Celebrities read mean Tweets

One of my favourite things at the moment from the USA's Jimmy Kimmel Live show. Genius.

Me and Twitter - It's Complicated

I'm starting to wonder whether Twitter and I have a future. I mean, I love Twitter - no problem there - and I think it likes me. But, just recently, things have become strained between us. We have some compatibility issues.

I was kind of a social media virgin when we met. Okay, yes, I flirted with MySpace but I wasn't in a band so we never got past first base. Bebo seemed nice but maybe a little too young for me. At the other end of the scale, Friends Reunited simply reminded me of how old I was. People said to me that maybe Facebook and I would hit it off. But Facebook was way too brash and it asked too many questions and almost everyone had been there before me (and it seems to have a serious problem with drink). So I said a polite 'no' and kept myself to myself.

But then Twitter came along. It was smart and uncomplicated. It spoke to me succinctly. Twitter asked nothing of me, not even my name and photograph. It accepted me for who I was. I chatted a lot with Twitter and the conversations were fascinating, witty, important, and sometimes hilarious. Twitter introduced me to a whole bunch of people I wouldn't have met before, some of which are now close friends.

But then Twitter changed. Or maybe it was me? I don't know for sure. Where once there had been intelligent debate, there was now raging anger and polemic. Where once there had been humorous deconstruction of celebrity, suddenly there was bitching and pure bloody hatred. Where once we could all get together and have fun, now ... well, the spark had kind of gone.

Maybe we can work things out. I hope so. As I say, I love Twitter and it's been good for me. But there can't be any future for us if I no longer enjoy our time together. When the fun has been sucked out of a relationship, is it really worth fighting to keep it staggering on? Should I give it one more go or should we have a hug and go our separate ways?

It's complicated.

Guest Blogger - Darren Goldsmith

Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I mean, look at my waistline. And, to utilise another cliché, a change is as good as a rest. So, how about we have an occasional respite from my wittering, blathering and general verbosity? How about me hosting a guest blogger once a week, say, on a Thursday? What a good plan. I like that idea.

So, to kick us off, here's the first guest post by novelist, screenwriter and CG artist Darren Goldsmith. Enjoy! Oh, and if you want to be next Thursday's guest blogger, tweet me (@stevyncolgan) or mail me (stevyncolgan@mac.com) or despatch a carrier pigeon or trained racing newt. I'd love to hear from you.

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Hello, Darren here. I don’t have a blog of my own so a million thanks to Sir Colgan for the loan of his, for the next 581 words.

After a mini-Twitter debate today - regarding those who find themselves unfollowed and their subsequent reactions - I just wanted to bang some thoughts down. Normally, I wouldn’t bother. I’m busy writing my second novel and that occupies most of my time. I’m taking a week off however, to recharge, so typically I find myself writing other stuff. Yay.

Right. Social media. I’m no expert and I don’t suppose anyone else is either. We make what we will of it and that’s all fine. By the way, I’m referencing Twitter here. I don’t use Facebook or… um, are there any others? Anyway, I replied to a tweet about people being unfollowed this morning. The guy who posted it (utterly lovely man, great writer, has many followers) said:

“Whenever I see someone asking someone else why they've unfollowed them, I become more fearful that Twitter will dissolve into neurotic gloop.”

I guess Twitter might do that. But it probably won’t.

I responded by saying that I thought it was OK for someone to ask why they had been unfollowed. There is the infamous Twitter bug which will randomly unfollow people on your list, for a start (it’s happened to me many times), so it’s nice to know if someone has dropped off without you noticing*. Also, is asking so terrible? The askee might gain some valuable insight. Or not.

The argument is that someone asking why you unfollowed them puts you, publicly, in a corner. I guess it does, to some degree, but so what? Tell them the truth. Or lie. Or tell them nothing. But you can’t expect every person you unfollow to shrug it off. No, you can’t. Some people just won’t. Sorry. That doesn’t make them mad or needy or neurotic. They could just be curious. They could have thought you were getting along just fine and be confused or yep, even hurt, you unfollowed. They could just be having a hard day.

Obviously, if they are being whiny, slap ‘em down. No one wants that shit.

