Ignore Them, And Watch Them Come Back For More

So, Caroline Criado-Perez did a lovely thing: she campaigned successfully so that when the British bank notes change face next, they will feature Jane Austen on the ten pound notes. This is significant because women are rather unrepresented on bank notes, rather suggesting that in this nation’s history is devoid of important females to choose from, with the exception of Florence Nightingale, who doesn’t even appear on bank notes anymore. Some people have tried to claim that the campaign was a bit of a PC agenda, and ultimately pointless, since a woman appears on every single banknote, presumably missing the point that Queen Elizabeth appears as the monarch, not an honorary female, and will, with the best will in the will (and, one would expect, with literally the best will in the world) not be on any fresh bank notes printed in, say, fifteen years time.

This wasn't enough, though. Quite soon, Perez was subjected to a genuinely horrific torrent of abuse, most of it within a 24 hour period, and mostly, it seems with the sole intention of shutting her up, just for having an opinion. Apart from anything else, this must be simply frustrating as well as depressing and at times threatening. To have abuse thrown at you when  nobody knows who you are, but to have it again (and magnified) when you are successful and established must be suffocating: ‘What the hell do you guys want?’

This has in turn prompted people like Caitlin Moran and others to ask exactly what twitter is doing about online abuse, particularly the threats of rape and death directed at women. Whereas facebook does have a resource for reporting on stuff you’re not happy with, twitter does not. Granted, facebook doesn’t always get it right (too many pictures of new mums breastfeeding get nixed, for instance), but it’s arguably a faltering step in  the right direction. When officials on twitter were asked what they were going to do about it, they battened down the hatches and made their accounts private (ironically, citing online abuse as the reason). It’s now been suggested that high profile account holders on twitter abandon the site to its own devices (and the trolls) on August 4^th – a so-called ‘trolliday’.

If I’m honest, I think that the Troll-iday will achieve very little, in actual, practical terms. The idiots and the bullies won’t really notice what’s going on, or they’ll simply sneer and declare loudly (and correctly) that such a boycott won’t really make much difference. And, to a very great extent, they’re exactly right. It’s already been argued that trolliday won’t silence the bullies, but actually make them bite harder. But like most protests, I suspect it isn’t the event itself that’s so important, as what it represents, and the reams of newsprint that will be (and have already been) devoted to the cause will argue. This isn’t about getting the trolls to shut up. It’s not even about ignoring them. It’s about something a lot simpler and more elegant. It’s giving us a chance to grow the hell up.

Let’s be clear here: this isn’t infringing on anyone’s freedom of speech. A ‘report abuse’ button on twitter (or any other social platform) does not – and should not – stop anyone from arguing, say, about the amount of benefit-swallowing immigrants swarming into the country every hour. That opinion, in of itself, is not actually offensive, although it’s arguably ill-informed. And indeed, it in theory leads to what twitter should excel at: two differing opinions smashing into each other (in 140 characters at a time), at the end of which, hopefully at least one person learns something they didn’t know before. If they were listening.

Many people argue (and quite loudly, ironically enough) that it’s pointless to draw attention to the troll – that such attention is exactly what the troll craves. It’s gone as far as to create a piece of advice that sounds like it was originally penned by the Brothers Grimm: ‘Don’t feed the troll’. It is, of course, an entirely meaningless and selfish bit of advice, which even this second someone is typing out on twitter. Hopefully, the trolliday, if nothing else, will go some way to dismantling that most insidious of pointless advice: ‘block and ignore’. This is the latest version of the idiotic demand that we’ve been handed down across the years, starting at school when we’re told to ignore the bullies, and they’ll go away, to questioning why the girl who was attacked was dressed like that and out so late, to sneering at celebrities who plead for privacy from the tabloids. Not only does it – unforgivably – blame the victims, it feeds an everlasting lie: that, if you (yes, you, not them) alter your behaviour, the bullies go away. But that’s not true. It was never true, and it never will be. The bullies don’t go away. Best case scenario: they simply turn their attention to someone else. But even that isn’t the problem with ‘block and ignore’. I’m sure that there are a few people who have given that advice in a well-intentioned manner. But they are presumably unaware of what that advice actually means. It means exactly the same as ‘just ignore then and they’ll go away’ always meant. The translation, if you don’t know what it means (and, don’t lie, you do know, you always knew what it meant) is simply this: Oh, please fuck off. I really don’t care enough about your unimportant problems. I don’t want to stand up for you, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. If I attach myself to you and your needs, I might get contaminated by whatever the bullies have smelled on you. You’ve probably done something to deserve the abuse you’re getting, because I really can’t be bothered to consider a world in which bullies will threaten rape and death for no good reason whatsoever. Just keep quiet, and it will go away. Or, at the very least, hopefully you will go away, instead. Either works for me. Just as long as I don’t have to help. Ignore them and they will go away.

