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I've been wondering what to do about Twitter for a while. I suppose I've been hoping that Musk might be ousted and things might go back to something like they used to be, not that it's been a bed of roses. I hang on to the idea that it's an important place to promote my gigs and podcasts, though I am not sure that's true. It gave me a little bit of a bump in the recent kickstarter, possibly, but nothing compared to what it did in the past
In my younger days I quite enjoyed the argy-bargy of social media (and to be fair it wasn't quite the sewer that some of it has now become). When I had three days of Ricky Gervais fans calling me a spastic for questioning his use of disablist language (sort of proving my point in the process) I gamely tried to answer as many of them as possible (though never have I seen my mentions moving as fast as they did at this point so it was hard to keep up). When it all subsided and I had a moment to breath I did cry a little bit at the barrage of insults I had received. It was a lot. But it was only a little wobble. And there was some nice support. Sean Lock, who I didn't know well at all and who I always thought didn't think that much of me as a comedian (and fair enough - I am not as good as he was) texted me to say how impressed he'd been with my resolve. Which was very nice of him.
I tweeted the other day "I wasn’t expecting much from keir starmer. But I got less than I was expecting." And I admit that I got him wrong. I thought that people who said voting for him was the same as voting for the Tories underestimated how much worse the Tories were, but nope, if anything I feel he's closer to being a Reform Prime Minister. He's attempting to woo Reform voters by looking touch on immigration and trans issues, but all he is doing is legitimising their point of view and people will vote for Reform, not Labour as a result. Does his volte face about what constitutes a woman mean that the "trans women aren't women" believers now think he's great? No, of course not. That's not how people's brains work, especially when they have put all their eggs in one basket. They are actually more critical of him than ever and less likely to vote for him.
I did add that "The only thing starmer has going for him is that absolutely no one jumps in to cultishly defend him if you criticise him, making him practically unique in modern politics." And it was interesting that nobody did jump in to defend him in the way that they definitely would have done if I'd tweeted about Trump or Corbyn. In fact in the last couple of days Corbyn fans have jumped on the tweet to say "I told you so" etc, because I'd previously tweeted negatively about Corbyn's chances of getting elected.
It's possible, of course, that neither man is the right choice for leader and personally I prefer Corbyn to Starmer, but still maintain that he wasn't going to win an election (partly because he didn't), but of course that's all because I believed the media lies about him. I'd like to put the two of them in a fly style transportation device and make someone who was electable and a socialist, but the danger is you'd make someone who was unelectable and to the right of Nigel Farage.
But as with Starmer and JK Rowling, even if I admit that I was wrong (as I usually am and as statistically speaking nearly everyone in the world is most of the time- think how wrong nearly everyone in history was about everything - are you really sure you’ve got anything right?) there's no point in me trying to answer people who 100% believe they are right. As with the anti-trans people who are still furious with me because I once tweeted that it was just polite to call people what they ask to be called, neither of you is going to convince the other and now the horrible abuse that results in expressing an opinion, however wrong it might be (I wish I had the confidence of Trump supporters or people who think they can readily define gender, but I have pretty much fuck all idea about anything, apart from the belief that people who 100% believe in anything and can't accept it being questioned without becoming offensive are all fucking tosspots.... oh wait).
I am not as mentally strong as I was 10 years ago. I no longer get any pleasure from confrontation - quite the opposite. And the lesson I have learned but ignored from social media is that you should just stay away from this stuff. Engaging with any of it just validates it. You are not going to change the minds of those who have completely made up their minds and they are not going to change yours. Social media is not the place for nuanced debate and when things descend into abuse, that is not going to make someone come over to your side.
And as we've seen above, often people don't want you to come over to your side. It's never- well done for realising Starmer wasn't the answer or congrats on realising what a woman is. It's "See, we were right and you were wrong and how dare you change your mind?"
Ultimately though I just realised that a lot of this stuff is just making me feel shitty and panicked and upset and I am under no obligation to get involved.
So in typical wishy-washy, probably incorrect, confused about everything, mainly just doing stuff for jokes Richard Herring style I made the decision not to delete my Twitter account, but to only use it to post promo stuff (for a bit at least) and to use Bluesky as the place where I workshop jokes (Twitter has largely been just a notepad for me to put down half-ideas that might become blogs or routines) and to just block anyone who is abusive. I love being able to chat with people who have seen the shows and to discuss stuff open-mindedly and am open to constructive criticism. But mainly I just want to mess around whilst encouraging you to come and see a show or whatever.
And of course on Substack I will be writing about stuff (like this here) at greater length.
You can subscribe if you like. and comment too and as long as you're polite in your disagreement with everything I half stand for then I will reply.
Self-Playing Snooker fans! Exciting news. Your chance to own a small piece of history. It's like a bit of the Berlin Wall crossed with a piece of the true cross, but better. And plus you'll be helping us to make even more podcasts.
You can get a signed piece of my original snooker board here. Or from me at gigs. Snap them up before they are all gone.