The other argument is that unfollowing someone is not personal. I hate that. Twitter is social media. It’s about people, not data. It’s personal. There are degrees, naturally. You’re not going to be best buddies with everyone in your timeline. If someone I had chatted with regularly decided to unfollow me, I’d like to know why. If someone followed me and then didn’t engage, even infrequently, I would wonder why they followed me in the first place (frankly, what I have to say is mostly shite). I certainly wouldn’t worry when/if they decided to unfollow. I wouldn’t have known them, see? It wouldn’t matter. Degrees.

Yeah, I know the original tweet was about the whiny bastards. I just thought I’d make a case for those who weren’t. People like me. Not that I’ve ever asked anyone why they’ve unfollowed. But I might.

In the case of the original Tweeter, he doesn’t follow me. Never has. It doesn’t stop me chatting with him and making a nuisance of myself. And hey, he can never unfollow me.**

Are you happy to unfollow and not provide a reason (if asked for reasonably)? Do you get a bit miffed or upset if you’re unfollowed? I’d like to know what others think. Comment away!

Many thanks, again, to Steve for the use of his space.

* Yes, it’s possible not to notice, especially on a busy timeline.
** He might block me though. And bloody right, too.

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So there you go. If you have any comments, please add them. Or maybe you don't have a comment on this subject but would like to say something on another. Maybe you don't have a blog of your own but would like to get something all off your chest. Whatever the reason, contact me. New guest blog next Thursday. You could be next.

Social Networking is not Social

On this day of celebration for the most deep and joyous of all human relationships, a few words about social media. I wrote this in 2008 and it appeared on my old blog here. Nothing has changed, other than even more infringements of privacy. I'm tired of the whole business. I'm even in two minds about staying on Twitter now.

You all know my views on so-called social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. I'm not a fan. I think that they encourage people to provide far too much information about themselves, including personal data that could be used against them. What is the fascination? I don't want to be poked or have a virtual vampire bite me. I don't want to share photos of my friends and family with the world. I could maybe understand it if the photos illustrated a story or provided a snapshot of an event (as often found on blogs and websites). But social networking sites aren't about producing anything worthwhile. They're just about timewasting. And, sadly, they are all about selling you crap. By joining Facebook et al, you are saying that you are happy to give them details about yourself and your friends which they can use to target you for advertising and marketing. Expect a torrent of spam, pop-ups and junk mail.

And there may be a more sinister side to the whole business ...

Stephen Waddington at Rainier PR understands social networking sites. But, as he pointed out on a recent blog post, 'I’m starting to think that social networking sites aren’t a bit social. They’re elitist, where the metrics of success are your number of friends, happy go lucky photos, Funwall postings, backlinks and blog comments.'
He's right. Most kids I know who use Facebook count the number of friends they have on-line (even if they're people they've never even heard of, let alone met) as a measure of their own popularity and self-worth. That's no measure of success. I get a lot of hits on my blog but what do those hits really tell me about the people who've popped by? Nothing at all. Even Grazia magazine, which many would see as a guide to the shallower end of lifestyle choices, has declared Facebook as 'bankrupt'. 'I can't keep up with the friend requests, the requests to confirm how we know each other, the requests to tell you I like you, the requests to tell you I want you to tell me what movies you want to tell me about, etc.', they concede. 'I just find it crazy and the pace is so fast that very little of substance is being done. Folks have just opted in to another out of control inbox... I'm opting out.'

Paul Tero, at marketing company Nixon McInnes, believes that social networking is only social if people use it to meet people and get out and socialise. He goes on to point out that, 'Any interaction (on-line) is usually via words only. And according to a 1971 study by Albert Mehrabian, the words we use in a conversation only account for 7% of our decision as to whether or not we like the other person. 38% is from tone of voice and 55% from body language. So if we interact only via words, we are squandering a large part of our natural gift for communication.' Social networking is actually denuding our communication skills. And it allows deceit, lies and downright nastiness to hide behind a happy, smiling profile.
But is it worth getting all steamed up about? Surely it's all just a bit of fun, isn't it? Ah, would that it were, would that it were (said in my best Robert Robinson voice). Tom Hodgkinson (of How to be Idle fame) has written an excellent little booklet called We want everyone - Facebook and the new American Right (Parts of it were published in The Guardian in January). In the booklet, he explains that Facebook is nothing more than cynical, information-gathering and advertising-targeting software wrapped up in the guise of 'How to share your life with the world and appear to have more friends'. It's no secret. Tom hasn't spent years in deep cover to get this information. It's all freely available - but people just don't bother to go and look for it. They just blindly sign up to these sites because their mates have all signed up. The people behind Facebook are not the fun-loving hippy geeks you'd imagine them to be and they know a bit about what makes you tick:

