This is a very insightful comment. I'd go further and argue that this kind of media-directed hate mail scales with a general unraveling of our faith in our institutions - the media being an important category. Although the OP has made a really good suggestion about how people take gadget reviews personally, he failed to bring up how a general lack of trust also creates a lot of fear and animosity.

Ah, and I'll add a possible contributing factor: envy. There may be a quite a lot of envy of the author's voice and audience, and acting out because the person feels powerless to influence their peers, like the author does.

The lack of trust and influence that contribute to the generation of such vitriol are actually very tightly linked. As standards for intellectual integrity go down, on a personal and societal level, trust decreases proportionally, and "influence" starts to depend more on emotion than reason. Seeing well-reasoned arguments lose again and again, people (quite reasonably) start adapting, start using the "effective" strategies for influence like invective, emotionally effective fallacies, and general buffoonery.

This is why Fox News is so corrosive. Whatever your politics, the people at Fox are all liars. A clearly biased news channel that bills themselves as "Fair & Balanced" - and yet they have a huge audience, and are extremely successful. People learn from this. This is also why people like Blagojevich are so corrosive: even though he (eventually) went to prison, his months of shameless pandering gave people the sense that shame and responsibility are truly outre. The Republican party in the US has been particularly bad about not accepting responsibility for mistakes, wrong-doings, or inconsistencies: they present a disciplined, consistent defense of any accusation of impropriety. And it works, and people see that it works, and it destroys us.

I agree with all this, but it would be silly to blame Fox News or the Republican Party (or for that matter Apple, with its locking down of hardware/software and questionable environmental practices) for choosing what works.

The blame is totally on the uneducated electorate (or "consumerate"). Conversely, IMO, education is the only lasting solution to these problems.

(NB, there is at least ONE non-liar at Fox: Shep Shepard. It's hilarious to see him directly contradict his co-worker shills, often earning him a place on Jon Stewart).

I actually strongly disagree with you, and I think that your comment itself is a very nice example of the problem. And I think that you might be able to see how very easily.

It is the very fact that we don't "blame" Fox News for choosing something that is evil, even when it works, that makes it work. It is up to those who have principles and who believe in right and wrong to draw real lines in the sand, and stop giving people a pass for choosing the expedient, if wrong, option. It's one thing to show compassion for people's foibles, it's another to completely abandon the duty of honest application of principles, if you have them.

Basically, we need to STOP saying, "You can't blame Fox for being liars because, after all, it works." That perpetuates the problem.

So, yes, the blame is on the consumer, but for every consumer that wholeheartedly believes in Fox, there are 10 more that know Fox is a liar but tolerates it because it "works". By pointing this out I hope to make a real difference in how behavior is perceived, and shape the world's institutions into the kind that I want: ones that value integrity above all.