Skimming Twitter tonight I came across a post from Peston about the potential of “Vaccine Passports” and “Rapid Flow Testing” for restaurants, theatres and pubs. I made the mistake of responding with the Tweet attached. It has brought the very worst of Twitter out from under their stones in a way I’ve not experienced before. “Nazi”, “Fascist” “Imbecile” Twat” are just some of the things I’ve been called for suggesting should I own a restaurant I would only cater for those who had a vaccine or agreed to a test. I haven’t responded. I should know better, play with fire etc. I’ve a thick skin which is protected further by my online pseudonym. Justin would be so proud. Anyway I thought some of you might find it interesting, some might think I’m stupid and some might just ignore it as is the way of these things. It does however remind me that on the whole this place is very forgiving…. Twitter on the other hand…
Edit: I should add there was also plenty of support and not all responses were vile. P
https://twitter.com/DaveAmitri/status/1361374647942598656?s=20
Think people should be forced to use their real names on Twitter. Would surely help a lot.
Accountability? Where’s the fun in that?
People currently post all kinds of ghastly abuse under their real names with no small degree of pride, it wouldn’t deter them. Meanwhile, those who require the protection of anonymity would either risk being exposed and worse or be forced off the medium. No, I don’t have a solution but this one ain’t it. (Replied “ishmethit” to “dai”, both of them obviously shady feckers.)
Well I use my real name here (sort of). Just think people would think twice before abusing under their own names and could also be tracked down more easily if necessary.
“Tracked down”… does this involve dogs?
I approve this proportionate response.
I don’t have a Twitter account, so I don’t see this stuff – I just had a look through the thread. Is this level of knee-jerk abuse typical?
Yes. The place is full of idiots.
Entirely typical I’m afraid; if anything, (and I don’t mean in any way to minimise the abuse Dave has had here) this is mild by Twitter standards. There are still good things and good people on Twitter, but trying to engage in genuine and considered debate on anything is pointless, sadly.
I just can’t read any more. Too many hateful people with far too much time on their hands, thinking their opinion actually matters, spouting almost total rubbish they’d never say to your face, and with whom you’ll never be able to engage in any kind of grown-up debate because you are “wrong”.
Twitter is, sadly a lot of the time, just like your below average Wetherspoons. A place I choose to steer well clear of.
I think all the social media platforms have got worse during lockdown. People who had a nasty streak that they held in check except when with others of the same ilk are now giving it full rein everywhere.
Their true colours shining through, as it were.
I almost agree with you.
FWIIW, I think things have got worse since the Brexit referendum, that has certainly been my experience.
Years ago I had a scathing Tweet from a minor NZ celebrity and I must say it really did hurt because his on screen persona is a relaxed, good laff bloke.
He said that do-gooders spend all their time “knitting teapots” rather than doing something productive. I said “ did you mean tea cosies? You can’t knit a teapot”. He really let me have it, saying “I’ve made a success of my life – loser”. And then another – just saying “loser”. Blimey.
Name? Let’s humiliate the ignorant shit right here.
I don’t think that’s a good idea. They go low, we go high and all that.
Fair enough. I’d settle for posting him a large turd instead.
Remember though turds can be DNA tested, probably best not to send your own.
Why not use his name to post something that pissed off Sharon Osborne?
Par for the course – at least you didn’t get death threats…see also Brexit.
Occasionally, when I’m feeling at a particularly loose end, I engage, but no good ever comes of it. They won’t ever shut up, and if you fail to come up with a suitably zingy zinger you end up being made to feel stupid by stupid people, which is pretty corrosive.
Infallible signs that you’re dealing with a twat:
1. The crying with laughter emoji, any variation.
2. Lol
3. The words ‘woke’ or ‘snowflake’.
4. Mention of free speech or cancel culture.
5. Accusations of a lack of patriotism, or an excess of it.
6. Educate yourself. I was told to do this the other day by a woman who retweets the Montana Daily Gazette, an organ which makes Breitbart look like the Socialist Worker.
Anyone with a Union Jack in their account name is also to be avoided at all costs
😂
This is spot-on, and it makes preemptive blocking so much easier.
Given how long T has been providing a platform for the terminally ignorant and ill-informed, am surprised that it still gets a arise out of the rest of us.