'Although the project was initially conceived by media cover star Mark Zuckerberg, the real face behind Facebook is the 40-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel. There are only three board members on Facebook, and they are Thiel, Zuckerberg and a third investor called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners (more on him later). Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook when Harvard students Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz went to meet him in San Francisco in June 2004, soon after they had launched the site. Thiel now reportedly owns 7% of Facebook, which, at Facebook's current valuation of $15bn, would be worth more than $1bn.'

So, some people are making big bucks out of you having lots of pseudo friends, eh? The plot thickens ...

'Thiel's philosophical mentor is one René Girard of Stanford University, proponent of a theory of human behaviour called mimetic desire. Girard reckons that people are essentially sheep-like and will copy one another without much reflection. The theory would also seem to be proved correct in the case of Thiel's virtual worlds: the desired object is irrelevant; all you need to know is that human beings will tend to move in flocks. Hence financial bubbles. Hence the enormous popularity of Facebook. Girard is a regular at Thiel's intellectual soirees. What you don't hear about in Thiel's philosophy, by the way, are old-fashioned real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth. The internet is immensely appealing to neocons such as Thiel because it promises a certain sort of freedom in human relations and in business, freedom from pesky national laws, national boundaries and suchlike. The internet opens up a world of free trade and laissez-faire expansion. Thiel also seems to approve of offshore tax havens, and claims that 40% of the world's wealth resides in places such as Vanuatu, the Cayman Islands, Monaco and Barbados. I think it's fair to say that Thiel, like Rupert Murdoch, is against tax. He also likes the globalisation of digital culture because it makes the banking overlords hard to attack: "You can't have a workers' revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in Vanuatu".'

(Read the whole feature here).

Thiel and his ilk are outright unashamed capitalists who believe that work and the acquisition of wealth are the most important things in life. They are nearly all neo-conservative Right wingers (remember the debacle about 'No gays allowed on Facebook' a few months ago? Guess where that originated?) These are not the sorts of people I want to associate with, let alone give my money to. But millions of you do by answering the ads that pop up on Facebook. Your beautifully crafted on-line profile provides their marketing people with the sort of data that allows them to target you (and your friends) unmercifully with stuff that will appeal. By January 2009, Facebook will have over 200 million active members. If even a tiny percentage respond to the adverts and pop-ups, the men behind Facebook make even more millions. And with their views on tax, you can be sure that only a tiny proportion of your money will ever be recycled back into the economy or social welfare systems.

I guess it could be argued that my blog is a form of social networking - but I don't use it that way. I use it as a showcase for my writing and my art. It performs the same role as a website - but with more frequent updates. It's got me some work and, more importantly, I've made new friends who I have gone on to meet for real in FleshSpace.

FleshSpace ... I may have to trademark that.

And, as a final warning klaxon, just remember that the recent glut of connected suicides in Bridgend, Wales is possibly connected to a social networking pact. Certainly, it's an avenue that the police are investigating. Isn't that a worrying development? As Stephen Waddington says, 'Is this real life moving into a digital sphere? Or something more sinister ...' All I know is that the term 'private life' includes the word 'private' for a good reason.

I'll leave you in the capable hands of Tom Hodgkinson again:

'For my own part, I am going to retreat from the whole thing, remain as unplugged as possible, and spend the time I save by not going on Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books. [...] I don't want to retreat from nature, I want to reconnect with it. Damn air-conditioning! And if I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology. It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.'

