On The Issue of Twitter and Taste

For those of you who missed these… whatever they are, I am pleased to say I have not forgotten you. A month on the tomato harvest gave me ample time to think. A fair portion is completely unsavoury, most of it was about a Wii and Boston Legal box set and a fair portion of it was bizarre dreams. But an hour a day I sat in quiet solitude and devoted my attention to keeping myself sane enough to come back and hoist myself back onto my soapbox, and I promise you, the view up here is brilliant.

My return to the Kingdom of Rust was marred somewhat by the spectre of an event that yearly makes me feel dead inside for a good twelve hours: the Logies. I’m glad I missed them. All the self importance of the Oscars with none of the credibility AND Richard Wilkins, who offends me. Next year, though, I may pay attention via Twitter, seeing as how most comedians and commentators were offering thoughts in real time. Genius! Unless you’re one of this country’s most popular comics, or a now former columnist for a major newspaper.

For those of who are blissfully unaware, I am talking about Wil Anderson and Catherine Deveny, both of whom were harshly criticised for their tweets. Deveny was made example of and lost her job. I won’t say what they were, suffice to say, Anderson did not comment, whereas Deveny made the unfortunate mistake of trying to defend herself.

Now:

I do not mind a bit of crass humour. I like it when the ire of society is raised. I defended the Chaser wholesale, and I have never demanded a person be sacked or resign over remarks made. The f-bomb and c-tilery are standard punctuation in my brother’s and my vocabulary. I like shock and I think it necessary. But shock is a very volatile substance, and if you use it wrong, you will be burned.

It is to Catherine I direct my attention in this piece. I can’t blast her too hard without feeling bad. She is a hard-working comedian and is quite an insightful columnist. But when you have to go on ABC Radio National and explain you are a comedian, you’re not doing it right. I suppose I was a bit taken aback when she said with seriousness I cannot deny that her tweets were “taken out of context” and that to understand them one must “understand social networking”. I don’t agree. I may be taking her comments out of context in this very paragraph, but this is Twitter we’re talking about.

Twitter is seen as a sort of ego trip usually but anyone who works with words for a living (I believe) should use it regularly. It’s a free and simple way of learning word economy, or to direct people who like your thoughts to other things you’ve written and are proud of. However, it is a totally blank canvas, and in 140 characters you must give your thoughts context and substance otherwise it is lost in the ether. The ‘hash tag’ is a brilliant way to do this. And by adding the hash tag “#logies” after her thoughts Deveny automatically gave them context. The nuances of social networking don’t enter into it at all. Anderson was catty, but funny. Deveny was just mean.

Part of it may have to do with the stance the two took. American journalist, activist and all-round arse kicker Allison Kilkenny has made the point that comedians from left wing political backgrounds will mostly be quite different to their conservative contemporaries. Anderson is undoubtedly from a liberal background, and his humour is very easily interpreted as such. Even when acidic, he’s still quite impish about it. Deveny’s background of writing for one of this country’s most conservative broadsheets is quite evident in what she writes, and when she is vicious, it is really quite cruel. Again, this is just me.

The reality is I think this whole incident has been blown out of proportion. There are hundreds of opinions about the Logies, each more offensive than the last. It’s a glitzy popularity contest at heart and if we’re going to be subjected to it, may as well have people make it interesting. And why would you fire anyone over their tweets? It’s fucking TWITTER. Had they been politicians tweeting through Parliament when they should be working, fair do’s, give them a talking to. But journalists and media types doing it at a very overrated event is nothing to bat an eyelid over.

Well that’s it. I’m back. I’m rusty I’ll admit but it’s good to be writing again. I thank Allison for letting me source her. www.allisonkilkenny.com is her brilliant blog and www.wearecitizenradio.com is the radio show she and comic Jamie Kilstein make three times weekly. Podcast it through iTunes. It’s awesome. (I hope I’ve repaired the damage of butchering a fine quote) Thank you for reading, and thank you for your comments in advance. Til next time.