude adjustment. Too bad your mamma didn’t have the same knowledge!! Don’t know how old you are but you better remember one thing, always be nice to those who know more than you do!! Cordially, A bug wit….. Comment: (08/31/2008) Nasty Reader Awards I love your site, it’s very interesting and helpful. It’s also entertaining that you post the nasty reader award…but I would hope that you realize that everybody has bad days and take things out on others when they shouldn’t. I’m sure you’re intelligent enough not to take someone’s rantings personally. Seems like after a week or so you’d consider taking the “Nasty Reader’s” email address out of the letter though. He/She shouldn’t suffer a lifetime of emails concerning his rude message to you, don’t you think? Just wanted to let you know my thoughts. Have a great day and thanks for helping us figure out what these bugs are!! Hi Jenna, We had to admit, what you wrote had a ring of truth to it, and in a moment of guilt, we removed links to both Jonathan Ayres and one other individual in the Nasty Readers archives. We did not however remove the addresses, just the link, so readers can still write letters after physically typing the address into their email program. We still feel though that there is some accountability that falls on the shoulders of the originators of the nasty emails that remains to be done. That would be an apology which is the only polite thing to do. The fact that Jonathan never apologized leads us to believe that this was more than just a bad day and probably runs far deeper in his personality, permeating daily activities. We do believe though, as several respondants indicated, that Jonathan is not an adult, and that he might be the playground bully. The first two recipients of the Nasty Reader Award wrote to apologize, though one claimed the nasty email originated with her “extremely rude and unprincipled boyfriend,” and we immediately removed the link when we received her letter.
Letter 3 – Second Recipient: Nasty Reader Award
thanks for the follow up Sorry I wasted my time thinking you would help like your site says. Not even a return email, or even an automated response. sad Thought you were a legitimate site Dawnobxjdb4@edited Dear Dawn, Congratulations, you are the recipient of our Nasty Reader Award. Our readership understands that we are not able to respond to each of the 100 or more emails we receive daily. We do not give automated responses. We give our readership personal attention as much as we are able. Additionally, we lost internet access due to Time Warner outages in our area several times in the past few weeks, which increased our workload when service returned. Others of our readers have resubmitted a request, sometimes several times before we were able to devote attention to their queries. Had you resubmitted a letter and an image, you might be getting an identification right now, but then you would not be gracing our homepage with your Nasty Reader Award. We are guessing that your email address is computer shorthand for Dawn Obnoxious. Perhaps our readership would like to email you some of their thoughts to Dawnobxjdb4@edited (08/10/2007) Our Readership Responds (08/10/2007) Dawn Obnoxious Sure, sic us on her! We’ll put our arm in a fire up to here for you any day! (pointing to the first knuckle on her right pinky finger) Joanne Get a Grip! Does your mommy know that you’re playing with the computer? Where did you EVER get the idea that you were so special? If you think you’re so entitled to get special treatment on the internet, what are you like in real life? “Sorry I wasted my time thinking you would help like your site says.” Uh, you’re wasting your time being on the internet period. FF (08/10/2007) Dawn, Maybe you don’t realize the “What’s That Bug” website is run by two teachers and they field question from everywhere in the world. Considering we humans have identified about 20% of all the earths insects and there are about 6 billion people, you can see how they may not be able to answer every single question. They are good people who like bugs. Not to mention patient, too. I offer the fact they answer the same House Centipede and Cob Web Spider over and over and over as proof. I ask you to please be patient, also. Sometimes you have to submit the same photo two or three times. While you’re waiting for a reply, I suggest you browse through the hundreds of pictures already posted. (The menu is on the left) There you will find pictures of many bugs and maybe find the answer to your