This isn’t a flounce
I started writing a post the other day with this title, but it got lost in the ether. I don't mind, on reflection, as it gave me more time to think about it. You sit around with ideas in your head and you can just let them rattle around, or you can express them. For me, as a writer, it's often a good idea to express them, even if expressing them makes you look a little, well, odd perhaps.
Anyway, this isn't a flounce. It's not one of those 'oh, I've had enough, I'm taking my ball away' things. Not really. Although you may see it that way, which you're entitled to do, and that's fine. But it isn't. And that's the problem, sometimes, isn't it? I can sit here until the end of time saying "Look, I promise you, the place where this thing that I've written comes from isn't where you think it's come from, and I should know, given that I wrote it," but sometimes that isn't enough. Sometimes people will say "No, I know where this thing you wrote came from, even if you deny it came from there," implying that I'm being either knavishly misleading or naively obscuring the truth from myself. Either way, I end up coming across as a dick, don't I? But the thing is, if I write something, I reckon I have a fairly good idea why I wrote it and how I wrote it and what it means.
You may disagree, and that's fine. But it doesn't make you right. At the very least, it gives me a slightly better chance of being right than you are. It's not to say some people don't write things that are wilfully misleading (me included) or occasionally fool themselves about what they're trying to get out of a piece, because I'm sure that happens too (and I'm sure I've done it); but, in the main, I reckon I know what I'm doing.
God, how miserably arrogant this all sounds already. But I am resisting the temptation to drag the cursor back to the beginning and start again. Having lost this article once, I don't want to lose it again. (If it's any consolation, the first draft was probably more fun than this, and had more jokes. But we'll both have to muddle on through.) And I don't want you to think this is about you, unless it is. You're not so vain, unless you are. Maybe you're really lovely, as most people are; it's just that some people aren't. Why am I writing a long letter to them, then, the lovely people ask, and not us, who are lovely? It's not that; it's just that I need to explain about the non-loveliness, for the benefit mainly of the people who are lovely, since the people who aren't lovely don't give a shit anyway, and it's almost entirely unlikely to change their behaviour. Not that I want to change anyone's behaviour, or foolishly think I am capable of doing so through anything I write anyway. But still.
I should get to the point really. I dread reading comments. Dread, dread, dread. Like a sickness that sits in the pit of my stomach. I hate it. I hate knowing that there are comments underneath the things I write. I dread even moderating the own comments on my own blog, most of which are largely lovely and supportive and wonderful. I don't read the ones under my New Statesman blog, because that's a largely depressing experience. I wrote something for Comment is Free the other week which was fun to write, but I made the mistake of looking in the comments. Bloody hell! It was like being slapped in the face with a rubber fish, time after time after time.
There's a sequence in Stewart Lee's Carpet Remnant World show (which I saw the other day, and enjoyed immensely) where he changes the lighting and reads out online comments about him. I won't spoil the show for the benefit of those who are yet to see it (and you really ought to, if you're anything like me; but if you're not, don't) but it was pretty strong meat. You find yourself laughing, but you realise that it's a strange kind of laughter. I found myself laughing because of the casual hatred of the abuse, I think, because it was something familiar. Lee hates Twitter ("a celebrity Stasi policed by willing idiots" or something like that, he called it, and "a bunch of rats in a ditch, fighting over some piss") and while I don't on the whole, I do feel that way sometimes. I have an increasing amount of sympathy for that worldview. You write something, and you end up having 100 conversations about it, with people who hate you, hate what you wrote, despise you, despise everything you stand for and wish unpleasantness upon you. Luckily I'm not as popular as Lee so I only see a tiny fraction of what 'someone off the telly' gets, but I know a sliver of how it feels, to have people wish pain, injury, violence and death on you. (It does happen to men too.)
Boo hoo, you might say, you know what you signed up for when you decided to get a photo byline and payment rather than sitting around in gleeful anonymity. You're part of the metropolitan liberal elite and you hate the masses! You're sneering down from your smug plinth over the unwashed scum, whom you regard with contempt, because you've decided you're set apart from them, and better than them somehow! You're just like all the other so-called lefties who secretly hate ordinary people! And so on. Say that if you like. But it doesn't make it right. That's not where I'm coming from at all, and, as I said earlier, given that I'm writing this and you aren't, there's a chance I might know what I'm on about when it comes to my own writing.
