Stephen Fry, discussing his on/off infatuation with all things Twittery, reckons that “it is a bit much that somehow people almost feel they have a right to be heard in their insulting of me.” Well, assuming they have the right to say it, I suppose that entails the right for it/them to be heard. Otherwise, Twitter (and by extension, pretty much the whole of Web 2.0) develops into a whole new strain of the Bishop Berkeley conundrum: if Stephen Fry is insulted on Twitter and nobody reads the tweet, is he still entitled to be upset?But on a more general point, we’re back to the situation in which people who have multiple pulpits, many of them well remunerated, from which to say stuff to a wide audience, slap down those for whom blogs, Twitter, Comment is Free and so on are the only means of being heard. Talking of which, our blogchum Fat Roland gets a mention in CiF, and some of the comments are a bit unpleasant, but I think he’s fine with that. Take note, Mr Fry.
8 comments:
Fair and cogent points. But surely that means that it's OK to bitch about people behind their backs, but not to say it to their faces.
Moreover, because SF is *a celebrity*, what he says gets reported, whether he adds a @ to it or not. So when he slagged off Jan Moir, I'm sure she knew about it. Was he right to do that?
It was alright for him to insult all Daily Mail readers.
Well... hm.. I don't know. I'm a proponent of civility. I think that "@stephenfry has boring tweets" is a different thing than "@stephenfry is an ass," for example (or "an arse", if you prefer). I don't think it's that nervy to criticize; I think it's uncivil to publicly call someone names. I don't know which has happened here, though.
Hmm, and I didn't see the insult to Daily Mail readers because I left off following Mr. Fry at some point (just a bit too much traffic). So maybe I'm in no position to comment.
I also stopped following Mr Fry some time ago because for my non-techy mind, his tweets were like watching paint dry, then watching the dried paint dry even more.
Of course, I'd never say that on a public forum. Never.
(Thanks for the mention, fellow blogchum, although I'm pretty sure 'blogchum' should be contracted to 'blum'.)
I'm the most famous person I follow on Twitter. I like to keep the reciprocity
(Have you thought about Disqus comment system or have you retired your geek boots?)
Is it Fry or the Twitter format that's dull? Fry's writing style isn't naturally suited to the merciless brevity of Twitter.
Also, perhaps Fry has confused his talent as a writer and Peter Ustinov-syle polymath with "Stephen Fry - the brand". The number of people who will read anything by Fry is limited.
The point about Fry on Twitter is that he's boring by his own standards. His tweets are no worse than anyone else's, but compared to the erudition and wit he displays as a chat show guest and columnist, they're a disppointment.
Twitter is soooo 2008.
I have now started writing things on scraps of paper and pushing them through the letterboxes of random strangers.
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