Bob's Letters to Chris



"The reason for this open letter to you which will grow as time goes on, is that I know now that I, at best, haven't much time left to share myself with you. Particularly to share my things, my dreams, and my thoughts with you at a time in the future when you will be able to understand, remember to use my things and carry on my dreams if you want to."

- Bob, 1987

In 1987, in the wake of a serious health scare and a belief that he would not be around to see his son grow to adulthood, Bob wrote a long letter for Chris, who was then five years old, to remember him by. Although Chris was still nonverbal at this point, Bob is extremely optimistic about his son's future and hopes that he has provided his family with enough money to send Chris off to college.

Bob puts an absurd amount of focus on his material possessions, collections, personal life story, and achievements, only mentioning Chris in passing. Years after Bob's death, Chris and Barbara sold several of the items in his collection to help resolve their financial issues, although Bob did note that he was fine with Chris passing on his collection to others.

In 2008, Bob wrote another, much shorter letter to Chris, in which he detailed how he hopes Chris and Sonichu could gain international fame as mascots for autism. For a given measure of online fame, Chris actually succeeded here. In the video in which Chris read it, Chris mockingly scoffed at his father's suggestion, looking visibly embarrassed.

Chris revealed the contents of these letters during a live Captain's Log in September 2017.

Analysis
A lot can be gleaned about Bob's character from these open letters. We see what he claims to be the origin of his collecting hobby. An upbringing in poverty, combined with worries that other objects may have personal value to people, serves as the basis for acquiring sets of stamps, records, and the like.

It's also worth noting that Chris is not Bob's only child. He seems to place more emphasis on Chris carrying on his name (and whatever collections he amassed) simply because Chris is the child he had with Barbara. Chris, being the child he had with the woman he loved the most, was enough to make him the favorite (Barbara's other child, Cole Smithey, was not treated well by Bob, to say the least). In the letter, Bob is seen trying to teach him some valuable life lessons based on his own upbringing. It is obvious that he saw Chris as a chance to start anew as a father and had high hopes for his son.

In the final letter we can see how Bob's disappointment with Chris was rationalized. His desire for Chris to combat autism implies that it's what he blames most for Chris's character and behavior (despite ample evidence that his and his wife's incompetent parenting may have done more damage). To Bob, Chris could have been "normal" if it weren't for his mental condition. But at the time of writing the letter, when Chris had become famous on the internet, he wanted Chris to fight autism in his comic as a way for his son to possibly "get better". Bob likely spent the rest of his days blaming autism for the problems he and Barb gave his son.