Wednesday 4 April 2012

Richard Bacon, Noel Edmonds, Samantha Brick vs The Trolls

Another twist to the case of Richard Bacon versus the internet trolls appears to be looming as I write this piece. I am talking of course about the current trend to ridiculing Samantha Brick, and her ill advised comments about being too pretty. We all know that this led to a deluge of witty comments from well known comics and fellow journalists. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a bit of humourous banter isn't it? After all, it's what they do. It's what they are paid to do, so why would it be wrong to share a little free humourous musings with their twitter followers? They are, after all, on a celebrity level with the subject of their humour, so it is just like peer banter, the same as you or I taking the mickey out of our mates in the pub.

But what happens when the uneducated masses start jumping on the band wagon with their own humourous musings. Perhaps these comprehensive school educated buffoons don't have the same armoury of words that the university boys and priviliged few from public school had, and their wit may be somewhat rougher round the edges. At what point does the wit of the professionals descend into cyber bullying and trolling? Is it when the tend has become so rife that the subject, or shall we now refer to her as the victim becomes upset or even properly depressed by the amount of ridiculing comments? Is it when somebody creates a Samantha Brick profile and starts tweeting more "I'm so pretty" comments to fuel the trend, which incidentally appears to have already happened? Or is it when some lunatic takes things too far and humourously offers to take away her prettiness, as this is obviously what she wants, which suddenly drains all the funny out of the matter, plunging it into the darker, more sinister realms which Richard Bacon and Noel Edmonds, amongst others are trying to combat.

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