The Stephen Fry conundrum that throws Twitter’s credibility into question

Stephen Fry, British actor and highly influential Twitter user, caused uproar, online and offline, when he recently Tweeted his intention to quit Twitter. And all because 1 of his followers called him boring.

understand @stephenfry’s tweets but, much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit… boring…. (sorry Stephen).

That was all it took.

Fry’s reply was equally unassuming.

You’ve convinced me. I’m obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone.

More amazing than Fry’s knee jerk reaction, however, was the vicious reaction of his followers who attacked and berated the individual who had dared to speak out against their hero. Fry and his accuser soon began to trade friendly messages, offering apologies and generally doing everything possible to stem the flow of bile and aggression that was being thrown by countless Twitter users at the poor man who was know being referred to as a moron, an idiot, a heretic, an infidel, a loser, a bully, a cyber bully, a Twitter bully, a spammer and hundreds of other ridiculous names many of which I can’t write without making this post decidedly NSFW.

Alan Davies, who stars with Fry in the television quiz QI, also waded in, calling the criticism of him moronic, turning his own Twitter feed into an aggressive rant that had to be witnessed to be believed.

Davies, a comedy actor and popular household name in the UK has a history of violent outbursts and once attacked a homeless man, biting his ear and yelling at him for not knowing his name as he stumbled out of London’s Groucho Club, the preferred haunt of the celebrity who wants to be noticed.

Fry suffers from manic depression, or bipolar disorder as it is now more popularly known, and admits to feeling very low when he overreacted to his critic. Davies doesn’t have such a good excuse and is, more and more, coming across as someone with a very nasty streak.

The whole thing was very silly and got very ugly, very quickly.

And then, as always the last to the party, mainstream media got involved and the story was featured by many heavyweight organizations including Sky News and the BBC.

This isn’t the first time that a Twitter story has hit the mainstream news. But this time it was pushed hard, especially by the BBC. Pushed hard enough to suggest that Twitter has become accepted and respected by the mainstream.

However, it wasn’t that simple. The BBC then ran a story on it’s website asking a very simple question.

Does Twitter matter?

The responses suggested that the vast majority of people, albeit those who frequent the BBC website and are opinionated enough to share an opinion, think that it most certainly does not matter. Furthermore, the overwhelming sentiment was that Twitter was a complete waste of time, as indicated in these comments that I’ve copied and pasted.

i can’t see how this is even a story.
im sorry but twitter is something the media seem to think is really cool and young. i cringe when presenters say it on tv.
its basically a dumbed down version of other social networking websites like facebook and bebo, and because its dumbed down its more accessable to an old generation.
no one i know uses it, i use facebook, but i can’t see why people seem to be interested in what stephen fry “tweets” when he’s stuck in a lift.

A big deal has been made of Mr Fry using Twitter but in all honesty who really gives a monkey? It is people like Mr Fry who have this inflated sense of their own worth who then spout off about things in the belief that they matter more than the rest of us. Mr Fry doesn’t!

In the past I’ve tried my My Space, Twitter and Facebook for a short time. Now I’ve decided I already have a life and an email address, and returned to it.

astounded at the ignorance of some of the posters on here!

- they dont know the man at all, then tell us what kind of a person he is?
- they dont know that it is stephen fry himself posting, yet read it as gospel?
- “we love you stephen!” how?
- 900,000 followers just means his publicity company is working, it is more often called MARKETING

ive noticed the BBC moving more and more towards twitter, mentioning it at every opportunity, would the beeb be using twitter for the same reasons?

Twitter is a site where morons can tell us what they had for breakfast, and unknown morons can subscribe to the bleatings of famous morons, so as to give them the illusion of involvement in those morons’ lives.

Some of the morons are intelligent, and a few are also funny.

Personally, I don’t wish to hear about it, and I certainly don’t wish it to replace real news on the BBC website.

What magic, the groups on there behave worse than a group of baying wolves, turning on all who have a differing opinion or if you have an opinion at all.

