Politics for twats
Tue 20 Oct, 2009
The Twitter-led virtual lynching of Jan Moir is a sad indictment of what passes for politics in these atomised times, says Jason Walsh
WHERE WERE you when the 2009 revolution started? Storming the Winter Palace? At Tesco stocking up on posh lemonade (the glass bottles make for good petrol bombs)? Or feverishly typing terse messages into a computer or mobile phone?
It’s revolution 2.0, apparently, and this time the revolt was ‘twitterised’.
Give me a break.
The fact that sharing 140 character-long messages has been hailed as a democratic revolution indicates just how hollowed-out political life has become. Like the bizarre notion of ‘ethical shopping’, the phenomenon of ‘twitterocracy’ is a vision of politics stripped of any active content. Nothing is required of anyone who wants to take part in this purely passive process.
To be sure, as a communication tool microblogging has its uses and it is certainly an interesting social phenomenon. However, to laud it as inherently political or saying that it somehow redresses the balance in the media and public life in favour of the individual is absurd.
We have seen all of this before: when Iran erupted into protests over allegations of election fraud, hundred of thousands of Twitter users in the West turned their profile pictures green in support of the opposition. And then congratulated themselves on a job well done.
In the real world, however, governments do not fall because of green pictures, no matter how many laptop-crusaders wear them on their (virtual) sleeves. Not only did the opposition get crushed, they were entirely forgotten about by the Twitterati who were more interested in basking in their own self-importance than actually showing genuine solidarity with the people of Iran, let alone supporting them in any meaningful way.
In the past acts of solidarity were active: the conflict in the North of Ireland saw many people in the South – and even in Britain – take to the streets to protest the actions of the British government. The Spanish Civil War saw committed partisans from across Europe take up arms and fight for freedom. Today solidarity means little more than sending glorified text messages or not eating food from countries dubbed ‘evil’.
At best, today’s NGO-led campaigners might send some food aid to warzones, at worst using foreign conflict as mere signposts for political identification. The twitterocracy is reminiscent of nothing so much as NGO campaigners going to Palestine and making documentaries about themselves: ‘It’s all about me,” they are in effect shouting.
In this sense Gately-gate is upping the ante for dumbed down politics. The Moir-Gately affair isn’t even about a political matter, it’s about hurt feelings. Stephen Gately’s family may have been upset at Moir’s column – and they are entitled to be (though, in truth, they had probably not heard much about it until the Twitter echo chamber made it an international story). Much of the posturing on Twitter, however, has the tone of offence by proxy. Quite apart from the fact that it suggests some people’s skins are so amazingly thin that it’s a wonder they can venture outside, the tone of ‘some of my best friends are gay and I’m offended on their behalf’ is an insult to gay people who can fight their own battles and have no need to be specially protected from ‘nasty journalists’.
And yet the mock outrage continues. The Twitter messages keep on piling-up, as do the complaints to Britian’s Press Complaints Commission. No doubt the twits who think this event is meaningful will be cook-a-hoop when they discover that the Irish edition of the Daily Mail has, in a craven act of cowardice, attempted to distance itself from the entire affair.
Of course, the Irish Daily Mail regularly has to distance itself from its British mother. Stories with headlines like ‘Stinking paddies lower house prices’ and ‘Irish gypos out’ don’t sell well in Ireland, not even in the anglified environs of Dublin 4.
It will be interesting to see if thin-skinned Irish Twitter users respond to Moir’s own tweet (assuming it really is her on Twitter) about this: “Another amusing attempt at independence from the Irish”. Oh dear.
If they do, no doubt it will be hailed as a victory for Irish independence, though reunification would be a rather more convincing win.
Words, whether on the internet or in newspapers, only have significance when people chose to give it to them. The torrent of outrage at Moir’s words has a meaning, of course, but not the one that the outraged twitterers think. In fact, all it is doing is giving journalists – myself included – something easy to write about. By all means, keep feeding the beast (after all, it puts food on my table) but don’t think that it is a world-changing act.
Typing isn’t the only thing that can be done with one hand.
COMMENTS
My friend takes the Daily Mail(don`t ask) ; she reckons the lurid headlines you quote have never appeared ; and you have fabricated them in your anti-DM hysteria. Is she right ? (looking forward to the evidence - or it`s absence).
Thank you for reading this,enjoyed your work….P
By patrick on 2010 01 13
She is right. The headlines are a joke. I don’t think they qualify as anti-DM hysteria, though. It’s a good paper from a technical perspective. Not my cup of tea, personally but there you have it. I have plenty of criticism to go around though, so don’t assume the Guardian will get off Scott (Trust) free.
By Jason Walsh on 2010 01 13
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