An open letter to columnists who say "Don't read the bottom half of the internet"

There's a little meme I've been hearing recently. Columnists repeating it, "Don't read the bottom half of the internet".

What they mean is comments on stories are often hurtful so avoid them.

Now there's a certain logic to this. Avoiding the haters is one strategy but it's utterly, utterly flawed.

When you turn off the feedback loop you lose the good bits. It's like having a sore finger and cutting off your arm. You need to keep listening to the world, else what on earth can you write about?

I'm reminded of the John Updike line: "Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his over animation. One can either see or be seen."

So keep listening. I don't mean you shouldn't block an annoying troll, but to use trolls as a reason to stop listening to everyone is a form of creative suicide.

Now the class war bit.

Disengagement also suggests a level of contempt for the reader. There's a chippy voice in my head that hears it as: "here's the class traitors whispering to each other 'don't listen to the proles.'"

I can't help but see the class issues here. It's even in the language and the structure of the page, "the BOTTOM half of the internet". Like the servants' quarter in a Victorian house; below stairs.

The power structure is the columnist at the top of the page, and the horrible 'pond life' (a phrase also commonly used by TV producers) who do it for free at the bottom. Don't read them, the columnists say. They say nasty things about us.

Well of course they say nasty things. They're given a smaller voice by the class system encoded into the very structure of article (top) + comment (bottom). All they can do is lob word bombs up the page whilst the columnist gets to write out their entire opinion at the top of the page and beam it to 100,000s of readers via a popular news site.

My advice to high profile columnists is remember you are in a lucky privileged position. Writing isn't dreadfully specific skill - it's taught to millions via our schooling system. And opinions? Well I've yet to meet people without opinions. Yes you are probably quite good at your job and you probably struggled to get there, but it's a bit like being a successful actor or popstar - plenty of people have the ability few get the opportunity.

BTW: To head off some inevitable criticisms. Yes I do know what getting hateful feedback is like. I'm not a columnist but I've run moderately well known websites for over 10 years. I've had a death threat to a member of my family. I've had my phone number printed on Facebook with calls to abuse me. I've had weird things sent to my house. I've been sent such poisonous emails that I've been left raging, smashed things & then slumped leaving me unproductive for days.

However vile the abuse, remember this is part of the price of getting a public voice. Stay grateful. Don't kick the proles - the work might disappear and both of us could be back at the bottom of the page seething about the people at the top of page who do this for a living.

Imagine what your editor would say if the comments went and never came back? The words P45 spring to mind. Then you'll be looking back at the trolls through rose tinted spectacles.

Why looking at politics through the lens of Mr Hypocrite vs Mr Freechoice is unhelpful

The Boris / Ken election has consumed a lot of my mental space recently. Many of the media attacks on Ken have been based upon accusation of hypocrisy - which I don't want to address here, not the specifics of possible hypocrisy but how that's a such a sideshow.

I've been thinking of a parable. An example I've consciously made extreme to emphasise the point that policy is more important than the personal details of how an individual behaves.

Imagine a person - let's call him Mr Hypocrite - he's murdered someone. He's a murderer. No doubt he's a rotten egg but he's planning to enact policy to make sure all murderers are jailed. "Utter hypocrisy!", the newspaper columnists shout. "He doesn't practise what he preaches!", the people repeat.

Now the other guy. Mr Freechoice. He's never murdered anyone but he's planning to make laws that people should be free to murder. Blimey.

Who do you want making policy? The Mr Hypocrite who makes murders go to jail? Or the Mr Freechoice guy who transcends hypocrisy?

The obvious point I'm trying to make is the policy a politician enacts is more important than how a politician personally runs his own life. Mr Hypocrite overall makes sure murders are banged up (what a hypocrite) whilst Mr Freechoice actively makes our society more dangerous.

Out shitty media: it makes us debate the person and not the policy & this is an utterly cack way of understanding the choices.

How To Stop The Daily Mail

This week it's Samantha Brick, last week it was something Liz Jones said and next week I imagine it’ll be Jan Moir. You don’t need this rubbish in your life, it’s destructive and insulting and yet with social media it’s almost impossible to avoid.

My twitter feed is full of Daily Mail links. People hating it, people pretending they are so superior to it all, people going ‘oh they’re just super trolls, ignore it.’

And so you’ll ended up reading it through gritted teeth.

I haven’t read the Samantha Brick article. Yes I’ve seen reactions to it. But the bilious shit hasn’t reached me. How can I be so strong? Simple. I’ve had the whole site on a DNS block for the last six months.

It’s an easy thing to do and you can do it at home OR ask your IT person to do it for your office. Here’s how.

1. Go to OpenDNS.com and sign up for an account. It’s free.
2. Add ‘www.dailymail.co.uk’ to the always block drop down
3. Go to your router and change your DNS to use opendns instead of your ISP’s DNS.

Then when someone links to a Daily Mail story via Twitter – even when it’s hidden via a shortened link – you’ll be free. Free I tell you. Liberated from this utter nonsense. Do it now, I implore you.

This is what the Daily Mail now looks like to me:

Better isn’t it? Now take my advice and do some bloody work instead.

UPDATE: Several people suggesting Kitten Block as an alternative - a Chrome / Firefox script that changes the Daily Mail to pictures of kittens. This is a fine project but OpenDNS wins because

1. There's about 6 devices in this house capable of displaying the Daily Mail - phones, ipad, laptops etc, and OpenDNS blocks them all in one go.

2. When something is blocked by OpenDNS it takes a good 5 mins to unblock it. This stops temptation.