never Miss a beat

Question:

WHEN THE EFFING JEFFING HECK DID IT BECOME SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE TO STAND IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROAD AND TELL THE WOMAN ON THE OTHER SIDE THAT SHE REMINDS YOU OF “AN UGLY ABHORRENT HORSE” YOU ONCE “ACCIDENTALLY” HAD SEX WITH.

Anyone? PLEASE. GO ON TELL ME, I BEG YOU I AM LOSING MY RAG AND I’VE HAD A MIGRAINE FOR 96 HOURS AND I THOUGHT WE LEARNED ABOUT THIS SORT OF THING WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN AND I’M STRUGGLING WITH THE WILL TO LIVE. I need someone to EXPLAIN this to me because frankly I’m now thinking it’s all game, I mean EVERYTHING is game. Total anarchy, I can just walk out my front door right now, go into Budgens and start spilling out the bile that’s (not) in my head at everyone I come across. They made a film about this; it’s called Liar Liar with Jim Carrey and it’s not funny. WHY? Because this saying things uncensored at random individuals shtick is juvenile. Because in life it’s still sensible to bite your tongue every now and then and have some bloody manners. Believe it or not, not every single thought that comes out of our human heads is a diamond-encrusted, Eureka winner that needs to be broadcast out a megaphone and shared with every man and his dog (and dogs have more manners than internet trolls). Actually, the real skill is being able to tell which are the kerching thoughts and which are the thoughts that belong beneath a pile of manure in the furthest away farm on the Land of Zog. 

Oh shut up, Eve… this is Twitter, it’s different, it’s online, it’s not in the street, it’s not real life, you’re taking it all too seriously, wahwahwahwahwah. You’re right. It’s online, it’s not happening in the street (it wouldn’t happen in the street because that would involve looking someone in the eye). It’s unlikely that right now on your high street there’s a selection of politicians, journalists, authors, popstars, actors, talking animals and Star Wars bots. Absolutely, it’s not your street… IT’S YOUR DREAM STREET THAT YOU NOW HAVE ACCESS TO DUE TO THE BEAUTIFUL TWITTER INVENTION (something else fun and wonderful you can all start DESTROYING for all of us who were having a perfectly nice time). It’s the street where you can converse with all the people you’d never meet in your life and tell them exactly what you think about them (because that’s your human right to do that, isn’t it?). What’s more, the Twitter street is an even more public place than your street because it’s a street everyone in the whole world can fit on AND the surveillance on it is like nothing CCTV has ever seen. Everything you say publicly on Twitter can be viewed around the world for the rest of time by anyone. So, yeah you’re right; it’s not like going out in your street and spewing obscenities at passing strangers (or specific people you’re trolling down with an @), it’s infinity times worse than that (I.D.S.T. IF DESTROYED STILL TRUE).

I know you’re all desperate to explain to me how this vicious, random attacking of people in life is all just par for the FREEDOM OF SPEECH course because you seem to all be vindicating it. Reading my timeline on Twitter right now most people of sound mind (or what I now call “WTF mind”) think this highly puerile, offensive NONSENSE – that to be honest, I struggle to understand how anyone born to a mother can have the imagination to conjure up – is something that @Mufadal is within his rights to tweet at  @gracedent (as in, “@”ing her in so that she can read this wonderful uberwang diatribe, see below), and damn be the consequences.

“@gracedent reminds me of a girlfriend I once had. By girlfriend I mean that time I accidentally made love to an ugly abhorrent horse.”

And really, I must be either from Mars or out a Jane Austen novel because I am not on the page that says this is alright (and I’ve just had to retype that shit out). Is anyone NOT OK WITH THIS? Is anyone out there, you know, NORMAL? HELLO?!!!

It seems people’s problem with Grace Dent is that she retaliated (see below) in a “threatening” way. The tables turned on Dent (How could she use her position like this? She has 100,000+ followers! OUTRAGEOUS UNREASONABLE ABUSE OF POWER) when she “threatened” (ie, illustrated fact) @Mufadal because (*brace yourselves*) @Mufadal’s Twitter bio included some information indicating he’s in PR working for a firm who represents none other than (dun dun DUN) Grace Dent.

