Internet Hate

Hello ,

Subject for todays blog- internet trolling.

On his website, Stewart Lee has a section titled "Online Critiques" which is a collection of very negative things people have said about him online anomalously. After the first series of his Comedy Vehicle was broadcast in 2009, he googled himself for about ten minutes a day for around six months during which time hundred of comments were collected. Reading some of these comments, even though they are there for comedic purposes, never the less are rather disturbing when you read some of the things that people have written. Above from 1.31 onwards is a routine from his 2012 show Carpet Remnant World which picks out some of the most hilarious and vile ones .

In some ways, Lee revels in this kind of thing as it contributes greatly to his onstage persona of a cynical and bitter failure. However, he did admit that the vitriol that people felt for him because they disliked his comedy was very unsettling. For a few months it was a strange obsession finding out bad things that people thought about him, and his defence mechanism for it was that it was his "character" doing it rather than the actual him.

Lee has also stated that these comments did not knock his confidence, and in fact did quite the opposite, inspiring to do more of the things that people already hated him for. Although he does find the comments, often made by the same people amusing, he has stated that he would not try to confront any of his detractors for fear of putting him or his family at risk.

The fact of the matter is, although Lee may be the only notable celebrity to embrace internet negativity in this kind of way, he is far from alone in having it aimed at him. There are probably very few people currently in the public eye on social media who have not been met with abuse in some form or another, with politicians especially getting a difficult time. 

The question is - why do people feel the need to use the internet to say such vile and despicable things that they would probably not say to some ones face?

There is clearly a psychological aspect here, it would seem that a person who feels very insecure feels that they can give themselves some kind of personal power by making threats of violence and rape towards someone else via technological devices.

Unfortunately it seems that it is something that we will have to deal with, as it does not look like something that is going to away anytime soon. But look at it this way if it can inspire something like this then we can clearly combat it by channelling it into something funny and clever. (see video above)

Thank you,

Nathan.