Just saying like! (Another addition for Mike’s list)
I agree with you. It riles me that it riles me so much to see such staggering levels of stupidity demonstrated by industrial quantities of posts from individuals who presumably think they have something to offer the world. Military grade narcissistic personality disorder en masse.
I find Twitter extremely useful, especially for getting up to date news, following politics and gauging opinions. But I never, ever tweet. I don’t see the point. You’re never going to have a worthwhile exchange with such a limited number of words and such an unlimited number of strangers.
Ditto. I gave up listening to / watching the news about three years ago, and am much better for it. I’ll follow up stuff that appears in my twitter timeline.
I think I’ve had worthwhile exchanges with people on twitter, though, especially amongst ‘comedy’ twitter, for want of a better expression.
Exchanging gnomic inanities with complete strangers over the internet? Can’t see the appeal meself.
Up!
Ha ha ha, he he he.
Excuse me, but are you a laughing gnome?
See if you can catch him…
Thank you @thecheshirecat
Sometimes I think I just amuse myself. Which is fine actually.
It amused me. I wish that was a compliment.
I’ll go to bed with a spring in my step tonight…up the stairs backwards though.
You’ll be alright.
I think when you put an opinion out there yourself you’ve got to be prepared for all types of response. Or don’t post it publicly.
This one gets peoples heckles raised because the lockdown has been so illogical and lifelihood destroying for so many. So you get an emotional response. So anything suggesting restrictions not being relaxed post vaccine gets the heckles up as at some point you can’t carry on with this
I agree with the sentiment of your tweet, I have no time for anti vaxxers, but I think vaccination certificates domestically are pointless and won’t achieve anything. Vaccination won’t stop spread, just severe disease which is absolutely fine.
Twitter can be great in certain circumstances, especially if you only use if for very specific, probably niche, things where the people who engage with you are more likely to be using it for the same reasons you are. For example I use it for local non-league football stuff and it’s usually fine.
Twatter is, without doubt, the biggest waste of electrons that the human race has yet devised.
A brief glance through any such thread of dribbling piss reveals people who describe themselves in grandiose ways, yet demonstrate a failure to have grasped basic spelling and grammar, whilst betraying a woeful lack of simple scientific understanding and logic. I wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with most of them at the best of times, let alone in the middle of this shitstorm.
“There’s also a down side…”
The clue is in the name of the medium, and the fact that swopping and I for an a would be even more explanatory. “I diskard them”. As Molesworth would say. It’s been turned into an open sewer of attention-deficit ignorance. Just say “no”: it’ll give you more peace of mind.
I say no to twats, except as outlined above, but I really value Twitter for the massive amount of fascinating stuff and amusing Twitterers I’ve come across. Bit like when I find broccoli on my plate I ignore it and go for the sausages.
Vegist! Do some research and educate you’re self, dumbass!
@British_Broccoli 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
I think the vast majority of decent Twitter users still think it’s what it used to be and are in a bit of a state of denial about its awfulness. They remind me a bit of those Trump officials who supposedly stayed “because without us it would be worse”.
I read a great piece on Medium the other day saying that 2015/2016 was the watershed when suddenly it seemed to be flooded with green-ink morons who shouldn’t be allowed pen and paper, much less access to a global platform, and boring normals who really belonged on Facebook. Distressingly both groups were desperate to scream about their bloody political opinions and now they’re the majority.
Before that it was 75% jokes and inventive silliness, 25% tedious pomposity and howling trolls. Now the ratio is about 90:10 in the opposite direction.
I don’t have an account, but I used to. There’s this woman I used to follow who is reasonably sensible but I checked in on her timeline the other day and just thought: wow. The pomposity. You really think everyone needs your bloody opinions, don’t you?
I think any good the platform might once have offered is now overwhelmingly dwarfed by the good that would be done by turning it off forever. It’s a net negative, I think, and a pretty major one.
Ah, that must be it, I’m in a state of denial. Thanks for clearing that up.
Well, if you were, you wouldn’t know, would you? 😉 So… you’re welcome.
I said majority. Not everyone.