question. Good luck to you. And no, I am not affiliated with them in any other way then actually getting a photo on the site. CW Dawn responds to previous emails (08/10/2007) setting me straight Thank you for the additional feedback. My apologies, I thought I had contacted a larger firm. In this instant information age , it seems anyone and everyone has a site, and the managing of said sites can be overwhelming. In the future I shall research a little more before just contacting on a whim. Good luck to those two ladies and their site. Regards, JC Pat comes to our Defense (08/13/2007) obnoxious letter to ‘what’sthatbug.com’ Just wanted to forward this to you and to let you know you have one of the best websites I have ever visited and appreciate your effort to answer as many questions as you can…or check with your ‘experts’ if you don’t know…thank you again for such a great service…. Pat, Hawk Point, MO Even tho’ you must not understand that you are not the only person in the world, and that there is no way any web site could reply to every submission they recieve ,you surely can see that Daniel and Lisa Anne choose very carefully and thoughtfully so as to generate the most information about the hundreds of thousands of bugs and insects, etc. in our world their readers have questions about. I am stunned that anyone could find fault with such an outstanding and informative site. If they don’t have the information or knowledge, they query an expert in that field, or recommed a web site to peruse. I’m sure I am not the only one who gives thanks for this highly informative and lovely website. Hope your day gets better, ’cause I can tell by your letter it’s not too good right now…. Update: Reader Wants Book Thrown at Us!!! (04/05/2008) Nasty Reader Award For being educated women, your behavior in giving and posting your abusive rant against a reader who made an insulting comment is reprehensible. It was immature and spiteful. Inviting other viewers to contact the women you are angry with is vengeful and abusive. You should be charged for your violation of these women’s privacy. I hope they contact the police and your internet provider and although you are providing a valuable service, I hope your site gets shut down until the two of you grow up or learn some mediation skills. Shame on you for abusing your position. Hi Terah (name taken from email address but not signed on anonymous email), We will not be posting your email address to sic our readership on you directly, but we want to come to our own defense in this matter. It seems you want the book thrown at us and feel the judge should show no mercy. We never invaded anyone’s privacy. We did not seek out any random person to have an “abusive rant against.” People who write to our site do so with the understanding that letters are posted. If someone writes to us, we feel we have the right to respond, and our forum for response is an online posting. We are not cyber-stalking anyone, merely responding to a letter. We doubt that the cyber-police, the LAPD in our local station, nor our internet provider will find anything illegal in what we have done. We are providing a free and entertaining service, and we resent being attacked. People who want their privacy maintained should not be sending virulent emails to websites, and if they do, they need to accept the consequences of FREE SPEECH, our first amendment right in case you are not educated enough to know about it. Regarding our maturity or lack thereof, we have always believed that a certain amount of immaturity is the key to youth.
Letter 4 – First Ever: Nasty Reader Award: Hawthorn Shieldbug: Concise answer results in virulent response. Real culprit is cad of a boyfriend!!!!!
Bug ID Request Hi Bugman, I live in Glasgow, Scotland, and I am moving house next week and picked up some boxes from my local supermarket for packing purposes.Theseboxes appear to have originated in the Cameroons and Costa Rica. This morning I awoke to the bug below sauntering around on my window blinds. After taking these snaps I set it free out of the window, however would be very interested to know what type of bug this was and if it could have arrived in the boxes.Can you help? Lorna 