I mean, by all means, do the 'liberal elites hate the masses' thing if you want. It's a nice, familiar narrative and there are people who make a career out of repeating the same thing, in slightly different words, all the time. Bring class into it if you want to try and engage with a different audience, because everything has to apparently be about class at some point. Oh, it's all about class! The political classes! The chattering classes! The ruling classes! All about class. Not liking comments is about class war! Well, maybe, or maybe it's about something else. But by all means, as I say, if you'd rather you tell me what I'm thinking rather than hear it from me, you be my guest.
I'm sure there are people who hate comments because they are snobs or elitists, by the way. I'm not ruling that out. I'm not even ruling out the notion that it might have something to do with how I feel. But suppose I actually know my own mind, what would I put it down to? I think you get ground down after a while. Some people love comments, and I envy them; it must be a delight for them to open up an article and scroll down through it all. Lucky them. But I am not like that at all, and I'll explain why, if I can. It doesn't matter how many positive reactions I get to something, I end up focussing on the negative most of all. This is a good character trait in many ways, and ends up making you try and ensure that you improve what you're doing; but it has a rather deleterious effect on your soul.
I think it's probably good to write something in the expectation that you're going to face scrutiny for it. That's fine too. Quite right, too. It makes you a better writer to know that people are going to pull you up on your mistakes, if you make them. It makes you more determined to get rid of them from your output. Good. That's the positive aspect of criticism, and it's one that's really important. You become a better writer by anticipating people's arguments against you and ensuring you've addressed their points; you make sure you don't give your opponents an easy 'out' by heading them off. So that's all positive.
What isn't as positive is when people just read the headline, and decide they'll fly down to the comments box and tell you you're a cock. Or when people read a sentence or two, then tell you they only read a sentence or two, and didn't read the rest, but they've decided they know what you've written. Or when people just tell you you're scum. Or a cunt. Or whatever. That's not so much fun, in my experience, but your mileage may vary. Or when people so wilfully get the wrong end of the stick of what you're saying that you face the choice of ponderously explaining the same tonal shift to 100 different people in a row on Twitter, or you just go out for a long walk and leave your phone off. Christ knows I try and do the first thing, but I want to do the second one so much. It's not anyone's fault but mine if someone misreads something, by the way, and I don't mean to imply that it's anything other than poor communication; but on the other hand, not all communication of a message relies on a literal reading of certain sentences from a text in isolation, through the prism of intense rage and aggression. That's not the best way to read something, sometimes, in my opinion.
There's the other thing where I think I've become a worse writer since I've started writing with comments or commenters or other people in mind. I end up saying 'in my opinion' or 'perhaps' or littering my articles with a hundred thousand caveats. It's messy and needlessly complicated, and I know other writers have told me off for it frequently - and they're right. It's cleaner and better to just say what you think, and know that you can only get to so much of the truth in a 500-600 word blogpost, and just fire it off. I need to do more of that. It might mean that a few of the perhapses and the maybes and the possiblys go missing, but that will probably make it better. They stem from awkwardness, from a lack of conviction, from a lack of certainty.
I can write (and frequently do) endlessly meandering pieces full of contradictions or complications and maybes and possiblys and caveats and whatever, but there's something unsatisfactory about them. Not intellectually, because I find them to be a better representation of what I actually think; but they're never as popular as when I come out all guns blazing, arrogantly and bombastically telling people this is what I think, and this is the way it is. God I wish the mimsying, dithering, dawdling stuff was as popular, but it simply isn't. Many other writers, I suspect, have come across the same thing, and been faced with an unavoidable conclusion: cut the crap, say the controversial stuff, and shake off the abuse that's going to come with it.