Of course, that’s completely in the wrong. But not, actually, for the reasons that those who say ‘just block and ignore’ think. There’s a reason why this is a particularly hot topic at the moment. If you disagree with me on any subject – like, say, that the last Spiderman film was an entirely pointless if pretty reboot – then you would be perfectly able to disagree with me, and voice your disagreement firmly. You might even get a bit sweary, and call into question my intelligence and basic eyesight. None of this would fall into the realms of abuse, because it’s significantly unlikely that you would claim that the reason I disliked the last Spiderman  film was just because I was fat/ugly/had childbearing hips. (I don’t have child bearing hips, by the way. Those twigs would snap in a matter of seconds).  I’m not particularly fond of the often mis-used ‘check your privilege’ line, but its undeniable that I am pretty privileged: as a white male, my opinions are not going to be dismissed just on the perceived value (or lack thereof) of my gender. Indeed, if anyone calls me a fucking idiot, it’s because they have enough respect to honestly think that I am indeed a fucking idiot.

I know it’s a cliché, but having thought about this a bit, I can’t think of a better reason: the torrent of abuse that gets chucked at high profile, successful women online is borne of one thing only: fear. Sweaty-eyed, gibbering fear. If I talk about ‘a person going into a bar’, our default reaction is to assume that I’m talking about a man (and a white man, at that). The thing is, when you occupy a default position, you don’t have to do a hell of a lot to keep on to your crown. When intelligent, dynamic women are changing the world without having to change their hemline, others get confused and – yes, scared. If the trolls want attention, then, by all means, lets give them all the attention they can cope with, and more. You remember what it was like in school, or when you or your friend was in an abusive relationship. The bully thrived on silence. Not speaking up supports the bully. ‘Block and ignore’? How dare they. How dare we. It’s time to shout back. 

Saturday 13 July 2013

In the past week or so, Brighton had welcomed its annual swelling of the population with the influx of a whole gaggle of foreign language students. Of course, there are lots of such students here all through the year (there's lots of schools in the city for expressly that purpose), but there's a significantly higher proportion from July onwards. The idea of course is that they come over to England so that they can practice speaking English in a country where pretty much everyone else speaks the language as a matter of course (more or less). I think it's a particularly mean joke to drag all these kids over from countries like Italy and Spain, the places that actually have decent weather from time to time, and force them to spend sometime discovering what exactly is meant by a British summer. I suppose if nothing else, it introduces them to the concept of irony, which apparently is one of the trickiest linguistic tricks to pull off when learning English. 

I see a fair amount of foreign language students on the Ghostwalk at this time of year. For the most part, their attempts at English are far, far better than any attempts I could make at any of their languages - indeed, in at least a couple of cases, I'm pretty sure their grasp of English is better than my own. But from time to time, I get a group who clearly have learned only eight words in English (and at least six of those are the kind that the BBC wouldn't be able to transmit before the watershed). In the case of these students, there are a number of different reactions, ranging from shyly smiling incomprehension, to blank indifference. I've heard from several stand-ups who regularly perform at the Edinburgh Fringe who tell horror stories of having to perform a full hour to a room (not) full of about three people, none of whom understand a damn word of English. That's the very definition of a tough gig. At least with the Ghostwalk, it isn't just about the words alone, in the way that can very often be the case with a lot of stand-up. The role (of Jasper, the guide I play on the Ghostwalk) lends itself to being a bit broader, larger, and dare I say, frankly over-acted and hammy. 

