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The Happy Now? sell-outs continue, though the Spring Arts Centre in Havant is quite a small room. But then again it is in Havant where I have never played before, so easily getting 140 people in is a mini-triumph in itself. And with tomorrow's podcast being a sell-out (though not, I think it's fair, because of me) I had the rare excitement of an entire weekend of gigs with every ticket sold, which must surely have happened to me at some point (but I am not sure that it has). Well over 800 tickets sold in three days. The rumours of my demise (largely started by myself) seem premature.
With little sleep, the cold still raging and a second day of driving I was a little worse for wear, but there are harder jobs to do and I am unusual in that generally speaking going to work can help lift me out of tiredness and illness if only for a short time. On the journey down I suddenly realised I had forgotten the adapter to connect my computer to the projector at the venue and berated my stupidity. Then I realised I had also forgotten my computer. But luckily, as it's officially the future now, I had the video and pictures I needed in dropbox on my phone and was able to email them to the technician at the venue who then made a quick powerpoint for me, so all was well.
Twitter had been abuzz with mockery of a piece in today's Guardian in which an anonymous mother wrote an open letter to her 10 year old son, complaining that he didn't appreciate her enough. It was frankly a ridiculous piece for many reasons, although I think really just expressing the frustrations of parenthood rather than being any serious attempt to make the child see sense. Even so it came across as rather petulant and childish in itself. Yes, your kid doesn't realise what you do for him, but that's cos he's ten. So it's just like when you were ten and couldn't think of anyone but yourself. And to be fair, I'm not sure you've quite shaken that idea that the universe revolves around you as an adult either. But don't worry. Hardly anyone does.
I thought I'd join the list of Twitter jokes and though I was aware that some people would not necessarily understand the reference and be confused, I thought that the comment was wild enough to be appreciated as a surreal joke in itself. I often don't bother posting jokes on Twitter any more because of the 100% certainty of someone misunderstanding what you're saying, or taking it seriously or having a knee-jerk reaction and then tweeting back in horror. But whilst I thought some people might say “What are you talking about?†I thought this tweet was unlikely to be taken at face value.
I said, "Open letter to my 8 month old daughter. stop shitting yourself, it's undignified and disrespectful to me. i dont mind, but come on.â€
I mean even if you believed that someone with a baby could be genuinely disdainful of their incontinence, or seriously expect them to be able to sort it out or see it as a personal affront (as the Guardian writer had seemed to) then surely you'd think, “But what is the use of telling her in an Open Letter on Twitter? Even if she can somehow read, she's unlikely to have a Twitter account or the agility required to check her feed. And what self-respecting 8 month old would follow their own parent on social media?"
But no, more people than you'd expect (i.e. more than 0) must have seen someone retweeting my comment (as none of them followed me) and thought I must be an idiot who must be told how stupid I was. These people didn't stop to think about whether I might not mean it, or to bother looking for any context. They were so convinced I was stupid that they were just going to blunder in and chastise me, ironically in the process revealing their own dunderheaded idiocy.
The first person tweeted, "as McEnroe would say "you cannot be serious “â€, to which I could only reply “I'm notâ€. It was a shame they had got so close to realising that what I had tweeted was almost comically stupid and then not made the necessary mental leap.
Then someone bothered to tell me "#moronic comment†so I said “Yes, it could almost be a jokeâ€.
Another person (who has subsequently deleted their tweet) informed me that I had to give my child a few months and that it was crazy for me to expect them to control themselves at this age. I just thank God that there are moral guardians out there who are helping poor parents like me understand the basic biology of infants.
The best one though was the sanctimonious “ Do you think that 'humour' like this can turn to serious abuse?"
This person could see that this was supposed to be some kind of joke (though alas didn't have the necessary resources to understand what the joke was) but feared that it might hide some kind of truth about me as a parent and me tweeting this was just the first step in a journey that would end with me, what? Beating my baby for doing another poo in her nappy rather than in the toilet as I had showed her?
For too long Twitter mobs have gone after people clearly making jokes. Sometimes they've been bad jokes, but usually they've been jokes that the tweeter has been broadcasting to friends and colleagues rather than the world at large, who they can be fairly sure will understand the intent. If you see a RT by someone you don't know then it's not really your business, but if you want to make it your business you should be made to do a certain amount of work. Twitter should introduce some multiple choice questions that you have to answer before you are allowed to comment. Have you checked the person's bio to find out if they are likely to be a serious or comedic tweeter? Have you checked the context of the tweet? Have you googled a few of the key phrases to check that this tweet does not refer to some news item that you are unaware of? Is it possible that there is irony in the tweet? Do you think it is a good idea to quote John McEnroe? Have you considered the possibility that it is you who is stupid and that perhaps it might be better to try and hide that from the world rather than reveal it by responding to what is probably obviously a joke to a non-stupid person in a serious way?"
It's probably worth going through this mental checklist with everything. To be honest, now I've done it myself I am not entirely sure that the Guardian article wasn't a joke in the first place. Duh!