(Ps, I’m teasing, and no offence intended. But I’ve been off Twitter for a few years and from this distance it reminds me of when I smoked (cigs and/or weed). At the time it seemed part of the air I breathed, couldn’t imagine life without it, used to say – with a straight face – that I actively enjoyed the taste and the sensations, felt no conscious ill-effects the majority of the time. 20 years smoke-free and it seems astonishing I ever touched the fucking things. My clean, fresh-smelling, healthy life since is a proper jewel compared to the years I spent in that tarry pit. Giving up social media felt very similar, and unfortunately you get similar reactions when you evangelise to users about life after it.
Anyway. Sorry if my no-zealot-like-a-convert routine sometimes comes across a bit rough. But I truly believe nobody needs the big social media platforms in their lives and that everyone would be happier without. I realise many disagree.)
I don’t. Disagree, that is. The world would be a much nicer place.
All good, no offence taken. But you might say that nobody needs smoking in their lives either, and that everyone would be happier without. Evangelising about either is a bit of a Sisyphean task, no? Wouldn’t you be happier without it?
To the point of the original tweet, I think Peston got it wrong. I thought that Johnson suggested that vaccine passports was NOT an approach they would follow, but that completion of the mass vaccination programme plus the possibility of premises (including concert venues) having rapid flow testing on entry was a possible approach. Personally I am not sure how that would work unless the tests technology improves so that you get almost instantaneous results.
But then, who knows what Johnson thinks or what his plan is at any given time? Not him, himself, for sure.
The trick is to remember that Twitter is not about trying to understand or change the views of others, it’s about reinforcing your own. The people replying to you Dave aren’t replying to you, they’re showing off to their friends. This I think is the only explanation for how your fairly innocuous suggestion that people entering a restaurant should prove they’ve been vaccinated can be described as ‘identity terrorism’.
We’re at a very interesting point where the Tories have realised they can exploit the ‘culture war’ to rip the left and the centre apart, and Twitter is going to help them enormously in that.
Yeah. And unfortunately the online left and centre are their own worst enemy in that regard. The former are just idiots and kids, and the latter can tend to pomposity which alienates both sides.
Saw a good thing about American polarisation the other day which showed that the reason the right has a structural advantage is that the baseline of people who identify as conservative is a good 10-15%pts larger than those who identify as liberal. The left tends to think everyone naturally agrees with them, and behaves accordingly (ie self righteously, hectoringly and childishly), which turns the biggest group – moderates – right off.
And since the right has a larger natural base, they win, because a largeish chunk of moderates don’t want anything to do with the Bernie bros and the identity warriors, and so either vote with the rightish end of their moderation, or else don’t vote. That becomes a lot easier when the Left chooses to die vociferously on hills which are self-evidently ridiculous and abhorrent to most people: defund the police; male bodied people in rape shelters and women’s boxing; all white people are not only racist but suffering from “white fragility”, etc etc.
Strongly suspect it’s not dissimilar here. The left thinks being mean about Tories, acting like socialism is the obvious home of moral goodness and conservatives are all bastards, is a real winner, when there are far more natural conservatives than natural socialists.
Most moderate people, when they hear “Tory scum” rhetoric from Labour, check out. Why the Left is so keen on culture war is beyond me, cos they will always, always lose.
This is why Labour can’t get above 40% in the polls. If young people want to believe that Churchill was racist, Blair did nothing to improve conditions for the least well off and started wars for fun, and any kind of public/private investment is evil, then okay – they can make their case. The Labour leadership is hamstrung by that stuff – it can’t take either of the two binary positions (see Starmer on BLM – damned either way) and of course anything in between (the rational or consensus response) is seen by the Twits as exactly as bad as the most extreme opposing position.
Sorry kids, but if you want to see a socialist government in your lifetime, you need to reach out to the unconvinced majority rather than just telling each other what a bunch of cunts us older moderates are.
Have an up arrow. Tribalism, innit? (Bet you can’t even say “tribalism” now because of PC GONE MAD.)
There are plenty of intelligent people on the left who are not just screaming abuse or spouting stupidity. However, their voices tend to be somewhat lost among the shoutings of both the Right and Left loons and the plutocracy and the press.
Perfect explanation of the purpose a huge majority of Twattertraffic has.
Not sure I’d use the words ‘very interesting’ in your last sentence @chiz, I’d probably veer more towards ‘devastatingly depressing’.
Indeed – and completely self-inflicted by the non-Tory electorate being unable to agree on anything
I’m not sure that’s true, actu…. Oh. Yeah.