Where does this leave me now, then? Well, as I've said, this isn't a flounce. I think it means for this blog, where I moderate the comments myself, I'm going to have to leave it to less controversial subjects. They'll all be covered at the other place. This place is going to be for things I can enjoy discussing. Genuinely enjoy discussing. You'll forgive me if I only put myself in the stocks when I'm getting paid for it. It's the only way to keep me relatively sane, I think. As for interacting on Twitter, it's something that I know troubles a lot of bloggers. Look, I love it. I love speaking to people and having random people telling me they've read the stuff I've written. I'd rather it was read than not read. But I don't know if I can really go through endless debates on Twitter. I don't have the time, and I don't have the ability, and I don't have the personality to do it. I know for some of you, fighting on Twitter is a right old laugh, but for me it isn't. It just leaves me empty and sad, and I hate it, and myself.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. If you like, you can just say that I'm a stupid privileged liberal elite arsehole who thinks he's above criticism. I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with discussing it for hours afterwards. I don't have the energy, and I don't have the time, and it's not for me. I'm sorry, but there it is. I hope my writing gets better, and less stuffed with caveats, and more confident. If it does, that might mean it upsets more people, but I can handle that if I don't have to moderate the comments as well.
And that's that.
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About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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May 8th, 2012 - 09:13
Doesn’t come across as a flounce, at least not to me. I understand where you’re coming from completely. For what it’s worth, I think you’re a very good and balanced writer, and I enjoy reading your stuff. I honestly don’t know how some commenters live with themselves, given the sort of vile stuff they leave BTL; conversely, I don’t know how some writers are able to just shake that stuff off. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Actually, thinking about it, perhaps the reason comments are so often littered with the sort of unpleasantness you mention is because those of us who agree with the piece are content to just sit here, reading, nodding along, rather than actually bother saying so. Maybe we should.
May 8th, 2012 - 19:37
“Actually, thinking about it, perhaps the reason comments are so often littered with the sort of unpleasantness you mention is because those of us who agree with the piece are content to just sit here, reading, nodding along, rather than actually bother saying so. Maybe we should.”
I think this is a truism.
The amount of blogs I follow and comment on, is mainly to disagree with some argument the author has made or point out erroneous thinking (in a polite manner!) and I rarely feel the need to write a comment which essentially says “I agree” – instead, I use Twitter to link to what I’ve read if the article is thoughtful/thought provoking.
There does appear to be a “silent majority” on the ‘net who simply think “Oh that was a good piece” but post nothing, at least in my experience based on friends commenting on blog posts – which is rarely if ever at all.
Moderation of comments is an extremely time consuming affair; better simply ignoring trolls and folk attacking you personally, rather than your arguments. Or switch off comments altogether – the BBC do just that when it comes to ALL politics in Scotland. Can’t have a Nat commenting on a taxpayer funded website, after all!
Or switch off comments on contentious subjects if you know you are going to attract personal abuse. It’s your blog, you can do what the hell you like with it. And you don’t have to answer to anyone.
Regards
May 8th, 2012 - 09:39
I debated whether or not to say this to you over twitter the other day, but it was a bit long-winded for 140 chars.
I just wanted to say that I’ve been following you and your writing for the best part of three years now, and that I’ve pretty much loved every minute. I’ve never commented before (you can probably tell I’m not the most articulate of people), and while I may not have agreed with absolutely everything you’ve said, I’ve read a lot of your stuff (here and over at New Statesman) and you’ve been a big inspiration to me as a writer and blogger. And to top it all off, you just seem like a really nice and decent person. I really hope you do keep on blogging here, even if it’s more about cats that look like Des Lynam, and less about the latest immigration controversy, or whatever.
Anyway, I’ll stop now to avoid sounding more like a crazed sycophant than I already have. But thanks for being awesome.
May 8th, 2012 - 09:49
Working class elites represent. We should have our own very exclusive club.
May 8th, 2012 - 10:13
Hey Steven, you are one of the many people I follow on Twitter. The other day you tweeted something which gave me the impression you may be quitting the whole business. It made me stop in my tracks.
You are one of the best reads on the internet. I really value your articles and your tweets since I began following you on Twitter a couple of years ago. I wanted to respond with such praise somewhere after I read your tweet the other day. But below this article has provided an ideal space to do so! Cheers!