The biggest joke is the court case itself

During my three decades as a London cop, there were few instances when new legislation made me smile. For the most part, it was created willy-nilly by politicians desperate for the popular vote and 99% of new laws turned out to be ill-considered and occasionally unworkable. At times there was so much knee-jerking in Parliament that you'd be forgiven thinking that they were performing the hokey-cokey. Take 'driving while using a mobile phone' as an example. Perfectly good legislation existed already. Police had powers to report someone for driving without due care and attention and/or dangerous driving. So why single out mobile phones? We now have the situation where, if you're crawling along in a car in a traffic jam at 2mph, you can't phone home and say that you're late because, just by using the phone, you commit the offence. Meanwhile, the guy who's reading a map on his steering wheel, or the woman applying her make-up in the rear view mirror or the couple who are having a blazing row could only be prosecuted if you could prove that they were a danger to others or not controlling their car. Oh, and when the law was brought in, police officers wondered whether they'd be committing the offence because the radios we had at the time had to be held to the ear, leaving one hand on the steering wheel. Utter madness. And don't get me started on the idiotic Dangerous Dogs Act ...

But one piece of new legislation did make me smile and it was called the Criminal Attempts Act. It came into force in 1981 and it plugged a major loophole in English law. Up until that time, attempted crime fell under the heading of 'common law' and test cases had created the situation that a person could not be prosecuted for attempting to commit a crime if the crime was impossible to commit. To give you an everyday example, a person who attempted to pick your pocket could not be charged with attempted theft if the pocket was empty. The crime had to be capable of being committed before you could be guilty of attempting it. The Criminal Attempts Act changed all that by, quite rightly, placing the onus upon the offender's intent rather than the possibility of their success.

The clever thing about the Criminal Attempts Act was that it created the offence of 'attempt' and could be applied alongside other legislation to anything from theft to burglary to sexual assault to embezzlement. It worked because the definition of 'attempt' meant a person doing an act which was 'more than merely preparatory to the commission of the offence'. So thinking about murdering a banker wasn't an offence, but sitting in the car outside his luxurious home with a crossbow might be. In law, attempting to commit a crime is all about intent and some degree of preparation.

So why then is a man currently at court going through a second appeal against a conviction for simply typing the words 'Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!'? You can read all about the Paul Chambers 'Twitter Joke Trial' trial on hundreds of websites and blogs (including my own angry blog here) so I won't bore you with the details. However, I do wonder what kind of country we are turning into when a simple and clearly jokey comment on Twitter can result in an otherwise decent, law-abiding Brit getting himself a criminal record under anti-terrorism laws? Have we lost all common sense and proportion? Surely even the meanest of intelligences could see that this was a joke? And, even if there were any doubt, ten minutes of background checking and interview would have clearly shown that this was really not something worth bothering the judicial system with. To return to my original point, where's the intent? Paul Chambers isn't a terrorist; there were no 'preparatory' actions taken to blow up an airport. He isn't even an attempted terrorist. Did he cause alarm and distress? I very much doubt it and I've yet to hear any testimony from anyone who believed that their life was in any danger. Did he attempt to cause alarm and distress? I have yet to see any evidence of even the slightest intent.

The sheer ridiculousness of this trial and subsequent appeals is clearly demonstrated by the fact that 1000s of Twitter users have since re-typed his original tweet without repercussions. I've done it myself. I no more intend to cause harm and distress than he did, so why haven't the police knocked at my door? All Paul Chambers did was what I see people doing every day - venting their spleens. Just this week I've seen people 'threaten' to kill several celebrities on Twitter, I've read comments on YouTube videos where the owners of the videos are abused, told to die or invited to commit suicide (just look at the Rebecca Black 'Friday' episode). I've heard people express inflammatory opinions in pubs and shops. We all do it. And, for most of us, a slap on the wrist and a few words of caution would be more than enough to remind us that, sometimes, we can be unaware of the effects that our words have on others.

There are times when I am almost ashamed to have once been part of 'the system'. Paul Chambers may have been naive and ill-advised but was it really worth ruining the man's life to hammer that message home? Of course not.

I wish him every success with his appeal.

