Editor’s Note: What follows is an open letter from author Tom Bissell regarding the response to a joke he made in his review of Skyrim for the website Grantland. The joke in question: “If you have no idea what the Elder Scrolls franchise is, you are probably either (a) an adult woman, or (b) the sort of person who once beat up the sort of person who likes the Elder Scrolls franchise.”
He said he meant it as a joke. Just a silly line. But when critic Tom Bissell wrote that adult women probably haven’t heard of The Elder Scrolls, he struck a nerve.