Missing the good old tweets

Kevin McCallum saysTwitter can still be wonderful and fun. We can still put the world to rights, but when it turns, the wrongs over-power the rights.

In just two months, Stephen Fry has quit two things he enjoyed and was rather good at. In January, Fry, a football, cricket, darts and snooker fan, stood down as a director of Norwich City Football Club after five years. He is a lifelong fan of the club, and will remain as an ambassador for them.

This month, just last week, he got off Twitter after the scum who get off on Twitter set upon him with furious anger, bile and vitriol. An innocent joke to a friend during an awards presentation and lynch mobs mushroomed across the interwebs. Fry closed down his account, his parting shot a post on his website that spoke of the sparkly early days of Twitter, when it was a “secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious to turn as swimmers into cleanness leaping.” We chattered and laughed and put the world to rights and shared thoughts sacred, silly and profane. But now the pool is stagnant. It is frothy with scum, clogged with weeds and littered with broken glass, sharp rocks and slimy rubbish. If you don’t watch yourself with every move you’ll end up being gashed, broken, bruised or contused”.

I remember those early days, well. I met many good people there. I reconnected with my wife-to-be via Twitter, when we spoke, via DM, of unrequited crushes that had survived 20 years apart. I had tweet-ups with Twitter friends, shared memories and told jokes. The personalities of people on Twitter matched those in person. Perhaps I was lucky with my choices. I live-tweeted sport. I shared my personal life. I argued, I cussed and I even sub-tweeted, and then I signed the company’s social media policy, which told me I could do none of those things. I got angry, and I drank and tweeted, and woke up with few regrets.

I tweet less these days and try to be more considered (well, except when watching New Zealand/Australian referees, and Liverpool). There is too much noise on Twitter. On Sunday, a follower tagged me in a thread over the Dan Retief racist tweet affair. Lynch mobs were forming and they wanted me to be involved. I know Retief personally. His tweet was clumsy and stupid, and it looked, felt and sounded like a white South African getting things very wrong again. But, if he was to be hanged, I had no wish to do the hanging.

Twitter can still be wonderful and fun. We can still put the world to rights, as Fry remembered, but when it turns, the wrongs over-power the rights. - The Star