Why I had a Glitter Cull

STOP PRESS - Since writing this blogpost and taking the action I describe below, it has been announced that the Gary Glitter Twitter account was a fake, set up as 'a social experiment to highlight the dangers and safety of children using the social networking sites and to discover and question public morality.' You can read the author's explanation here. I'm not convinced that they've achieved what they set out to do. Also, Twitter wasn't the right platform. However, it was interesting to see what it brought to the surface and, for me, it was genuinely disturbing to see so many people following the account. The validity of the account was not the issue for me. The issue was public morality and the cult of celebrity that, apparently, caused mass selective amnesia for at least 18,000 people.

I'm pretty liberal. I champion free speech. Had the Glitter account been real, he was quite within his rights to use social media to re-join society and plug his album. Whether or not you believe in 'second chances' or fresh starts, it was legal and lawful for him to do so. The experiment was supposedly a wake-up call to us all that some social media sites have no restrictions on who may join. The inference is that there should be a blanket internet ban on convicted offenders. Personally, I'm not entirely comfortable with that. I have worked with genuinely rehabilitated offenders who used their experience to stop others going along the same route. Would their access be restricted or cut off too? Most use of the internet is for lawful and suitable purposes. Why would I object to a paedophile ordering their shopping online? The other fact, of course, is that paedophiles with any brains don't use large and very public platforms like Twitter. They hide in the shadows on password-protected forums and chat groups. However, I would argue that some - a very few - offenders should have restrictions placed upon their use of the internet as a preventative measure to stop them from harming or distressing others. I am talking about a small population of proven serial offenders; paedophiles, racists, sexists, homophobic and religious haters. I'm not talking 'Nanny state' erosion of our rights. The only rights that would be infringed are those of people who have abused those freedoms. I see this as no different to the way we use restraining orders for domestic abusers and stalkers. Or should they be allowed to wander up and down in the street outside their terrified victims' houses because it's their right? We are all entitled to free speech but shouldn't that right be, at the very least, closely controlled or monitored if a person abuses it? We deprive people of their liberty when they commit crimes against society and individuals. What's the difference? Discuss.

All of that aside, the big issue for me was WHY people chose to follow the account, fake or not. I did what I did because I wanted people to ask themselves why they did it. I don't have the answers. Of course I don't. But please have a read and let me know if you agree or disagree with my small protest.

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In this past couple of hours I have, with no small degree of sadness, stopped following 74 people on Twitter. The reason I did so is that they made the decision to follow an account that purports to be the official Twitter account of disgraced rocker Gary Glitter. I'll say sorry to those people now but I am not sorry for taking this action. I felt that the situation absolutely demanded it.

The account named 'OfficialGlitter' appeared back in November and, from what I can discern, ticked along slowly for several months. Then, on the 16th January, the counter number for followers suddenly started rising at a meteoric rate. In less than 24 hours it had topped the 10,000 mark. As I write this, the counter stands at over 18,000. As this is a man whose career was pretty much confined to the Glam Rock 1970s, one can only assume that the majority of followers are people who know him best as a convicted paedophile.

Now, it may be that he has reformed, repented and may never commit another such offence. If so, good for him. It is also true that he has served his time, done his penance and should be allowed the freedom to make a new life for himself. I have no issue with that either. If the account is genuine, he's even planning a comeback album called Still Shining.

However, what I have a huge problem with is 18,000+ people following him on Twitter. To put that into some perspective, actor Brian Blessed has 7,644 and comedian Graeme Garden has 11,418. I single these two out because they are also both relative newcomers to Twitter and both are hugely popular. And yet it's taken them a few weeks to reach these figures while more than 18,000 people made a conscious decision to click on the follow button for the Glitter account. I had to ask myself why and, if the account is genuine, what is the message that this sends?

I suspect that the lure of celebrity coupled with the kind of rubber-necking we see at road accidents has made people push the follow button. Here is a man who, even though he may be completely rehabilitated, was guilty of crimes involving innocents. It's the most horrible of crimes; it preys upon the weak and the gullible and the easily-led. Paedophiles are clever, resourceful. They commit their crimes behind locked doors often relying on the child itself to cover their tracks. Sometimes the children don't really understand what's happened to them. Very often they are sworn to secrecy with abhorrent threats of 'Mummy and Daddy won't want you any more'. Now, I'm not saying that this particular individual did any of that. We all know what he was convicted of. What I am saying is that I've had to interview the victims of child abuse. And it broke my heart every time. We can never ever allow ourselves to see these kinds of crimes as anything but the most vile attacks upon the weakest and most helpless members of our society.