It’s a mob mentality that forceably exerts itself as an unelected “thought Police” ministry, as evident by Frys disciples behaviour with Fry as the “thought police messiah” now resurected to twitter again.

Does anyone remember how important C.B. radio was for at least 10 minutes? That was going to change the face of communication for everyone, as is/was Twitter.
I wonder what next months toy will be.

People keep yapping about this useless waste of time!! I have absolutely no idea what it is. It is obviously something hugely beneficial to humanity. I have never used any of the social networking sites, I am too busy socialising with REAL mates over a pint and Sky footie in pubs.

A complete waste of time. Can people not find something more useful to do? It is nice for Mr Fry and other, similar folk that they can waste away their time on such trivial nonsense. It is simply sad that people seem to hang on every pointless word from these empty non-celebrities.

Does ANYONE really care what Stephen Fry says or does?

Never used it, will never use it. Totally superfluous, serves no useful purpose that other channels do not support. Something for the vain and the intellectually challenged to play with. The sooner it disappears the better.

Twitter is for sad people who live their life vicariously through others. The famous have their desperate need for limelight fed by those people.

The twitter followers need to make their own life and the ’stars’ need to get over themselves.

Twitter itself should probably be banned so that these people can do something more constructive.

He’s just another Z grade celebrity from a very privileged background who has never got his hands dirty in the “real” world.

As such what make Mr Fry think that he matters is ego.

I want news to be about more than celebs,

The negativity was depressing. Sure, there were a few voices of support, both for Fry and for Twitter generally, but the overwhelming direction of comment was backwards.

It would appear that the people who visit the BBC website, and that is a lot of people, feel that Twitter is stupid, irrelevant, should be banned, will disappear soon and is of no interest to what they describe as normal people.

Worse still, some of the comments suggested that Stephen Fry is a faux celebrity Tweeter and has his account handled by a publicity company. Personally I don’t think that is the case. However, I do acknowledge that the majority of so called celebrity Twitter accounts are fake and managed by a team of people who really don’t understand Twitter or any aspect of social networking. Lily Allen proved that pretty conclusively here and here.

Oprah, Britney Spears, Chris Moyles, and the aforementioned Lily Allen all bring a huge number of people, people who would otherwise have probably not even gone anywhere near a social networking site, into the Twitterspehere. Unfortunately those celebrities are fake, don’t update their own accounts, and ultimately make the people who followed them distrustful of Twitter.

And that is the problem. Fake celebrities annoy new Twitter users but those users get angry with Twitter, not the celebrity, or the company behind the celebrity, who is perpetrating the confidence trick.

Verified accounts aren’t the answer since they are often obtained by the companies behind the celebrity. This further dilutes the trust.

I must admit to feeling a little saddened and surprised by the whole thing. Stephen Fry gets mildly criticized and an unintelligent baying mob charge after his critic. Fry gets upset and threatens to walk out. The baying mob continue to harass the critic. Fry comes back and blames the whole thing on depression fueled over reaction. Mainstream news reports it and gets slammed by an equally unintelligent baying mob who, because of a total lack of understanding, don’t like Twitter.

Situations like this, arguably because of the way they are handled by the media, both mass and independent, make those who choose to remain ignorant of Twitter’s true value even more steadfast in their beliefs. The baying mob mentality, whether it is on Twitter circling around someone who dared to criticize a celebrity or in the offline world, is deeply ugly and destructive.

I can remember a time, not so long ago, when I publicly declared my hatred of Twitter. I just couldn’t understand why people needed to tell everyone what they had for breakfast. But then, at the suggestion of a few very cool people, I took a closer look and realized that I was wrong.

I used to think Twitter was a colossal waste of time. I got better.

Will Twitter ever be accepted and understood by the mainstream? Will it ever achieve the same level of acceptance and credibility that blogging has over the last 5 years? Only time will tell.

And until that time comes there will always be a massive divide between those who get Twitter and those who don’t.

Ashley Morgan is a UK jazz trumpet player and owner of independent record label 447 Records. Ashley Morgan is the trumpet player with Enormous.