stink bug, probably local Re: Bug ID Request Well thank you for the thorough reply. I have spent the whole afternoon wondering what the BUG MAN was going to say to me. I told all my friends about you and everything. I’m now feeling rather sorry for myself and the $20 paypal donation that I was going to send your way can now take a hike! 3 hours ago I thought “the bug man rocks” – now I think “the bug man SUCKS”! Keep up the good work….. LOSER! Lorna Easton Ed. Response: Here at What’s That Bug? we can only post a small fraction of the submissions that come our way. In addition to posting to our site, we also send a personal email to the querent. In an effort to assist as many of our curious readers as possible, we sometimes respond personally without posting our answers. These answers are generally concise, to the point, and answer the questions posed. Lorna requested an identification as well as information regarding her insect’s origin. We answered both questions and do not feel we deserved the virulent, hateful and insultory response we got from what evidence indicates might be a malcontent. In an effort to be more thorough, we now believe this is a Hawthorn Shieldbug, Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale, as evidenced by this link. The family Acanthosomatidae or Shield Bugs and the family Pentatomidae or Stink Bugs are closely related and both in the superfamily Pentatomoidea. Stink Bugs and Shield Bugs are easily confused. Please email Lorna Easton at (censored) and tell her what you think. Remember What’s That Bug? is a public service that does not profit from this column. And the Public Weighs In Here are some of the emails we were copied on when our kind and faithful readers responded to Lorna. (05/14/2007) I hope that nasty email didn’t rattle you too much I sent her this reply. “You’re lucky they answered your email at all. They receive hundreds of ID requests a day. They are also both teachers, and provide US with the service of this webpage. You need a lesson in manners. Would you treat your parents the way you acted toward Lisa Ann and Daniel? If so, I’m surprised you’re still above ground.” Please know that there are many of us out here that appreciate what you do with your web page. We also know that you have full time jobs, and this is something that you do for an art project with no monetary compensation. It also provides us with knowledge and information about all these wonderful creatures. I get upset when I see a letter like this, as I’ve seen a few others on your site resembling this one. Not all people are self-centered and absorbed as this person is. I check your webpage every day, and I just LOVE IT! When you were on vacation last year in Ohio picking tomatoes, I emailed you telling you of my withdrawal pains,(no new pics-lol) and you sent me a wonderful email. Keep up the good work, Lisa and Daniel. Regards, Sueann Juzwiak (05/14/2007) Your bug Does your mommy know you are on the internet? Your email to “What’s That Bug?” makes me think you are about 12 years old. Thanks for the laugh, anyway. Next time, do your own damn homework. CW (not affiliated with WTB in any way, shape, or form – just a frequent reader) Lorna responds: (05/14/2007) Hi, I am utterly horrified that you have received such an email. This was not sent by me but by my extremely rude and unprincipled boyfriend who has been told exactly what I think of him. It is completely unacceptable that you received such an offensive response when you were helping me in your own time to answer my query I cannot apologise enough and I am going to make him make a donation to your organisation or whatever charity you would wish funds to go to – please let me know. Once again my sincere apologies, Lorna Dear Lorna, Thank you for writing back to clear up this gross misunderstanding. Please choose some local environmental charity for your donation and then kick that cad of a boyfriend to the curb. We would also strongly recommend changing your password. In lieu of the misunderstanding, we will remove your email address from the posting on our site so our devoted readership, many of whom will act like a mother bear defending her cubs on our behalf, will no longer be able to inundate you with their private thoughts. P.S. Your (hopefully) former boyfriend is still the recipient of the First Ever Nasty Reader Award. UPDATE: August 23, 2010 ‘carafe shape’ answered in nasty reader section August 23, 2010 10:37 pm dearest bugpeeps: OMG! I was drawn to read your highly entertaining and mindboggling NRAs, and what did i find? my beetle, at nasty reader award no 1 !! Thank you for a most informative and entertaining online research session. you guys are the (bug) bomb! Signature: terre zenk Dear terre, We are happy you successfully identified your Hawthorne Shield Bug and were entertained in the process.
