Working in London, I shouldn't be shocked by rudeness, but the perceived anonymity of the internet does seem to bring out the worst in some people. Nowhere is rudeness more apparent than the good old internet forum or comment thread.
Look at any news website that allows readers to comment on articles and you'll find the threads full of bile and invective. Even an innocent comment can generate a massive negative response that could turn nasty very quickly.
Obviously questioning the singing talent of Justin Bieber on a fans' forum would generate angry responses quicker than you could read them, but they are rants that no-one is going to read. What's the point? It's like the sadistic nurse in the lunatic asylum rattling the bars and getting everyone to scream. The internet might have become a medium for screaming in cyberspace. Certainly no Bieber fan would offer a sensible argument in return, analysing the singer's vocal range, his appeal to a certain market or his skills in exploiting his talents.
Margaret read a story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph on-line about the redevelopment of Peterborough station. Normally, she just complains to me about the stupid drivers, lazy parkers or the lack of short-term parking space, but the ET on-line gave her the opportunity to share her views with a much wider pool. They were waiting for her and were ready to savage her views like wolves dispatching a lame deer. Why didn't her husband get the bus, use a bicycle, why didn't she mind her own business, why didn't she fuck off?
It's so easy to be a cyber bully - you don't even have to wait to identify the weak one, you can have a go at anyone you like.
It's amazing the things that will turn people into trolls. Just imagine Mufadal Jiwaji sitting at home watching TV. He's watching Have I Got News For You, a comedy quiz show that showcases the sarcastic wit of Ian Hislop and off-the-wall humour of Paul Merton. Mufdal wants to join in the banter, I guess, because he posts a message on Twitter about one of the guests, a Guardian columnist called Grace Dent.
He tweeted that Dent reminded him of "a girlfriend I once had. By girlfriend I mean that time I accidentally made love to an ugly abhorrent horse".
What an extraordinary thing to say. Why did he feel the need to be so rude to someone he'd never met and, in my view, perfectly all right to look at? He could have commented that she wasn't funny or that someone else would make a better guest, or anything that had shown some thought process, but he just went for the insult. Anyway, he doesn't look good, but I guess he thought he was shouting in the dark.
But it turns out that Grace Dent was clearly at a loose end that day. Not only was she reading tweets that mentioned her name, but she found time to be insulted and outraged enough to look up Mufdal's Twitter profile and discover that he worked in PR for Hill and Knowlton, by coincidence the same company that represents Dent for her writing work.
Dent tweeted him back saying:
@Mufadal I'm wondering, as a public relations person for a firm I work with, what your thinking was in sending me this message?
Followed by:
@Mufadal You'll bear the brunt of your idiocy at 10am tomorrow morning when you're unemployed. Good luck.
Like the bully confronted, Mufdal was suitably contrite, tweeting:
"Unreservedly withdraw my vulgar and puerile comment regarding @gracedent, especially in light of the bbc doc on internet trolls last week."
followed by:
@gracedent it was naive and ill-warranted. I won't delete it, as I ought to bare the full brunt of my idiocy.
... and:
"It's amazing how when you're at the centre of an entirely self-inflicted car-crash how everything moves in slow-motion."
The exchange caused its own Twitter storm, with many criticising Dent for threatening to get him sacked. There was even a conspiracy theory (there always is) that it was all a brilliant PR stunt to portray Dent as a woman with balls - a stallion indeed.
My sympathy is with her; I'm sure she can stick up for herself but why should people be able to make crass and insulting comments without fear of being challenged. Well done Dent!
A few days later, there was another nasty insult (or series of them) aimed at a woman on TV - this time it was in print by AA Gill, the Sunday Times TV Critic. There has been a programme on BBC2 about ancient Rome presented by Mary Beard, a professor of classics at Cambridge University. I haven't seen any, but would have been interested to watch had I had the time.
Gill caused controversy by focusing his review not on the programme content, but by the appearance of Beard. It was a particularly cruel piece. Gill said that if she was inviting herself into the nation's living rooms at least she could have had her hair done; he talked about her tombstone teeth and suggested she might be better suited to a Channel 4 documentary about ugly people finding dates.
Gill has form of course. He called Clare Balding a ‘dyke on a bike’ when reviewing her travel programme Britain By Bike. Clare, who is a lesbian, complained to the Press Complaints Commission and it upheld her complaint.
With Beard, his comments seemed worse because she's a woman of a certain age and ought to be respected, not insulted.
Gill wrote: "For someone who looks this closely at the past, it is strange she hasn’t had a closer look at herself before stepping in front of a camera. Beard coos over corpses’ teeth without apparently noticing she is wearing them.
"From behind she is 16; from the front, 60. The hair is a disaster, the outfit an embarrassment. This isn’t sexist or beside the point. If you’re going to invite yourself into the front rooms of the living, then you need to make an effort."
