Friday 16 October 2009

The Power Of Twitter and a Busy Week

There were a few hangings on Twitter this week, the odd escaped balloon, a roof top protest and a miserable employee.

Jan Moir has been hung, drawn and quartered for her completely bigoted and despicable article on the untimely and tragic death of the young Steven Gately. Her acidic tongue and the venom she flicked from it was ceremoniously ripped from her mouth and thrust down her throat. She deserved it. Her downfalls began when she assumed she could hide behind the Daily Mail and flaunt her vicious nature whilst waving her 'I am a serious journalist and have the right to voice my warped opinions' flag. The aforementioned flag has been ripped from her hands and not too gently put into a place where the sun does not shine. Her arrogance was terrifying and her ignorance was beyond belief. Her mistake was assuming anyone would have even considered the opinions of such a misinformed witch as her. I am only surprised she only managed to miss mentioning Jade Goody out of diatribe of claptrap. Perhaps that is being saved for her next article.

The Trafigura toxic waste dumping off the Ivory Coast was shoved, none too silently, out into the public domain, completely defeating the object of the Court Injunction against The Guardian Newspaper. Within hours, more people knew of the incident than would have if The Guardian had actually published the article in the first place. The object of the exercise was complete, we knew about it and we shouted about it. Success.

Balloon Boy disappeared over the USA in a weather balloon, sparking a major incident, only to reappear, several hours later in his parent’s loft. Don’t ask! Amid cries of, ‘it’s a publicity stunt’ the Internet went into free fall, somewhat like the deflated balloon the child was said to, mysteriously, have got into before it vacated its tethering rope on Terra Firma.

Greenpeace went up on the roof of Parliament to raise awareness of Climate Change and tweeted from the rooftops. They also produced one of the most iconic photographs of recent weeks as they held a large, yellow banner above their heads against the backdrop of Big Ben.

Ian was exceptionally rude to an elderly traveller on the London train network. I suspect, as a result of the huge outcry on Twitter and several ‘tweets’ to the Mayor of London, he will lose his job. Quite rightly so.

What have I learnt this week?
  • That if you are misinformed, vicious and have an axe to grind, do not do it in print and expect to keep your head.
  • That if you don’t keep your children tethered to the ground they float off.
  • If you anchor your ship off the coast and poison thousands of innocent people, you will be found out.
  • If you angrily suggest that someone be pushed under a train, your words will come back to haunt you.
  • Finally, if you want to shout about something, get up on the roof.
If you do any of the aforementioned stand by your computer, we are all armed with opinions and some are not scared to voice them. Who said Twitter was for saddos? Let us hope it is a bit quieter next week.

1 comment:

  1. It was definitely an exciting week. Things seem to move fast on Twitter and I love it!

    ReplyDelete