Letter 5 – Third Recipient: Nasty Reader Award
thanks for nothing asshole Jen Cifone babygunit20012003@yahoo.com (05/03/2008) (no subject) i was wondering if u could tell me what this bug is i looked online and couldnt find it the pics arent very good because the bugs would not stop moveing im not sure if its a worm or laravae but i was hopeing maby you could help they keep crawling up our drain and into our bathtube and we would really like to know what we are dealing with if you could reply as soon as possible that would be great thank you. jen cifone 
Dear Jen Cifone, When we opened your email today, we couldn’t imagine what we had done to deserve such a vehement response coupled with such a strong personal insult. Rarely do we encounter such bitterness in our readership. We searched our email inbox and found the query your wrote the day before and can only deduce that your anger stems from the fact that you did not get a response from us within 24 hours. We will now attempt to remedy that oversight. Your photo is out of focus and is totally useless for identification purposes. We do, however, have some personal advice for you. You might consider going back to school to learn how to write and spell as your communication skills are clearly lacking. Your grammar is atrocious and we have no idea what a bathtube is. While you are improving your basic skills, you might want to consider enrolling in a photography class so you can take images that will be helpful for any further identifications you desire. You might also want to consider rounding out your re-education by enrolling in an etiquette class. That will probably also benefit you greatly. On a positive note, you have been awarded our Third Ever Nasty Reader Award. Congratulations. Additionally, we will open the identification of your mysterious blurry creature to our readership, who may have suggestions or general comments to pass your way. By all means readership, write to Jen Cifone at babygunit20012003@yahoo.com and tell her what you think. Ed. Note: We seriously believe that Jen Cifone has a bet going that she could win the Nasty Reader Award. We can’t imagine anyone composing her original letter with such blatant disregard for the English language nor anyone with half a brain thinking they could get that blurry photo identified. Reader Comment (05/05/2008) Please don’t drink so much whilst photographing bugs, and try to drink even less when emailing. These guys are really busy and while they have a great sense of humor (they still accept email from me!) they will only laugh if you tell them that you were just trying to be funny. Which I hope was the case because you really can’t be serious with that photo. And if the second email was from your drunk boyfriend, I’d view this as a red flag. cw Update: (05/05/2008) Fuzzy Tubeworms OMFG!! RUN!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! ok, a slow walk would be fine…they aren’t very fast. I think she has FUZZYTUB WORMS ! They are often mis-identified as “Fuzzy tube worms” but those are believed to be extinct due to over harvesting of the fuzz for ladies hats back in the 1920’s and cheap gin (if you could call it that) during prohibition. A sad, sad story, but I digress…. If this truly IS a fuzzytub worm (timeto scrubthetubus ), she needs to get into rehab NOW as things will only get worse. “Prickly True Wheel Bugs” will be spotted next and if so, may God help her as their sting is absolutely annoying if even noticed by the poor bite victim. Next of course comes the dreaded “Pink Elephant” which although not a bug in any sense, the doctors in rehab can charge the patient or their insurance company three times the rate of Prickly True Wheel Bugs (the standard purple PTWB or the less common “Arisaid Hebridean” Tartan dress plaid PTWB.) But then, if she had a Arsaid Hebridean PTWB she’d be a millionaire and insurance wouldn’t matter now, would it? Ah, never mind. She deserves what she gets. Mean girl. Oh, $#!* (edited for content). I’m out of wine. Well, it’s time to go to bed anyway. Much love! Joanne Near Chicago Comment (05/09/2008) Job well done! 
Dear Daniel & Lisa Anne, I’m a freaquent reader of your site since I’ve come accross it some months ago. Even though I’ve never submitted to your website, I find it very interesting and informative. I must admit I was horrified to come accross your Nasty Reader Awards tonight however and had to speak up. To think people still behave this way is absolutely unthinkable. They think nothing of sending such insulting e-mails and have no patience what-so-ever without even knowing who they’re speaking to. Thinking since they don’t know you and will never have to face you, then there’s no consequence or reason to feel any remorse for their rude behavior! It’s embarrassing. So I wanted to let you ladies know how much I appreciate your hard work and devotion to your site and your fans. Even though you have such demandig carreers (which I’m sure take up most of your time to begin with) you still find time for your loyal (and not so loyal) fans. Well done ladies! Keep up the good work! Val Thank your for your thoughtful letter Val, but the last we checked, Daniel was