Stephen Fry returns to Twitter but the @brumplum controversy continues
I’m sure the power of Twitter could be used for good. Unfortunately, at the moment it seems to be being used by adults to play some spectacularly childish games, with memories of the school playground flooding back as I read the latest tweets. Stephen Fry ended up not quitting Twitter and is back to normal. But the controversy surrounding comments made by one of his followers and the backlash immediately afterwards is rumbling on.
The story so far in a nutshell: On Saturday, a follower of Stephen Fry tweeted that although he admires and adores him, he finds his tweets a little boring. Fry found out about this, commented on it, and then threatened to quit Twitter in the same way both Lily Allen and Miley Cyrus already have.
There then followed a barrage of vitriol directed at @brumplum, the guy who made the slightly negative comment. Without any regard for the feelings of this ordinary guy from Birmingham, many of Fry’s followers turned on him like a pack of rabid dogs. Even another celebrity Twitterer, Alan Davies, who appears alongside Fry on the quiz show QI, stumbled in blindly. He was one of the more vocal attackers, branding @brumplum “a moron” amongst other things.
Stephen Fry has now returned to Twitter. He flew to the United States as scheduled, and upon arriving made it clear that he had no beef with @brumplum, saying, “I am so sorry to hear ppl have been abusing you. You had every right to say what you did. Pls accept my apols. This is so awful,” and, “Thank you for being so understanding. I feel more sheepish than a sheep and more twattish than a twat.”
It’s a real testament to the power of Twitter that what started out as a very mild criticism of a celebrity caused a worldwide furor. Both the BBC and The New York Times have editorials about the incident, and the amount of tweets and reports about it on other sources show that people are interested in every little exchange that takes place on Twitter.
After all is said and done, I have the same level of respect and admiration for Stephen Fry as I ever did. I think @brumplum was entitled to what he said and didn’t deserve any of the criticism he received. However, Alan Davies hasn’t come out of it very well, and the mob mentality on Twitter is also pretty unpalatable.
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November 2nd, 2009
The topic has actually beeen all but dead for the last 18 hours or so (certainly nothing controversial, although I have picked up on a few jocular comments here and there). I have spent the day able to treat Twitter the way I always have and have resumed my usual activities and normal inane rambling and sharing pointless information with my (now-enlarged) group of friends. The only mentions of my username have been from either those friends or other people with questions or comments which are completely unrelated to the controversy.
Until several people starting linking this article about 20 minutes ago, the @brumplum controvery was no more, and it is this article which resurrected it!
I’m not making any kind of moral judgment about it (I find the whole thing rather amusing), but I hope you realise that by publishing this now, its title has become a self-fulfilling prohecy?
November 2nd, 2009
Jeezus…don’t people have a fricking life outside of Twitter and Facebook any more? everyone involved in this is just plain foolish. Get a life people.