Anyway, remember that for every negative comment, there are hundreds if not thousands of people like me who value the work but don’t normally respond.
Thanks for the great work. Please keep it up.
May 8th, 2012 - 10:36
Just occasionally, through the drivel of the Blogosphere, you catch sight of a piece that resonates totally. I can truthfully say that I was near moved to tears by this piece. I have sat and stared at it for an hour or more. I had the time to do so because I have not written anything myself for several days, an unusual state of affairs for me.
I don’t so much disagree with you as differ from you, in that in my case, it is not the commentators that are the problem. I am blessed with those I believe to be the finest commentators on the web. Highly intelligent, witty, erudite folks who put so much effort into their written responses to the day’s debate that they frequently make me ashamed of the puny effort I put into whichever post sparked the conversation.
No, it is the non-commentators who drive me to despairing web silence. That vast army, many thousands strong, who loggon within minutes of me posting, but never, ever, contribute to the blog. They copy and paste, scurrying back to their own rat holes where they tear the piece apart. They all belong to partisan forums, only interested in one point of view, and there they bleed the piece dry of whatever succor they think they can find to support their views. They are not remotely interested in defending their point of view in open debate. Just using my effort, taking words and phrases out of context, to prove how right they are.
Somewhere, across the cyberwaves, there will be another forum, where the same piece will be being dissected by another group, torturing it to prove how right they are.
Then there are the e-mails, shoals of them, day after day. The come in two varieties.
Dear Anna, I used to really admire you but you have so disappointed me today that I am cancelling my subscription. You said that glass was half full, but any moron can see that it is half empty and I am appalled to find that someone whose opinion I respected and supported should stoop to lying that it was half full. It is people like you who have ruined this country. I wouldn’t dream of saying so on-line but I thought you ought to know how disgusted I am by you.
Signed jabbawockypornstarthe3rd
It will be followed within minutes by:
Dear Anna, I used to really admire you and count you as a friend but you have so disappointed me today that I am cancelling my subscription. You said that glass was half empty, but any moron can see that it is half full and I am appalled to find that someone whose opinion I respected and supported should stoop to lying that it was half empty. It is people like you who have ruined this country. I wouldn’t dream of saying so on-line but I thought you ought to know how disgusted I am by you.
Signed overweightkeyboardwarriorthe4th
I should be flattered that so many people subscribe to the blog – but I’m not. I feel intimidated by them. I feel used by them. I feel utterly inhibited about writing about anything at the moment. Whatever subject I pick, I will not feel free to just let the words flow and say whatever I want – the ‘free speech’ they are all crying about. I know before the first word hits the page, that out there in cyberspace, I will be an immense disappointment to an army of readers who only want me to reinforce their views.
I wanted my blog to be a genuinely non-partisan space where people could feel free to argue their point on a variety of subjects. I’ve worked my arse off to create that. Every day there are a 100 or so people who do use it for just that purpose. I love them to bits.
And every day, there are also four or five thousand others, who want me as a hostage to their campaign, their point of view. The more popular the blog, the harder they try to embarrass me, humiliate me, expose me as a charlatan, bully me, silence me, ‘prove’ that I’m really a secret agent working for the ‘other’ side…
I sometimes wonder whether it is really ‘politicians’ who are trying to restrict free speech out of an authoritarian ideology – or whether they are just reflecting the general atmosphere in the country of two view points doing their damndest not to speak to each other and their damndest to silence the other side.
I say that from a country where the one thing you can say for the French is that they are always happy to talk to each other – to different ‘others’. Go into any restaurant and you will see tables for 10/12 people, full of total strangers in animated conversation with each other. Passionate conversation – particularly in the past few electoral days. Perhaps that is why 80% of them voted rather than the miserable turnout you see in Britain. They haven’t forgotten that opposing viewpoints can be educational, enthralling, inspirational, a lot of things other than the British version – ‘offensive’, ‘should be silenced’.
Well, at least I’ve proved to myself that the words can still flow – just not on my own blog! You get to deal with the e-mails telling you what a witch I am and how I should be shut up for good – feel free to hop over to my blog and entertain my lovely commentators!