still a man. Your theory of face to face confrontation stretches much wider than just the internet. We have long believed that people feel isolated while driving their motor vehicles, and this isolation contributes to road rage. We personally always seek eye contact when attempting to change lanes in a difficult traffic snarl since many drivers tend to ignore a turn signal, but will rarely ignore a face with a pointing finger. Modern day warfare is another excellent example of what can happen when we lose touch of the fact that people are individuals. Update: (05/15/2008) Nasty reader award Hello Mr. Bugperson(s) (I believe you have several people on your staff), I’m sorry you had to encounter that subspecies “homo sapiens ignoramus jerkwaddus” named Jen Cifone. Letters like that are what happen when uninvolved parents (who later end up on Nanny 911 or Supernanny) give their 8 year old a cell phone. You should be content in the fact that Jen will reach her full potential when you encounter her and she says “Would you like fries with that?” I must express my appreciation at your expertise in the world of invertebrates, and how you freely share it with the public. Thank you for your great site. Chuck Grand Rapids, MI Thanks Chuck, but we just imagined her spitting in those fries. Fanmail Kudos September 12, 2009 Love your site. Part of what makes the WWW so cool !! Laughed till I cried at “Joanne Near Chicago’s” response to Jen Cifone’s blurry photo and nasty response to you. Thank you for putting together something so fun AND edjucashunal! Gary & DJ
Letter 6 – Fifth Recipient: Nasty Reader Award
Know nothing about your ‘bug site’ and yeah yeah we all work many jobs… try lowpaying one 8 am until -7 or 9pm and then going to babysit a hyper kid straight from that job to work until 12:15 ..AM!!!!! That was my schedule, PLUS a college workload. Could not believe your unprofessional and snotty response to a person who asked you to identify something (uh,it IS an identifying site, cant handle it or dont have time, take it down! )and the response was ‘did your mommy do your homework for you’ what is that all about? What?! Did YOUR mommy teach you any manners? If I had a million jobs and was ‘very active’ in community then i wouldnt post or maintain a site if it was getting too many letters. Garbage in, garbage out. Unsigned (but name on email account is Someone Nowhere) Dear Someone Nowhere, You are absolutely right. You are also absolutely right to take the time from your busy no gratification life to write this email to a person you don’t know. Your grammar is also absolutely correct. Writing that falsity just gave us the shivers. We will now paraphrase the writing of novelist Andre Gide who once wrote something akin to: Sometimes one must allow others to be right because it consoles them for being nothing else. With that said, your lack of sensitivity to the hyperactivity of the unfortunate child who is left in your care should be grounds for dismissal, especially since the time stamp on your email indicates that it was sent during the time you were being paid to supervise that child. One can only wonder how someone with no interest in a bug site could delve so deeply into our archives as to find that long ago letter while being paid to supervise a child. Multi-tasking like that will no doubt take you far in life, but nowhere that we would care to go ourselves. More Maniacal Nonsensical Ramblings Two jobs? Surpirsed you have time . Who is this psycho sending messages??I will now quote Celine Walko: Garbage in, garbage out.. an empty barrel makes the most noise.. this psycho was blocked and responded again , what does that tell you ?? Don’t want to hear from you,not reading your message ha nor your site.. go away. You have spell check, go use it.. lol, proofread your own work much? Let’s talk about who needs to use ‘spellcheck’ (that is again a quote from Celine, deal with her directly). What the are you talking about?? . You win nastiest’host’ award’ talkto my orofessor whos e child we watch,, and not watching when writing letters, mr anal retnentive much? We are not ‘perusers’ of your site and ahve no idea what your are talking about.. as we are not (ha!0a ‘customer’ and never would be.. GET A LIFE .. summer vacation, what’s that? And when this individual was blocked it means we dont wish to hear from mr snotty.. or ms.. whoever u are..we dont read your site.. who ARE you??????? Do not message us again . Surprised someone with ‘two full time jobs’ has the time.. summer vacation huh? what is that?h the listener award? You are aT EACHER ?! ..wouldnt be teaching long at my school, oh and when someone blocks you and you continue to contact.. let’s talk about who needs ‘dismissal’. and you have spell check, use it. GO BE PRODUCTIVE., nor did we bother to read your childish, reaffirmation of your immaturity response.. my god! people like this are ‘active’ in community? A Reader Comments: 18 September 2008 unethical for professor to have student babysitter Wow… Babysitting for their own professor? Do their classmates know? Forget mommy–in this case it looks like their PROFESSOR does their homework for them directly! NO WONDER