Bullying bloggers
So Max, the would-be blogger on his gap-year jolly through India and south east Asia, has been driven off the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site after just one single post following a sustained onslaught by posters, incensed that some degree of nepotism might have seen this middle class teenager about to embark on a typically middle class pursuit getting such a high profile platform to document his trip. Now, I read his debut entry last Thursday and didn’t really think a whole lot of it - in fact it was pretty dreadful - but even so, I reckon the vicious response it got was wildly excessive and the decision to shut it down in the face of all the ‘cyber-bullying’ made for a mildly depressing Sunday afternoon read.
Serves them right for turning a once decent newspaper into a vapid blog.
Comment by Dan | February 17, 2008 at 11:54 pmThe personal attacks on Max were unwarranted, but the criticisms of his writing are fair game.
As for the nepotism, that’s fair game and the Guardian compounded it by completely ignoring it.
As for the extremist tone of some of the comments, welcome to internet. I have my sexuality questioned for being crap at Halo 3 online every day.
Comment by Steve K | February 18, 2008 at 10:06 amSome of it might have been a bit harsh (although the really harsh comments seem to have been moderated pretty sharpish), but the real fault lies not with the readers but the commissioning editor who thought this was a) acceptable and b) a good idea in the first place.
Comment by Neill | February 18, 2008 at 10:12 amI couldn’t believe the level of hate in the comments, they went well overboard.
I also couldn’t help thinking that Max is only 19 years old, leave him alone. If only people could get that animated and passionate about other things, things that actually matter.
Comment by red mum | February 18, 2008 at 10:21 amWell, it was Shane who brought this story to the attention of many Irish Times readers in the first place.
Secondly, the so-called “vicious” response is the same thing that professional journalists, who open up their copy to comments, get everyday when they publish shoddy, inaccurate or poorly-researched stories. Why should this kid be offered any other treatment?
The Internet has spawned this kind of “interactive” story-telling, and if editors don’t like it, they simply don’t have to open up their stories for comment. Where did the trend to discuss so-called “bullying” come from? From the blogs of course.
As I said, journalists, writers, artists, musicians, actors - anyone in the public eye - have been getting it in the neck for years. If some jumped-up kid wants to write about being a jumped-up kid and a national newspaper ridiculously endorses it, he should expect everything he gets. Sh*t happens.
Comment by Vandala | February 18, 2008 at 10:37 amVandala I really think people need to relax a little and put things in perspective - this guy is just a kid and should hardly “expect everything he gets”.. If people didn’t like his blog and didn’t think it worthy of CIF, then surely a better, more measured response would have been to just ignore it – it’s very simply done. What was the point of eviscerating the bloke for jumping at an opportunity that any bright 19-year-old would have killed for?
Comment by Conor | February 18, 2008 at 11:25 am#6. Well, maybe, but the story does demonstrate a certain double-standard in the “blogosphere”.
On the one level, we have have seen the usual tirade from “professional” journalists accusing bloggers of being amateurs. The blogosphere responds in kind by arguing that their kind of news-gathering is somehow more authentic, and more at the pulse of things. It’s no wonder then that Max and his kind provoke fury in both camps.
Lastly, if a national publication is going to endorse the ethos that “comment is free”, is it not therefore hypocritical to write-off an almost unanimous hostile response as “cyber-bullying” simply because the response was negative? The so-called presumption that the responses were indicitive of “class hatred” are way off the mark: the ground-swell is a a reaction to nepotism, cronyism, and the fourth estate’s ongoing obsession with the loathsome phenomena that is “lifestyle journalism”. Which is particularly odious from a paper which many would have once considered as left of centre.
Comment by Vandala | February 18, 2008 at 11:45 amI thought the comments were completely over the top and I thought the Guardian letting the mob rule was worse again. Some of the cutting comments were funny and some were just pure hatred.
The kid was getting grief for nothing more than the chipped egos of the Guardian readership. Elitist bunch of saddos aren’t they? The incident said more about the Guardian and those that swarm around their online presence than the youngfella.
Comment by Damien Mulley | February 18, 2008 at 12:24 pmDamian, an online mob seemed to form very, very quickly. There were links to his blog on forums all over the place with people being encouraged to visit CIF to give the ‘middle class twat’ a good kicking while dressing up their over-the-top rants as moral outrage of the highest order. Some of the comments were intentionally funny and others unintentionally so but after reading loads of them, I just felt a little sorry for the fella – in the time it took to fly from London to Mumbai he had turned into an national hate figure for some people - if that had happened to me when I was 19, I still wouldn’t be over the shock. And having said that, Vandala, I do think you’re probably right to say it was too simplistic of the Guardian to dismiss all the criticism as cyber-bullying, some of it was certainly valid.
Comment by Conor | February 18, 2008 at 12:57 pmLooking back at this again I think labelling it as “bullying” is irresponsible. There was a high minority of people making class, or unnecessary personal attacks, but for the majority it was an attack on nepotism, and righteous anger that this kid was handed an opportunity that a more deserving 19 year old “would have killed for”.
Many people who were dumbfounded by the poor quality of his writing are being lumped into the category of people with a chip on their should about class, simply because they ripped the piss over his “skinny jeans” comment.
Sure some of it was over the top but…. this is absolutely nothing new. It’s simply a new format.
Lastly, Conor as a blog journalist yourself I’m surprised you’ve blamed the viral nature of the commenting on some kind of pre-planned attack on the Guardian. Surely this “viral” phenomenon was nothing more than old fashioned word-of-mouth. Check out how many people on the page cite their source as “the office”.
Comment by Steve K | February 18, 2008 at 1:30 pmI think the nepotism thing was what really annoyed people and we don’t have to look across the water to see examples of that in the media. The press expects every other institution to operate as a meritocracy except its own.
Comment by David Bowie | February 18, 2008 at 3:05 pmSteve, I didn’t mean to suggest it was a pre-planned attack on the Guardian at all and you’re right, word of mouth played a big part in Max’s almost instant fall from grace. A couple people in this office came across sneering links to the CIF blog on a few diffent football forums that would rarely point people in the direction of the Guardian which is how I first became aware of it. And Mr Bowie sir, there’s nepotism afoot in Irish media circles? Surely not!
Comment by Conor | February 18, 2008 at 4:22 pmAside from the nepotism angle, the “going to India and Thailand to find myself” blog has been done to death by thousands before him and will be done by thousands after him. It’s a far from original concept, in fact, it’s the Naughties version of “a fortnight in Fuengirola”. Bloggers like Max are ten a penny. It’s just through the fortuitous family connection that he gets paid to write about his summer holiday, where as the rest of us just put it on LiveJournal or Bebo.
Comment by Caroline | February 20, 2008 at 2:15 pm