However, by taking someone who has been convicted of paedophilia and putting them up on a platform, bolstered by a wave of apparent public support, we are saying, 'It's okay son. All forgotten now.' Every click on the follow button - unless the follower is a GENUINE fan - validates this person. Just how many of those follows have even heard his music?

All the excuses about 'I just want to see what he tweets' smack of corpse in the road voyeurism. And do you really think that he would ever use such a public platform for grooming or contacting young people? Of course not. Every person who says 'I only follow him so I can reply to his tweets' is handily ignoring the fact that you can look at his tweets without following. And as for the argument 'It's just a bit of fun ...' Well, I'll let make your own conclusions about how that makes me feel.

I'm sorry if you are one of the people I've unfollowed today but my conscience cannot deal with the fact that someone who follows that account also wants to follow me. I don't want to be included in that demographic. I can't say I wish the man well but, as I said, he's done his time and can move on. He can reboot his career as a musician and re-enter society. But I will not be party to anything that  glorifies him or which helps make him into the kind of 'bad boy ' celebrity we see so often these days. We now live in a society where being famous is somehow more important than being good. Our TVs and magazines are full of celebs who are thieves, adulterers, racists, drug-users, gold-diggers, spouse abusers, bullies and rapists and we forgive and forget them because they show us their cribs in OK! magazine, whip their bangers out for FHM or take part in a reality show on Channel 5. Public adulation fills their bank accounts and elevates them to unlikely and unsuitable role models for our kids. Judging by what's happened in the past five years, expect Gary to have his own chat show by Christmas. And, let's not be naive; the more money you have, the easier it is to indulge your worst excesses and get away with it.

I won't be part of that. If you choose to follow the account, then please carry on. It's a free country and I won't dislike you for it. But I will wish you well and unfollow you. I'm a very small cog in the giant machine that is Twitter and my little protest will make no difference at all. I'm nothing special. But my conscience will be clear. If you feel I've treated you harshly, then tak to me. It could be that I'm reading this all wrong and you have a perfectly valid reason for following the account. If so, I will be happy to apologise to you and follow you again.

Even if it turns out (as I strongly suspect) that it's a fake account, I feel justified in taking this stand. People followed it because they believed that it's real. In my eyes, that's no different to following the real thing.

The Best of Bandhands

I love getting involved in art projects and some of the best are those odd, off-the-cuff, inspired memes that begin on Twitter. Last night the always funny Gareth Aveyard started a game called Band Hands in which people were asked to ... er ... draw a famous band on their hand. The results were hilarious. Here are a few of my favourites ... can you guess who they are?

They were, of course, The Small Faces, Rage against the Machine, the B52s, Badfinger, The Beatles, Blur, Guns 'n Roses, Kraftwerk, Madonna, Kiss, Slade, The Fall, ZZ Top, Westlife (Genius!) ... and Emerson, Lake and Palmer (Ha!) The Three Degrees (Ha ha!) and Men at Work (superb!). My own humble submissions included Queen and the four eras of Elvis:

There were so many brilliant entries. I couldn't possible include them all here. Well done everyone - you kept me smiling for hours.

Contributors: @garethaveyard, @thishenryjames, @steand, @markhyson, @moogyboobles, @gordonbibby, @fthc, @mikewinship, @richlieu_uk, @keaton76, @johnnybeelzebub, @scubadog, @lcg326, @nobrelmes, @danbm, @mizzlizwhiz, @the_no_show, @scottrywrotem, @killingflowers, @gdorean, @buxtontheblue, @mixmasterfestus, @iamannabellelee, @gomark, @lucasblack, @olliehester, @cheeserus, @stephjl, @suzepeelan, @markhyson, @lucy_peel, @purehilton, @belljarred, @mtrh, @dandouglas, @slackattacks ... hope I haven't missed anyone.