they were so offended by that thought. Wait, it might be spelled “fropfsessos,” let me spell-check that. Spellcheck? ‘ “Spell check” ‘?? Apparently someone knows or cares if there is officially a space between these two words, yet calls YOU mr. anal retentive… How about @#$%!! check?? This person is quite silly, being sensitive enough to be VERY offended by rudeness, and yet responding with a deluge of it. I imagine they mainly play with themselves throughout the work day, mentally or otherwise, and then spend their free time whining about how tough it was, what holy martyrs they are. Ugh! I kind of wish i hadnt been given the opportunity to read all that nastiness. I was planning on researching an insect. However, it was ultimately entertaining…the psychology of brats is kind of fascinating, no? Ryan Bouchard (–parasitized caterpillar surgeon–) Wakefield, RI, USA
Letter 7 – Comment on Nasty Reader Awards and Butterfly Garden
Nasty emails May 8, 2010 LOL—OMG!! YOu poor folks….I am working three jobs now to make ends meet, and trust me, I have favorited it to return and read each and every item there. I only want to know: Where are these nutjobs? They should have GPS trackers so we can avoid them when a signal is received. Hang in there, your works are great! Margo Rose SW Florida
Letter 8 – 10th Nasty Reader Award: A Reader Comments on our Attitude
Ed. Comment: After reading the first three comments that arrived, we decided to upgrade this posting to the Nasty Reader tag. Subject: Comments, Responses, & Sad Backpedaling January 24, 2016 4:35 am Hello, I am a biologist and I work for the Government. I mention this only to reveal my familiarity with reading disturbing and mysterious things. I have been on your site several times hoping to see something interesting. Tonight I did, though not topically expected. Areas now perfectly clear are: 1) Nothing here of more knowledge or with more information than a public high school text book. 2) That you care. 3)You attempt to deflect this by mockery and wildly unwarranted superiority. 4) That this site does more than babysit its curator’s undernourished egos. On reading a post , a schoolyard comment from another reader, your curiously condescending and marginalizing reply, the rebuke .. and wait for it…the transparent cowardice of your denial. Perhaps you overlooked a small detail. Tiny detail really..its just that you typed words on the page. Hands in pockets and think words really, really hard next time? Just a thought. It’s not too late for this to morph into a catalyst for positive change. Love yourself a little more and understand that cruelty is a game played in shallow water. Ultimately you will lose. The rest of us can clearly see your feet. Peace. Out. Signature: Amanda Dear Amanda, We do consider this website and our life both to be works in progress and we like to think that we have evolved considerably since we first began writing What’s That Bug? in 1998. From the very beginning, we have maintained that we have no credentials to provide scientific information and we have always strived for our site to be a pop culture site that is accessible to the average person rather than to be a true scientific endeavor targeting intellectual specialists. That there is “nothing here of more knowledge or with more information than a public high school text book” is not a problem in our mind because there is no requirement that the web browsing public possesses a college degree. Many children visit our site and a high school text book would be quite educational. Out of concern for younger readers, we try our best to keep a clean site, so we do not use vulgar language. We always defer to true experts, so we question your allegations of our “wildly unwarranted superiority.” With that stated, your comment has us a bit confused. There is some praise there, but it is overshadowed by your criticism of our editorial stance. We are well aware that once content enters cyberspace, it gains a life of its own and it is nearly impossible to rescind, so we actually do carefully consider our words prior to hitting the publish button. We are not infallible and we do not apologize for our ego. It can be argued that anyone who enters public life in any way, be it running a blog or running for public office, has an inflated ego. Your comment seems to refer to a specific posting with “a schoolyard comment from another reader” and our “transparent cowardice” and what you perceive as “cruelty” on our part, but without a real citation to correspond to your criticism on how we have chosen to run our own public site, we can neither justify our stance nor clarify or defend the meaning of what we have written. Clearly your background in biology and your position as a government employee has prepared to to analyze our psyche. In our opinion, your focus on our use of occasional sarcasm vastly overshadows the public service we provide free of charge. Elise from Facebook Comments. January 24 at 6:21pm Love your page, and appreciate that you tried to interpret that sometimes incoherent comment. The poster seems to lack both a sense of humor and a mastery of basic sentence structure. Keep doing what you do.