“@Mufadal Hi there Mufadel. How much do you like your job at Hill and Knowlton? I’m wondering, as a public relations person for a firm I work with, what your thinking was in sending me this message?”

BAM, TWAT WENT DOWN. 

Now, in my off-the-wall mind, I would have thought that given @Mufadal’s role as a “Public Relations” person and given the nature of Grace Dent’s relationship with his employer (ie, she’s like… a client), he might be a bit more careful about a) how he phrases criticism (if he feels so compelled to share any) of her online and b) whether he wants to draw Grace’s attention to this criticism (answer: NO). I don’t know though, I’m open to discussion on this one. It’s just that it all seems rather OBVIOUS.

Anyway, where it gets even more real is here.

@mufadal: “It was naive and ill-warranted. I won’t delete it, as I ought to bare the full brunt of my idiocy.”



@gracedent: “You’ll bear the brunt of your idiocy at 10am tomorrow morning when you’re unemployed. Good luck.”

Again, I must be mental because when I read this for the first time I punched the air and screamed “GRACE DENT FTW”. Team Grent. THIS IS AMAZARAMA. (I dunno, maybe I’m biased though because I LOVE GRACE DENT).

Well, weird because apparently I’m in the minority (huh?). Sorry Twitter, but FFS you have been totally ridiculous today, you have been an annoying, argumentative child, you have failed all the tests of humanity, it’s like you’re still at primary school forging gangs and spitting on people’s hair. Why are you all defending this superknob? Why are you all descending upon Grace Dent in a hellish tirade of ruinous, misogynist (yeah I went there) garbage? (By the way, well done Twitter, the sort of lazy junk you have come out with is why women don’t go on panel shows like Have I Got News For You). COME ON TWITS, DID THE DAILY MAIL TEACH YOU NOTHING WITH THEIR MORALISTIC SAMANTHA BRICK SERIES? (That was a joke, LOL). Why can’t you see that what lies at the heart of this issue has nothing to do with someone (a woman) asserting their “ego” (defending themselves) over an innocent idiot (wanker) whose now shitting a brick; it’s a question of manners, decency and responsibility – Adult Big Boy Stuff.

According to his many defenders, this @Mufadal was “off duty” and wasn’t at his PR desk so could say whatever he wanted. GIVE OVER. When is anyone “off duty”? Are we  only on best behaviour when in our school uniforms? We have our adult uniforms on all the time. It’s a life thing; we are always representing ourselves. Especially working in PR and tweeting in a public forum, it’s just not the case that you can berate your firm’s clients, off-duty or on, freedom of speech or none. Just zip it. I promise these sorts of thoughts are not lost on anyone; these are not tweets anyone’s missing. I never sit back and think, Oh woe, all the moronic things I could be tweeting and doing if only I were ever “off duty” from being who I am… I’m quite happy to hold my tongue to uphold this mirage that I might be a semi-decent member of society. I say enough as it is. If I think about it, I suppose that on Twitter I sort of want you all to fancy me. I’m not sure any of you would if I said that sort of thing. Besides, who actually wants to say that sort of stuff? “Banter” has not had much good press of late.

There is nothing that excuses the behaviour of a person who is obscene, heartlessly insulting and wants to seek the attention of the person their bullying by copying them into their bilious dross. Nothing except being 5-years-old and needing a bit of discipline. How Hill & Knowlton choose to resolve this issue is up to them but if this douche gets the sack it’s his own doing and he deserves it. He’s an embarrassment to Twitter, his PR company and himself. He is a child opening up his trap in the playground and shouting “YOU’SE A TURD” just because he knows it hurts people. Freedom of speech might be a “human right” but it’s also a privilege and sullying the forum with pointless, insensitive cack ruins it all for the rest of us. @Mufadal is no better than the kid in school who couldn’t play fair and got all the Tamagotchis and Pogs and stickers banned. It’s never too late to teach people some manners.

(You’re welcome.)