Beard hit back in a more restrained manner in the Daily Mail, writing: "He suggested that I should be kept away from the cameras altogether and, in a topical reference, went on to imply that I belonged on The Undateables, a recent Channel 4 programme charting the dating difficulties of the disabled and facially disfigured.
"It seems a straight case of pandering to the blokeish culture that loves to decry clever women, especially ones who don’t succumb to the masochism of Botox and have no interest in dyeing their hair. It’s a case of mistaking prejudice for being witty and provocative. And it’s very easy to find yourself thinking: ‘What an odious little twit!’
"In a sense, I suppose, I should be used to such crass remarks as his. After all, they dog most intelligent women, even today — particularly if they dare to put their head above the parapet by appearing on television.
"Sure, I don’t wear make-up. I have nothing against those who do if it gives them pleasure, but actually I feel happy enough in my own skin not to feel I want to bother with it. I don’t dye my hair for the same reason. I ask myself: ‘If I did, what would I be covering up?’ And how do you stop doing it once you’ve started?
"To the charge of having big, tombstone teeth, I plead guilty. I inherited them from my mum, just as I did her uncompromising double chin. I’m every inch the 57-year-old wife, mum and academic, half-proud of her wrinkles, her crow’s feet, even her hunched shoulders from all those years poring over a library desk.
"I could even try a Socratic point here. Like the great Greek philosopher, I look a mess. But actually, if you took the trouble to listen to him, he had something valuable to impart. I’m nowhere near the towering intellect of Socrates, but at a lower level that analogy could apply to me.
"And what is beauty after all? Is it someone who is Botoxed to the eyeballs, or someone who feels beautiful under their own skin?"
Beard has tried to link Gill's comments to feminism and suggests that he is frightened of brainy women. I don't think that's the case, I just think he looked at her and thought she was fair game. His comments were just rude and cruel.
"I do wonder, if he met me face to face, would he be prepared to reiterate the insults he has heaped on me in print?" she said. "I am often asked to review books in newspapers and I always make it a rule never to write anything critical in a review that I would not be prepared to repeat to the author face-to-face."
I think that would be a good thing to remember for all bloggers, tweeters and comment writers. Let's try to raise the standard of debate and discussion on the internet, let's respect other people's opinions and let's not resort to rudeness or abuse.
You can read Mary Beard's full article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2134146/Too-ugly-TV-No-Im-brainy-men-fear-clever-women.html#ixzz1sxhNFdjU
Look at any news website that allows readers to comment on articles and you'll find the threads full of bile and invective. Even an innocent comment can generate a massive negative response that could turn nasty very quickly.
Obviously questioning the singing talent of Justin Bieber on a fans' forum would generate angry responses quicker than you could read them, but they are rants that no-one is going to read. What's the point? It's like the sadistic nurse in the lunatic asylum rattling the bars and getting everyone to scream. The internet might have become a medium for screaming in cyberspace. Certainly no Bieber fan would offer a sensible argument in return, analysing the singer's vocal range, his appeal to a certain market or his skills in exploiting his talents.
Margaret read a story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph on-line about the redevelopment of Peterborough station. Normally, she just complains to me about the stupid drivers, lazy parkers or the lack of short-term parking space, but the ET on-line gave her the opportunity to share her views with a much wider pool. They were waiting for her and were ready to savage her views like wolves dispatching a lame deer. Why didn't her husband get the bus, use a bicycle, why didn't she mind her own business, why didn't she fuck off?
It's so easy to be a cyber bully - you don't even have to wait to identify the weak one, you can have a go at anyone you like.
It's amazing the things that will turn people into trolls. Just imagine Mufadal Jiwaji sitting at home watching TV. He's watching Have I Got News For You, a comedy quiz show that showcases the sarcastic wit of Ian Hislop and off-the-wall humour of Paul Merton. Mufdal wants to join in the banter, I guess, because he posts a message on Twitter about one of the guests, a Guardian columnist called Grace Dent.
 |
| Grace Dent - called an abhorrent, ugly horse |
He tweeted that Dent reminded him of "a girlfriend I once had. By girlfriend I mean that time I accidentally made love to an ugly abhorrent horse".
What an extraordinary thing to say. Why did he feel the need to be so rude to someone he'd never met and, in my view, perfectly all right to look at? He could have commented that she wasn't funny or that someone else would make a better guest, or anything that had shown some thought process, but he just went for the insult. Anyway, he doesn't look good, but I guess he thought he was shouting in the dark.
But it turns out that Grace Dent was clearly at a loose end that day. Not only was she reading tweets that mentioned her name, but she found time to be insulted and outraged enough to look up Mufdal's Twitter profile and discover that he worked in PR for Hill and Knowlton, by coincidence the same company that represents Dent for her writing work.