Some nasty punters out there.
Never got into Twitter and doubt I ever will.
Very little contact with Facebook and I only receive the odd post
Music and Hifi forums are enough for me and not all of them either
Well, on the bright side, most of the people you’d hope would avoid your restaurant would averredly avoid your restaurant anyway, so there’s that. Also, one of them said ‘simples’ so they’re on the barred list for a start.
‘Simples’ – oh God yes. Referring to everyone who disagrees with them as ‘sheeple’ (a particular favourite of that beacon of enlightened thought Lee Hurst) is another clear signal.
That drives me crazy too. Anyone with an ounce of common knows it’s spelled ‘seemples’.
Lee Hurst. There’s a name I haven’t heard for ages. He used to be funny?
I have an Hepworthian theory here. Any comedian who presents a show called something like “unleashed!” with a photo of him with a big sticking plaster in an X shape over his mouth – is a bell end.
Ha ha no. He was never funny. He’s Stewart Lee for thick people.
I find it fascinating if I’m honest. It seems people who agree on the whole just click like. Those who disagree on the whole reply with varying degrees of venom. Some brave souls including a couple of Doctors have waded in in up to their necks to try and talk sense but as has been mentioned a mixture of vanity, a need to be heard and sheer spitefullness they just get shouted down. It’s a really sad example of how split the country is.
I do enjoy cricket and music Twitter generally. Football Twitter is a mixed bag. Political Twitter is just a mirror held up to all of society’s ills.
This is my favourite response. The Twitter handle, the spite, the assumptions.. Breathtaking really…
https://twitter.com/ObjectiveSkeptc/status/1361421558783168514?s=20
Just get off Twitter, Dave. Get off Twitter everyone. It’s one of the worst things in the world, and I mean that literally.
The correlation between restricting access to a non existent restaurant and “shopping the Jews to the Nazis” is so batshit it’s hilarious. BTW how does he know your Dad?
I love Twitter, but I use it because I enjoy seeing what the people I follow have to say. I couldn’t care less what the people who comment on their posts have to say so I don’t bother looking.
My Twitter profile picture is my dad in his army uniform from 1932. I happen to mention it in the bio. He was fiercely protective so I suspect he would have agreed with me and not Mr O Sceptic…. Thinking about it it’s probably time I changed it….
I hadn’t looked at that. I just posted the comment as a joke assuming he was bonkers enough to tell you, little boy, what your Dad, an adult, thinks.
I thought he’d assumed that you were the son of that guy Derek “Del” Amitri.
Rather insulting to the memory of the millions of murdered Jews to correlate them with vax-deniers.
IMO.
I don’t Twit for the good of my own health, but I have a look at the accounts of a few friends via the website. If I want to reply, I drop them a note via carrier pigeon.
One of the spin-offs of the whole covid thing is I’ve pruned my social pool. There’s a bloke, let’s call him Richard*, I’ve chatted with in the local cafe. He’s always been friendly enough but a bit damaged by life’s circumstances. By the power of social media I have found out he’s he’s a borderline National Front, pro-Brexit, climate-change denier, anti-vax, anti-lockdown, pro-herd immunity, nutter. I won’t waste my time talking to him again.
(*) his name’s actually Richard
Pro-herd immunity? The easiest way to achieve that is to impose the vaccine on everyone by law.
😕
As in “let all the old and unwell die” rather than “eradicate it from society with a vaccine”.
I never did like him much, and now I’m absolutely certain.
“I never did like him much, and now I’m absolutely certain.”
The great lost Morrissey lyric.
Or, as a mutual friend of ours pointed out recently, I am turning into a low-rent Alan Bennett.
‘Bone idle posho” I heard…
One day the axe just fell.
Reminds me of the Wonder Stuff lyric “I didn’t like you very much when I met you – and now I like you even less”.
“I took an instant dislike to him, which saved time ” – Milligan
Talking of whom, thank goodness Twitter wasn’t around when Astley in the Noose was released, or Miles Hunt would be doing a 20-year stretch for incitement after some rabid Twit manslaughtered Rick.
Somebody invented Rickrolling, which was many times worse.
I frequent. Occasionally tweet, more commonly retweet. These days the rabid lefties are doing my head in, maybe coz I have successfully ring fenced myself against rabid Tories.
Niche tweeters on niche topics are nice.
