Alan Davies And Stephen Fry: When Celebrities Fail At Twitter
If you're new here, you may want to check out the archives. You can also subscribe to my RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
UPDATE: Shortly after publishing this post, Stephen Fry decided to block me. I have no idea why he felt this was a necessary course of action, but it nicely underlines one of the main points I’ve made in this piece and consistently since Twittercism started: that being, how the naivety of celebrities in these largely uncharted waters of one-to-many online social interaction with the (shudder) public is as much to blame for any negative attention they receive as the ill-will of the collected masses.
I have no idea if Fry read my piece, or simply felt I posed enough of a threat by daring to mention Alan Davies in a negative light (one hopes he was proactive and actually did a bit of detective work). And being frank, I’m not sure it really matters: by blocking me, it’s essentially the same as if he’d left Twitter and never returned, as he briefly proposed to do. Twitter, for me, is now a no-Fry zone.
###
You’ve no doubt been following the furore surrounding Stephen Fry’s announcement that he was considering leaving Twitter, after a user declared him to be ‘boring’.
There’s actually more praise than criticism within that tweet, but one thing you can never do to a working celebrity is announce that they are dull. Fry, who suffers from bipolar disorder and was in his own words in quite a low mood, took the communication very much to heart.
A full 12 hours passed between this last tweet and his next, and in this time his fans and supporters went a little bit… crazy. @brumplum was repeatedly and at times viciously attacked by hundreds of people on the Twitter network.
These outbursts included the participation of Fry celebrity chum and QI contestant Alan Davies, who after stating that @brumplum was a moron, then went on a mad tirade at anybody who dared to pick him up on it.
It made for unpleasant reading.
Dickheads, halfwits and pricks, oh my!
One can only assume that Davies was very drunk at a very boring Halloween party, but there’s really no excuse for such a display. And the openness of a network such as Twitter means it’s very hard to undo something like this. This isn’t the cuddly, slightly dim-witted but loveable Alan Davies we know from the telly; this is somebody very different. Somebody with a bit of a nasty streak. It’s generally accepted his turn on QI is something of an act, and one which he has bore with increasing chagrin, and this kind of behaviour would support that.
Subsequently, Fry has returned to Twitter, seen the reaction to his ill-considered words, and duly apologised to @brumplum, and many others have also come to the latter’s support. Many, including the media, have been slow to pick up on this latest news. I hope this will be a temporary measure. Although one can absolutely understand how the very famous users of social media must be overwhelmed with negative commentary and jibes, putting your fingers in your ears isn’t the most proactive way forward.
You would think with his experience Fry would be a little more savvy, and I would hope that in time he will learn to embrace the network wholeheartedly, as he did before.
As for Alan Davies, it remains to be seen what will happen with him. He’s publicly lost the plot before, of course, but somehow emerged from a rather unpleasant incident with his reputation relatively intact. Despite the hype, Twitter doesn’t bleed completely into ‘real life’, but the public only gives the famous so many chances. It’s been a full 12 hours since he lasted updated his status, and it will be interesting to see if, like Fry, he returns to Twitter in full back-pedal mode, or continues to go on the attack.
Related posts:
- Can Anyone Catch Stephen Fry On Twitter? Here Are Five Celebrities Who Could.
- Exclusive: Alan Carr Throws Caution To The Wind, Follows Three People
- Celebrities Who Are Failing @ Twitter
- Celebrities Who ‘Get’ Twitter, Celebrities Who Don’t
- Twitter + Rich Media = Fail
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
, I’m looking forward to the outcome.. I...
Loading ...
I’m not sure that losing one’s temper is failing “at Twitter”. Failing to keep a level head, maybe. Failing to watch what you say in public, maybe. But failing “at Twitter”?
This is a hot-button issue for me, this false dichotomy between Twitter (or any other online environment) and this “real life” thing. Twitter is real life. It’s all real life. Real people are involved in a real conversation with real emotional impacts. It’s no less real because it happens via Twitter than your mother is any less your mother because you phone her rather than sharing Sunday lunch across a table.
Stilgherrian´s last blog ..Town Hall Hotel Furry Alert!
I’m quite aware that Twitter is part of ‘real life’, and have blogged about such many times within these pages (and specifically here, on my personal blog)
This is a blog about Twitter, and the reactions from both these celebrities and slightly questionable behaviour (certainly from Davies) is hardly indicative of success. Real people *do* have real emotions – the better ones learn to control them, certainly when they’re engaging with the public. Fry knows his behaviour was off, and has apologised. Davies seems blissfully unaware that he was involved in anything untoward. More the pity.
Wow… Did not see that coming. I suppose it’s one of the harsh realities of being in the public eye that you have to put up with this sort of thing (I’m assuming here as I am resoundingly not famous) – it just seems a shame that this caught Stephen Fry at a bad time.
Interestingly Alan Davies now appears to have gone back and deleted most of the really agressive Tweets (ironic how he defends his friend Stephen Fry from agression & unkind by being, well, agressive & unkind).
I’m assuming that his PR people have been in touch and told him that abusing ‘civillians’ (to use Posh Spice’s definition) doesn’t help his man of the people image.
Thank God for the cache (and your screengrabs)
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:Qc8vrEG25mEJ:twitter.com/alandavies1/status/5324182003+%40degap+you+are+a+moron+yourself&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Ciarán´s last blog ..This Is Why Sir Tim Invented Teh Webz
I think it’s likely that’s exactly what has happened. I can’t shake the feeling that he might have been slightly inebriated Saturday night. It’s also slightly unsettling that he’s just quietly removed his tweets and just kind of gone about business as usual. That’s probably been advised, as you propose, but if he’d have apologised and/or made light of his behaviour it would have done him a power.
Another “celebrity” that fails at Twitter is Greg Yataines (a director for the show House, MD). He tweets back and forth with a certain faction of the fan base (but only if they kiss his butt)and is rude or blocks people who dare to offer a differing viewpoint or who ask questions that don’t jibe with his POV. (He’s also delusional because he thinks that all of his followers are real people. About 10,000 out of the 44,000 are real people; the rest are sockpuppets created by fans who were told they’d get some unaired footage/video/spoilers when he got more followers. When told that “most of his followers (are) ghosts” he tweeted “What does that mean?”)
He also fails because he is an employee of the show/network, and it’s simply unwise to show favoritism to 25% of your “customers” while ignoring or angering the other 75%.