Comedians inciting their followers/fans to savage their critics

[Neil]

There's been talk about this on various threads here in the past, and I'd like to have one set aside where we can track future occurrences.  It's something I find despicable - I hate to see comedians unable to fight their own battles for starters, and think the base requirement is that they should be able to handle a heckle with wit and style.  Or they can, of course, just block it and move on - I understand how many tweets big accounts get, and it is undoubtedly wearing to be constantly criticised with a frequency most of us will never experience.

I also hate that fans go along with it, and let themselves be corralled into a bunch of angry, pitchfork-wielding dickheads.  They're not attacking people because they have any personal stake, they're doing it because they've been told to, and because they want affirmation.  It's a hateful business all round.

One of the things people with large Twitter accounts do is to RT negative criticism - this gives the impression that they're being fair or have some other noble purpose.  Y'know, like when Stewart Lee puts negative quotes on his posters.  In reality, it's tacitly inviting the followers to go and attack their critics.  Charlie Brooker has enough class to RT the negative comment but without the username - this then upsets some of these arseholes, because they want that negative attention.

So, regardless of all that, let's have examples of when comedians have explicitly demanded that their followers become a pack of rabid, obedient bile-spitting dogs.

Noel Fielding is a good example to kick things off, and that thread does a good job of detailing how he spins safety-in-numbers bullying as 'a bit of fun.'  (Read these tweets from the bottom up.)




Or how about Simon Pegg, who has over 2 million followers, and tweeted the following:

If you're going to bitch about me, at least have the decency to do it behind my back @CarlDalton. Can y'all flame this dick-twitch.

This was in response to this tweet:

"For some reason @simonpegg really really annoys me, hot fuzz is good though! He's on my list, and it ain't a good list! #annoying."

Any more examples you can think of?

[Dead kate moss]

I have no examples, but great idea for a thread. What a bunch of big insecure babies.

[Neil]

I don't mind them being insecure, but seeing their fans as their own personal army is cunty beyond belief, and should be grounds for an instant banning from Twitter.

[Default to the negative]

Charlie Brooker has enough class to RT the negative comment but without the username - this then upsets some of these arseholes, because they want that negative attention.

But if you Googled "[comment] Twitter", you'd find it right away, wouldn't you?

[rudi]

Yeah, but you'd have to go looking for it. You can apply that to virtually anything on the net.

[Neil]

Exactly.  It seems like a good compromise for the times when there's perhaps some kind of comedy value to the criticism.  To be honest, I'm not sure I've even seen him do that for months, but it stuck with me. 

[monolith]

But if you Googled "[comment] Twitter", you'd find it right away, wouldn't you?

It's still a concerted effort from Brooker to avoid scenarios like the ones already mentioned though.

[Default to the negative]

Well, Brooker has at times taken a stand against internet mob hate. He wrote that he slightly regretted bashing Jan Moir after the Gately debacle because he found himself aligned with some quite vindictive people who were posting her address online and losing all sense of perspective, so it would be hypocritical of him to start using Twitter as a weapon, I suppose.

The Noel Fielding thing is pretty bad but he does attract inordinate amounts of hate. His Twantrum (you can have that one for free) might be a reaction to personal abuse that we don't know about. Or he may just be a tit, I'm not sure.

Although it doesn't exactly fit the bill, I think the Stephen Fry/Mike Daisey episode belongs somewhere in here. Attacking your own critics is one thing, attacking anyone who points out a few imperfections in your corporate paymaster is something beyond.

[Dead kate moss]

and should be grounds for an instant banning from Twitter.

With all the current attention on 'cyber-bullying' this seems a fine idea. And would show up those that indulge in the pathetic practice. And to deprive these ego-maniacs of their precious twitter platform would be hilarious.

[Subtle Mocking]

In a way, Limmy does it. Although not necessarily to critics.

[Nuclear Optimism]

Limmy doesn't ask his fans to shit on anyone though, he just shows up people as horrible/idiots.

[Dead kate moss]

Just tweeted this

@Support As cyber-bullying is an issue, maybe you should delete accounts where followers are encouraged to bombard 'enemies' with abuse?

[Subtle Mocking]

Limmy doesn't ask his fans to shit on anyone though, he just shows up people as horrible/idiots.

But if, say, Gervais did that, his fanbase would jump all over the guy unlucky enough to be retweeted, and people here wouldn't be so forgiving.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Limmy doesn't ask his fans to shit on anyone though, he just shows up people as horrible/idiots.

With the expected and obvious consequences.

[Dark Sky]

Yeah, it would be a bit double standards to criticise Gervais for doing that and not Limmy.  Either way, it's demanding some kind of reaction, isn't it.

[Old Nehamkin]

Except the people Limmy retweets are usually actual cunts and not just people who have said something mildly negative about Ricky Gervais.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Except the people Limmy retweets are usually actual cunts and not just people who have said something mildly negative about Ricky Gervais.