One thing I hate is some dickhead you unfollowed popping up on your feed coz someone else you follow liked a tweet of theirs.
The Michael Vaughan / Piers Morgan conundrum….
Ah, but are nice tweeters on nice topics niche?
I like nice tweeters, preferably attached to big woofers.
Big woofers … hurr
Keen on dogs then?
Have you met the ex-wife?
Pies have arrived!
See also the Have Your Say forum on the BBC News website. The existence of this platform for the terminally idiotic to pontificate their lunatic conspiracy theories does the BBC’s reputation no favours whatsoever. When the contributors have names like ‘LetsTalkSomeSense’ or ‘BritainUsedToBeGreat’, you instantly know they are unhinged.
Ha! Yes, that’s another cesspool of mundane stupidity isn’t it? Christ allmighty, for a long time I wondered why the Beeb kept that facility going, until I realised that the more bellowing red-faced cretins they know about and understand, the better prepared they can be to fend off the similarly equipped mental fringes of the Tory party.
The OP title sounds like a Giles Giles and Fripp song.
I like Twitter. I follow people who reinforce my views but are usually more eloquent than what I am.
Like Benny out of Crossroads?
I laughed at that, thought it was cruel, and laughed again.
Did you know Gary is the Editor of Goat Monthly? And Moose does something else?
Something/Anything
Some are lying in the cesspit while others are trying to get the approval of stars. Well neither really. I try to construct my own fount of wisdom and interest like an ever changing magazine that I can edit, but am otherwise passive. If i go to a city I visit the nice parts and avoid the no-go areas. Simples! 🤣🤣🤣
I like that reference to Wilde there. In other words “we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking for likes from the stars”.
I see what you mean. I only mentioned something about teachers and already someone’s posted me a chart about PCR tests and the WHO. It’s only been ten minutes.
Ten minutes since you posted and not one mention of Hitler and the Nazis?
Sounds like you’re in serious contravention of Godwin’s Law.
I know! It’s been a pretty close-run thing… “… and I’ll tell you who else didn’t like teachers working from home..!”
What sort of cuisine would you serve in your hypothetical restaurant?
Eggs Over Easy, Dixie Chicken, all washed down with a hatful of rain?
If I get a hamper I would only share it with those who carry a vaccine passport…
There are two key things for happy Twitter usage.
1. Don’t follow wankers. You only see tweets from people you follow, so don’t follow twats.
2. Don’t look at the comments. Even someone decent on Twitter will attract comments from twats. So don’t read the comments.
Any who sneak through, block them. Any irritating terminology, add a filter. Takes seconds.
I got flamed after daring to comment unadoringly about St. Jeremy a few years ago, but my experience is generally pain free. TBH I quite like it, and it’s useful for some things eg up to the minute news and comment. Just avoid twats.
I’ll tell you who loved his hampers. Hitler.
That’s exactly what a Nazi would say. Etc, etc…
Hitler liked Hampers?
I thought he was a vegetarian.
It was Hampsters, not Hampers for crying out loud. Goebbels was partial to Gerbils however.
I use Twitter for two things mostly – one was to find out any news on late running trains etc when going to meet my wife and the other was to find out the team for the day’s game when on the way to see the football.
On casual glancing through any other subject it seems to be mainly a cess pit full of the vilest personal abuse. I mean if you’re going to call me names fair enough come and do it to my face but don’t do something behind a keyboard that you would not be prepared to do in real life
That’s the big attraction for the keyboard warriors. They can give vent to all of the vile shit that’s inside their heads without the risk of being smacked in the gob by someone.
Online they can even link up with other shitheads, exchange unpleasantries and learn new ones.
But if you followed that line of reasoning you could never call Nigel Farage a frog-faced twat, and then where would we be?
I saw him the other day on a documentary called Downfall – the Story of Trump.
He’s on it as if he was an intrigued bystander watching Trump at work. Completely distancing himself now – like the weasel he is.
Only up to a point…this was Twitter a week ago:
“Thank goodness the second attempt to impeach Trump is over. Democrat hypocrisy is all too evident, and BLM will not stop their mob rule. The Donald can now fight again.”
Not so much these days but every now and then someone of that mindset strays onto here and doesn’t really get the reaction they hope for. Then they get their (tinfoil) coat and slope off.