Book acknowledgement inflation

  So you read a book, and it's not great. It's something that you imagine you could spin up in a few months after a writing course. The ideas are derivative, the characters are cardboard cutouts and the writing is merely decent. It does push some emotional buttons, so you enjoy it as much as one can and then reach its end. And the acknowledgements come.

  Are these things designed to feel small and powerless? The author starts with the family and close friends and then goes on with the editor, the proofreader, the publisher, the marketers, the people who "battle tested" their ideas, the other authors who lied the book was amazing, planet Earth for supporting their weight and growing ego... It just goes on and on and on, like movie end credits. A special thanks to the government of Canada for not taxing me out of existence. Thank you Amazon for allowing me to self publish. Thank God that I didn't get early onset dementia while writing the book. Thank my family and friends for allowing me to write the book in peace while they did all the work and felt left out for it.

  Somehow, after reading that part, I started feeling I could never write a book. Worse, that most people would have a terrible time trying and failing. I have no friends in publishing, I am not a native English speaker, my wife would support me up to a point then demand attention and whoever I know that likes books would endlessly make fun of me for writing that badly. Do we really need an army of supporting people to manage to publish a shitty book? Oh, I couldn't have done this without the garbage man who regularly cleared out the mountain of takeout boxes!

  Yes, I get it, you're grateful, but maybe somewhere there should be some pumping yourself up. I am so glad I stuck to the writing classes that allowed me to write this up! I love that I knew it was a mediocre idea to start with, but I finished the thing, as opposed to angry jealous bloggers who haven't even had the guts to start. Yes, people helped me, but if they didn't, someone else would have or I would have just cut ties with them, because who needs friends who can't support one's passion? That kind of thing. And there is almost never a blurb for the learning process that helped them get there. It's always the last leg people who get the credit. I am sure there are writing teachers that cry themselves to sleep at night.

  I get that writing has become an industry, but even the tiniest of self published authors in dark corners of the Internet just feel the need to drop pages of acknowledgements at the end. How about: hey, I did it, so you can too! People have written books while working two jobs and taking care of their children, surely you can at least try! You don't need an army to find something to love and do it by yourself.

  Don't even know why I started to write this anymore. Book end credits? Come on! It's pissing me off! I want to thank my mother for spawning me with hands that are coordinate enough so I can type. It feels like a self eating snake, an industry that generates its own blurb about the industry, like a little boys club with stupid rules for joining in. Maybe these awful things are forced upon them when they get the series deal. Oh, you have more ideas in this universe? Well, I am sure you will. Meanwhile write me a nice thank you, why don't you? AARRRGGHHRGR!