May 8th, 2012 - 10:40
“but that will probably make it better” should be “but, in my opinion, that will possibly make it better”
PS: I love reading your stuff, you are far and away the greatest source of off the wall thinking on twitter by far.
May 8th, 2012 - 10:41
Perhaps electronic communication makes it too easy to say things to other people that you wouldn’t bother saying in real life.
If I overhear two people talking in the street, and one says something I know is wrong, I might be tempted but usually would not jump in. I know that getting involved in some random conversation, with people who have no reason to think I know better than they do, is going to take too much time and may leave them and or me annoyed as a result. It’s usually not worth it and it’s unlikely to matter that two random people see the world differently to me.
On the other hand, on the Internet it can be harder not to jump in. Unlike real life, the consequences of getting involved in someone else’s conversation aren’t immediately apparent, I guess.
When I post stuff that might be controversial, I immediately start dreading the replies and put off returning to deal with them. That is true of both things I’ve published myself and of comments I make on other people’s things. (Which isn’t to say there’s equal stress for senders and recipients of comments, even if they’re the same types of people who deal with criticism in similar ways. More commenters than recipients means more stress for the recipients.)
Yet I keep doing it; jumping into arguments without thinking. Taking things too far is another problem. In real life, you can gauge someone’s reaction as soon as you start speaking. They might be sympathetic to your opinion, or it could all be a misunderstanding. On the Internet, you fire off a salvo and wait for one back, and it’s easy to misjudge and escalate things unnecessarily. I am frequently guilty of this.
I’m slowly learning to keep my mouth shut more often, but by nature I am a big-mouthed, self-righteous asshole, who thinks if he doesn’t do it then nobody else will bother, so it’s a long and difficult process to control it. I have to keep reminding myself that there isn’t enough time to say everything and arguing on ten fronts won’t leave enough left of the day to do anything productive, and won’t leave me or the people I’m arguing with feeling positive. (They are are often good people who I have lots in common with, outside the minutia of one particular subject or issue.)
Some people probably love the conflict; others are good at ignoring it. For us, by the sound of it, it is draining. Don’t let it stop you writing. You’re a writer; it’s what you enjoy and are naturally compelled to do. Reacting to everyone’s comments isn’t a required part of that activity.
May 8th, 2012 - 11:01
TL;DR YRU leaving us? You stinx!!!
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist with a default response including poor grammar and spelling. Personally I think writing any entry has a default flaw in that tone cannot be conveyed without the inclusion of emoticons or treating it like a novel, he said thoughtfully. So much can be misconstrued based on the reader’s own prejudices.
Make it an online entry that allows comments and you’re adding in the extra joy of anonymity; and how much does that reveal about us as a species? he said with a wry smile.
Of course with an online article for which one is being paid incitement is its own reward, the old adage of no such thing as bad PR comes into play. Who cares if you’re attracting readers mouthing off at you in the comments provided you’re attracting readers? It may be disheartening if that’s all they seem to be doing, but hold your nose, stick your head under the surface and just skim/ignore/block the rubbish and just engage with those making relevant points.
For this, your own personal blog, I can understand why you wouldn’t want the hassle.
May 9th, 2012 - 21:50
Just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people saying how good and worthwhile this blog and the NS one both are. Thank you very much.
May 10th, 2012 - 07:53
Whew. For a minute there, I thought you were going to say you were closing the blog. Thank goodness you aren’t. I love it. What I don’t love are hateful commenters who want to do nothing but insult, whine (I’m American, so whinge just doesn’t cut it for me), harass, debate until you give in to their ‘superior’ minds, threaten, or whatever else makes them vent their plebeian frustrations. Tiresome, as you say. As a blogger myself, I find that writing with these commenters in mind curtails creativity and honesty. As we used to say in high school, “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
May 23rd, 2012 - 21:15
I agree about leaving out the “maybe” and “perhaps”es and just come out and say what you think. Otherwise you run the awful risk of writing like a BBC or Wikipedia article where it seems like it was written by a robot.