Letter 9 – Nasty Reader Award #13: A General Rude Comment
Subject: Why??? Date: 12/28/2018 Time: 08:26 AM EDT Your letter to the bugman: Why in the hell do you have a site called What’s That Bug when you don’t want to answer people asking exactly that? Pointless, flippant and plain rude. There’s nothing humorous about people suffering. I see you aren’t shy asking for donations. How about you educate yourself and actually answer people asking, “What’s that bug?” Before asking for money. Your Name: Mason Your Email: mksusan7@gmail.com. Dear Mason, It has been nearly two years since we have felt compelled to post a Nasty Reader Award, so you will probably be thrilled to learn that you are lucky #13. We had a challenging December, with some technical difficulties occurring that prevented us from doing any posting for more than an entire week, and we can honestly say that we don’t believe we have gone that long without posting in many years. Most days we try to make at least a few new posts, and we averaged more than three per day for 2018, though that average is considerably lower than our average of more than six new posts per day in 2010. That said, we do answer letters, but our tiny staff is not able to answer every request we receive. We offer a free service on the internet, which is not that common, and we make no apologies for accepting donations from grateful readers. As of now, we have 26,519 unique postings on our site, most of which represent our tiny editorial staff answering the question “What’s That Bug?” To you we say “Bug Off.”
Letter 10 – Nasty Reader Award #14: Impatience leads to Rudeness
RE: Identification Request – Is this bug safe to let go?
Your submitted question: What is this bug? Is it safe to let go, or is it an invasive species?Our Immediate Automated Response On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 What’s That Bug? wrote: Thank you for submitting your identification request. Please understand that we have a very small staff that does this as a labor of love. We cannot answer all submissions (not by a long shot). But we’ll do the best we can! That bug laid eggs in the jar that I put it in. Why bother having a websight like this, if you can’t do the work? I needed to know if this beetle will kill the trees around my house, and you ended up being completely useless! So, I’ll just let it die in that jar! It’s death, and all those eggs, are on your head! missk1963@aol.com Ed. Note: We searched through all submitted requests since July 16, and we could not locate any requests from missk1963@aol.com, nor could we find any requests with the subject line “Is this bug safe to let go?” We are well aware that our tiny editorial staff does not have the resources to respond to the hundreds of identification request we receive each week. We offer a free service on the internet and we do not punch in a timeclock. We are also gainfully employed and we do community activism, especially in matters of land use, so some days we cannot even devote ten minutes to responding, and most posts take approximately ten minutes to compose. We feel missk1963 is rude and demanding, but we acknowledge that she is welcome to her opinion that we are “completely useless.” Because of her rudeness, we are awarding missk1963 with our 14th Nasty Reader Award. We are also amazed at how the results of her own actions, the death of a living creature and its offspring, is being blamed on a third party, a childish justification to the lack of accountability that missk1963 has likely used in the past to make up for her own inadequacies and shortcomings. UPDATE: July 21, 2019 It took me a bit longer, but I found that bug. It was most definitely a dangerous bud. It was a root borer beetle, and would have eventually killed the already, gypsy moth caterpillar damaged trees around my house. Sorry that you think I was rude, but I was actually trying not to kill that bug, if it was safe to let go. The trees in my area have been decimated by many invasive, and dangerous insects, so I needed to be careful. I believe ALL of nature is to be respected, but I will not allow the trees to be destoyed further. I sent the original email last evening, and felt I needed information quickly. Especially if the bug was safe to let go. Thank you for letting us know. Responding to our automated response system does not allow us to track original submissions, which we tried to do upon reading your obviously desperate communique. As we stated, we could not locate a previous submission from you that included the image. We are happy to learn you were able to eventually identify your Root Borer, which we suspect was likely a female Broad Necked Root Borer, but without knowing your location, that might not be correct.
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