...performs Vigilante Verbals!
Haven’t tried it? You should.
It’s word
blood sport where the commentator is also the combatant. It’s for those who
don’t get off on mindless cruelty. In fact if you agree with Winston
Churchill (in words spoken years after WWII) ‘To jaw jaw’ is always better than
to ‘war, war’ then this is for you.
Internet analysts have been preaching the extinction
of the ‘comments’ sections of online publications for years. And yes – the remaining
ones are often swamps of badly written, ungrammatical vitriol. But sometimes
they are not. Those sites which attract the former seem to do so deliberately
and often allow complete anonymity to encourage the most bigoted the ‘freedom’
(lack of responsibility) to display their bile.
Recently – and you know what a Luddite I am by now
dear bleader (if not - see blog 53 I
suffer from PANTS do you) I joined an online site up here in bonny Scotland.
Thing is – like anyone else who has ever done it – I’m on a site with folk who
are broadly like-minded. That is what people do. So far so good. The extreme opposite would be
those pundits who deliberately target sites promoted by groups they already
know they don’t like. So, for example, homophobes spewing acid and hatred on
gay sites.
Is it not a little self-indulgent only being on sites where the greatest disagreement you’re going to have is
whether the revolution should be on a Monday or a Wednesday? So I signed onto a site for a publication I
would normally have nothing to do with. Not with the intention of trolling but
with the aim of vigilante verbals, batman banter, mixin’ it up Maximus style.
Maybe you already did this. I am slow.
So I’ve dabbled on a few occasions. I
am polite but clear, I write thought-through comments. OK. No. The bigots and the nasties didn’t immediately
throw down their nail studded word clubs and go home to eat grubs. Farage and
Trump and the like have led them to believe its fine to be bigoted and stupid
and loud. But let’s give this a chance.
The phrase ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ is tired
and anyhow few of us regularly use pens. Even Shakespeare’s eloquent version in
Hamlet, “many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills and dare scarce come
thither…” seems thin in the modern mess.
But I am a big fan of words, written or typed,
spoken or sung. And when the words stop, you can be sure the swords / guns /
clusterbombs will start.
The ones we need to engage with domestically are not
those who already agree with us. Often online commentators are a colosseum
mob. The lower grade ‘news’ sites are the spoilt emperors throwing them piles
of rancid meat to keep them belly aching and distracted. Enter Gladiator
Garrulous Maximus.
One recent distasteful online article I challenged concerned
a young woman who had first been impregnated at the age of 13. She now has – at
the age of 23 – six children. In the UK they run these ‘feckless poor’ and ‘benefit
scrounger’ stories regularly as a side dish to anti-immigrant stories when the plebeians
are getting bored. There was a photo of the young woman smiling into the camera
with un-pixelated shots of her children. Then there was another picture of the
same woman holding a large pet rabbit. The predictable ‘breeding like a rabbit’
sniper remarks were rolled out under the picture as the baying crowd responded
to the obvious inducement. The young lass probably agreed to the article because
she liked the attention and didn’t realise she was mob bait. Shame on the paper.
At a time when the teen mum birth rate is at an all-time low in the UK it’s an
obvious non-story but a great distraction from rich people not paying their
taxes. And shame shame on the photographer who knew exactly what they were
doing when they took that shot with the rabbit. So the woman was not just
abused by the bloke who got her pregnant when she was a child but also by the
paper and by the rent-a-mob commentators – who, in effect – were also being
conned.
But you see where I am going. Here is meat. Here is
bread.
Remember that scene in Gladiator where Maximus is in
the arena. Pretend the Emperor is the national online rag journal. The mob are
the potential commentators, howling for blood. If we are going to spend
precious time commenting shouldn’t we be like the gladiator who steps into the
arena and does/says something a wee bit different? With style and good grammar?
Well ok – but you have to be prepared to get into
the colosseum. Choose one arena and never mind the lions they’re just CGI. Don’t
stay in your enclosed Villa. Strap on those sandals and that leather skirt and come
on in with me.
You will be entertained.
Unrestrained violence is in vogue. It’s all the rage
you might say. Open bigotry has become not just acceptable but highly fashionable. Let’s
see what we can do with verbal dexterity, humour, satire, wit. Let’s challenge
the crap people say/think. Let’s do it clearly and cleverly and on their home
ground.
Leave your comfort zone and come do some vigilante verbals.
Apart from anything we should know how people who have been granted the right
to vote in our own countries think and challenge the damaging, bigoted,
xenophobic, racist, anti-working class, misogynistic things people say. ALWAYS.
And if you want to play – perhaps sign your comments
S&H
Strength
& Honour J
*
NB. Maybe I’m
not a Pigeon is on special offer for about 48 hours from time of posting
this blog. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BKM93C