Dent tweeted him back saying:
@Mufadal I'm wondering, as a public relations person for a firm I work with, what your thinking was in sending me this message?
Followed by:
@Mufadal You'll bear the brunt of your idiocy at 10am tomorrow morning when you're unemployed. Good luck.
Like the bully confronted, Mufdal was suitably contrite, tweeting:
"Unreservedly withdraw my vulgar and puerile comment regarding @gracedent, especially in light of the bbc doc on internet trolls last week."
followed by:
@gracedent it was naive and ill-warranted. I won't delete it, as I ought to bare the full brunt of my idiocy.
... and:
"It's amazing how when you're at the centre of an entirely self-inflicted car-crash how everything moves in slow-motion."
The exchange caused its own Twitter storm, with many criticising Dent for threatening to get him sacked. There was even a conspiracy theory (there always is) that it was all a brilliant PR stunt to portray Dent as a woman with balls - a stallion indeed.
My sympathy is with her; I'm sure she can stick up for herself but why should people be able to make crass and insulting comments without fear of being challenged. Well done Dent!
A few days later, there was another nasty insult (or series of them) aimed at a woman on TV - this time it was in print by AA Gill, the Sunday Times TV Critic. There has been a programme on BBC2 about ancient Rome presented by Mary Beard, a professor of classics at Cambridge University. I haven't seen any, but would have been interested to watch had I had the time.
 |
| Mary Beard - not good looking or polished enough for TV |
Gill caused controversy by focusing his review not on the programme content, but by the appearance of Beard. It was a particularly cruel piece. Gill said that if she was inviting herself into the nation's living rooms at least she could have had her hair done; he talked about her tombstone teeth and suggested she might be better suited to a Channel 4 documentary about ugly people finding dates.
Gill has form of course. He called Clare Balding a ‘dyke on a bike’ when reviewing her travel programme Britain By Bike. Clare, who is a lesbian, complained to the Press Complaints Commission and it upheld her complaint.
With Beard, his comments seemed worse because she's a woman of a certain age and ought to be respected, not insulted.
Gill wrote: "For someone who looks this closely at the past, it is strange she hasn’t had a closer look at herself before stepping in front of a camera. Beard coos over corpses’ teeth without apparently noticing she is wearing them.
"From behind she is 16; from the front, 60. The hair is a disaster, the outfit an embarrassment. This isn’t sexist or beside the point. If you’re going to invite yourself into the front rooms of the living, then you need to make an effort."
Beard hit back in a more restrained manner in the Daily Mail, writing: "He suggested that I should be kept away from the cameras altogether and, in a topical reference, went on to imply that I belonged on The Undateables, a recent Channel 4 programme charting the dating difficulties of the disabled and facially disfigured.
"It seems a straight case of pandering to the blokeish culture that loves to decry clever women, especially ones who don’t succumb to the masochism of Botox and have no interest in dyeing their hair. It’s a case of mistaking prejudice for being witty and provocative. And it’s very easy to find yourself thinking: ‘What an odious little twit!’
"In a sense, I suppose, I should be used to such crass remarks as his. After all, they dog most intelligent women, even today — particularly if they dare to put their head above the parapet by appearing on television.
"Sure, I don’t wear make-up. I have nothing against those who do if it gives them pleasure, but actually I feel happy enough in my own skin not to feel I want to bother with it. I don’t dye my hair for the same reason. I ask myself: ‘If I did, what would I be covering up?’ And how do you stop doing it once you’ve started?
"To the charge of having big, tombstone teeth, I plead guilty. I inherited them from my mum, just as I did her uncompromising double chin. I’m every inch the 57-year-old wife, mum and academic, half-proud of her wrinkles, her crow’s feet, even her hunched shoulders from all those years poring over a library desk.
"I could even try a Socratic point here. Like the great Greek philosopher, I look a mess. But actually, if you took the trouble to listen to him, he had something valuable to impart. I’m nowhere near the towering intellect of Socrates, but at a lower level that analogy could apply to me.
"And what is beauty after all? Is it someone who is Botoxed to the eyeballs, or someone who feels beautiful under their own skin?"
Beard has tried to link Gill's comments to feminism and suggests that he is frightened of brainy women. I don't think that's the case, I just think he looked at her and thought she was fair game. His comments were just rude and cruel.
"I do wonder, if he met me face to face, would he be prepared to reiterate the insults he has heaped on me in print?" she said. "I am often asked to review books in newspapers and I always make it a rule never to write anything critical in a review that I would not be prepared to repeat to the author face-to-face."
I think that would be a good thing to remember for all bloggers, tweeters and comment writers. Let's try to raise the standard of debate and discussion on the internet, let's respect other people's opinions and let's not resort to rudeness or abuse.
You can read Mary Beard's full article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2134146/Too-ugly-TV-No-Im-brainy-men-fear-clever-women.html#ixzz1sxhNFdjU
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