Which is okay then?

[Dead kate moss]

Also there's a difference between a possibly implied encouragement to get your followers to attack someone and the outright 'Go fuck him up my legion of fans!'

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Also there's a difference between a possibly implied encouragement to get your followers to attack someone and the outright 'Go fuck him up my legion of fans!'

Not when both know what the end effect will be (the same thing).

[Thursday]

Limmy doesn't do it out of petulant reactions to criticism though, usually it's just games he's doing for fun. Not saying it's defensible, just that there's a very different tone and attitude behind it.

[Dead kate moss]

Not when both know what the end effect will be (the same thing).

But one would be hard to prove intent, the other could get the cunts banned from Twitter (if Twitter were to adopt such a policy).

[BritishHobo]

There was the recent situation whereby Doug Stanhope found somebody typing up his material on his blog, and actually assisted his fans in swarming the man's blog and Facebook, leaving insulting comments everywhere, mostly of the 'ur a dumb fag don't mess with doug stanhope' variety. Thread's here.

I can't really fault Brooker for what he does. Of course it's very childish requesting your frenzied followers to go and attack a critic, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, especially when the critics are ones actively tweeting insults at him. Either way, he's always seemed to me to be one of the few recent comedians who actually shows awareness and guilt for when they fuck up (but that's a whole other thread). I know he's written a number of columns where he talks about bumping into celebrities he's mocked in Screen Burn, and feeling like a shit as a result, plus IIRC on his panel show, some jokes he made about Danny Dyer caused the guy to declare he was giving up TV, and in a later episode Brooker talked about how bad he felt about the whole situation.

Fuck, what am I even writing about? Completely lost my way from the topic.

[Icehaven]

As appealing as it would be to see people that do this publically embarassed and shown up as bullies, Twitter aren't going to start banning famous people with massive numbers of followers are they? Particularly when their showbiz buddies will probably start flouncing and denouncing in 'support'. Maybe a temporary ban/lockout from their account is more realistic. Or is it possible to just remove their retweet funtion? (I don't use it myself, can you tell?)

[Utter Shit]

Any more examples you can think of?

What about the other day when you pushed all your followers towards a certain opinion on David Baddiel? Not saying he didn't deserve it necessarily (though it seemed a bit weird to drag up something he did years ago), but when I saw that it struck me as more or less the same as this sort of bullying which you have rallied against in the past. It was a bit "check out this cunt", if you like.

[Neil]

It was a bit "freely expressing my own opinion, backed up by evidence of plagiarism because it made a good story",  more like. 

[Dead kate moss]

As appealing as it would be to see people that do this publically embarassed and shown up as bullies, Twitter aren't going to start banning famous people with massive numbers of followers are they? Particularly when their showbiz buddies will probably start flouncing and denouncing in 'support'. Maybe a temporary ban/lockout from their account is more realistic. Or is it possible to just remove their retweet funtion? (I don't use it myself, can you tell?)

Yes, a suspension would be more realistic. Even more realistic is Twitter doing nothing about it. But if they did, maybe because the issue got some traction from other quarters, then I imagine they would make an example of somebody nowhere near the Gervais league, but enough to get the message across.

[wokeonawhalescock]

Not sure if I'd describe it as bullying really. If you're an anonymous face hiding behind a username on Twitter there's only so much harm fellow twitterers can do. Having your @connect timeline - which you can decide to check or not - filled with abusive comments for a couple of days probably doesn't constitute bullying.

I'm surprised by the number of celebs on Twitter who still bother to check there mentions feed, it's nice they want to engage with the fans but the amount of twats they have to deal with must make their blood boil.

On a slight tagent, Neil, did you ever find out what the deal was with Glinner Linehan blocking you? Found an 'interesting' blog entry about his Twitter behavior here:

http://richardhcooper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/look-at-conduct-of-graham-linehan-and.html

[KLG-7A]

Twitter is a US company that many people think is the bastion of free speech in the modern world (lols!). Anything perceived as censorship would be disastrous headline news for them, and a field day for libertarians. It ain't gonna happen.

People look very weak when they act this way. It's amazing how these new forms of interaction bring out the worst in so many people. I find it difficult to accept, and it gets me down a bit. The human race is rubbish.

[Neil]

On a slight tagent, Neil, did you ever find out what the deal was with Glinner Linehan blocking you?

No. It's blatantly because he just hates me/the site for criticising an episode of The IT Crowd five years ago now.  I would have been getting reteeeted into his timeline occasionsly.

He just screwed up, though, and obviously retweeted the Brooker tweet about the Eldon show (judging from my mentions column) then quickly noticed, deleted it, and did a new tweet that removes my attribution!  Fucking hell.

Funny, though. Decides I can't follow him anymore, despite never contacting him, then ends up tweeting my username out to his followers.

[Theremin]

Tweeted Linehan about it.

Doubt he'll respond, but at least lets him know people noticed him being shady.