All of this means that when I'm doing the Ghostwalk in front of an audience that perhaps only understand 30% of what I'm saying, I have to raise my game. Not exactly in what I say, or even how I say it, because a lot of that dialogue is simply not going to carry over. This requires me to communicate in other ways, not least the way I use my hands. Now, this is a bit of an odd one, because there are times as an actor that I admittedly use my hands far too much (I do tend to over-gesticulate), but it's not often that I consider that I am actually required to do so for my character. Of course, it's all about communication: what you need to do in order to tell the story. After all, that's what it's all about: telling the story. Whether it be on stage, or a guided tour, or a short story or novel. Being clear, direct, and concise. Almost completely unlike this blog, in other words. 

Friday 12 July 2013

Last night I managed to finish writing a play that I’d been working on. OK, it was only a ten minute play, but I still have a pretty keen sense of achievement – even more so, since I’d managed to finish it (final draft, an’ all) a full two days before the actual deadline. Normally, I find myself hacking out the third or fourth draft just a few hours before the final submissions are being accepted. And while I do refer to myself as a ‘writer’ on various websites and twitter feeds, this is why I’m somewhat wary of describing myself as such in real life. 

You see, writers actually write things. They get things done. I can’t always claim that great honour. Sure, I have ideas. Some of them are pretty good ideas. Some of those pretty good ideas would make well received books and TV programmes; because I’ve seen other people have the same ideas, and write the books and TV programmes before I did. And that’s the point, of course: anybody can have ideas. Ideas are cheap currency; ideas are all around us, over-laden fruit on trees. I sincerely believe that writers who complain that they can never come up with ideas are simply not recognising that at least half of the thoughts they’ve had that day are in fact ideas that could potentially make a good story. But that’s a blog entry for another day.

This blog entry, however, is about the ideas that I do have, but never actually develop into a full script. Most writers will recognise this: a new and shiny, sexy and exciting idea that’s fun to write for the first thousand words or so, and then – well, then, it feels too much like hard work. Particularly if  writing isn’t actually your day job, and you have to fit in between shifts of your actual hard work. And then, horror of horrors, you end up having another new and shiny, sexy and exciting, brand new idea that suddenly seems a helluva lot more alluring that the crappy old idea that isn’t cooperating with you right now. So you drop that idea, and move onto the new – until the cycle repeats itself, again and again. I’d argue that, even if you’re writing two thousand words a day, if you’re not actually finishing anything – if there’s nothing produced at the end of the day that has a beginning, middle and an end – well, then: you don’t actually get to call yourself a writer. I say this, and yet I’m still figuring it out for myself.

Even that’s being overly romantic about it. That line about it seeming too much like hard work? That’s uncomfortably near the truth. A lot of us so-called writers don’t actually write (or, more specifically, re-write, edit and finish) our work because of sheer laziness. That’s it, nothing more noble or mysterious than that. Oh, yeah, sure, there’s other stuff , like fear of success (not fear of failure, you’ll notice. But the crippling fear that somebody will like what you’ve produced, and expect that you can come up with more of the same). But there’s only one way to get past that: just get the stuff written. Now, some of you might have a sneaking suspicion that I’m writing this much more for my benefit than yours, and in that you would be entirely correct (let’s face it, the only reader who bumps up the hit counter on this blog is me myself when I’m trying to check if anyone else has wandered past).

And stuff gets in the way of your writing. I mean, literally. I started this blog on my way to work, and had to break off from writing when real life got in the way. I had a whole eloquent point to end on, that I could write up in my lunch break. Well, it’s now my lunch break, and the eloquent point has entirely vanished. No idea what the hell I wanted to talk about. Now, the other option would have been to junk this blog altogether. But, what exactly would have been the point of that? Now you, who have invested two minutes in reading this might have something to say about that. If I hadn’t committed to  actually writing and completing this blog, then right now, you’d be two minutes in credit. But let’s face it, what would you have done with those two minutes? (Don’t answer that. If anything you’re thinking of right now could be completed within two minutes, you probably don’t want to advertise the fact)

Sometimes – often, in fact – you’re going to have to write the crap in order to get to the good stuff. Maybe a hell of a lot of crap. But maybe, just maybe: you end up writing something decent. As long as you understand that it will almost always in that order.