My 2p on the Jonathan Ross/Hugos furore

[inulro]

Not that I'm particularly involved in awards or fandom, but...

Yes, I get that Ross is a long time sci fi fan. Yes, I get that in himself he's probably a good guy.

But he's a big deal in the portion of the media world that revolves around the idea that being mean to people is big, clever and funny, with no thoughts to the fact that these are real people with feelings. That makes impressionable young (and not so young) people think that being cruel to others is Just Okay. Internet trolls? Totally a related phenomenon. So in other words, he's part of what wrong with - well, everything.

So I don't care that Neil Gaiman is all butthurt that his best mate was the subject of a Twitter storm. It doesn't matter that Ross wouldn't have made fun of sci fi nerds or the Hugos or the content... he makes a damn good living out of treating people with less than respect, so I'm not sad that he's stepped down.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

This.

I'm also making covering-my-eyes gestures about his kid tweeting angrily to Seanan McGuire, because there's a time and a place for 'Yes, your dad would never say anything like that about you, but he did say something similar a few years ago about Vanessa Feltz, because... well...' conversations and the full glare of Twitter is not that place.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I read Neil's statement. I think describing as him being "butthurt" is a bit dismissive. Gaiman admitted to his own concerns about Jonathan Ross and he understands why people were concerned about having him as a Hugo host. What I took away from his statement was that justified concern does not make it acceptable to launch a public attack against someone. There were more dignified ways to handle this. This is nothing dignified about a public shitstorm.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

As I Don't Do Twitter, all I've seen is the reasoned arguments my friends have made on Facebook about why they thought Ross was an inapproriate host.

There is nothing dignified or necessary about a public Twitter shitstorm, ever, but as Ross personifies the part of mainstream culture of casual cruelty that feeds into the mindset that internet trolling is OK, I'm finding it difficult to dig up as much sympathy as I normally would.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I do Twitter and saw part of what was going on when it was going on.

My biggest issue was with the woman who started it all on Twitter (not the woman who resigned from the con committee) who made an assumption that Jonathan Ross would make fun of her weight. I honestly don't think if he did host the event, that he would make fun of every winner, especially an overweight woman. She went to bed on the west coast and all hell broke loose on Twitter after her Tweet. Some people I know (and used to respect) said some nasty, rash things (on both sides but mainly the anti-Ross camp) and it got really bad when people who had no idea who Ross was (mainly US people) based their ire on red top tabloid reports and never looked into his geek credentials.

I really do wonder who will be brave enough to take the post now. I certainly wouldn't-whoever they choose will more than likely have someone out there who hates them or their background or who they sleep with, etc.

Neil probably couldn't do it now, since someone would be bound to object to him being friends with Ross or being married to Amanda Palmer.

I'm glad I hadn't planned on going to Loncon. This whole mess makes the brouhaha over the last World Fantasycon look like nothing!