I have been mesmerised by the Twitterati. They seem to fall into 2 main camps: the hunters and the hunted. British hunters are typically aggrieved, educated pro EU types who believe they are victimized by stupid, racist, people bent on destroying the Home Counties way of life and all who live there.
The hunted are composed mainly of anyone not pro-EU, who thinks they are being patronized by the hunters, that Britains culture (whatever that is?) is being undermined and/or are being victimized by poor, desolate foreigners intent on stealing their way of life and anyone vaguely left or liberal in their intentions.
The point being everyone on Twitter seems to feel victimized in some way and this justify’s their spite and loathing and wails of unfairness, injustice & being ‘got at’.
A few people use it to tell jokes or publish life high-lights but they mostly get crushed by the wall of cynicism that drives this particular stream.
The main thing to post on Twitter is about anything that reinforces the author’s pet prejudices and ‘it is all the oppositions fault’, even when they are not clear who the opposition are. These days it’s mainly: The Government, Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson’s children, his dog, his girlfriend, his advisors, his school & university circles and anyone who is likely to vote or has voted Tory. Donald Trump, The Russians and Isobel Oakeshott.
The hunted don’t have to be on Twitter to be hated and ridiculed – but it helps.
I wonder as I read the reams of invective whether we have always been a Nation of bi-partisan bile, spite and anguish and Twitter is our natural outlet or whether Social Media is its own self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity because of the semi-autonomus nature of fight-picking and score settling that is permitted by it’s construct.
And where in all this bi-partisan mess is the middle ground? The floating voter? The open minded people looking at policies rather than partisan feelings, facts instead of cant?
There is no place for open-mindedness, fair-play & rational challenge in Twitter’s 280 characters. It is a rapier for creating deep wounds, not an open field for reasoned debate. And that really answers my question about which came first; the cynical, victimized Brit or the medium he/she uses.
We can trace our inernecine social conflicts back to the headlines on the civil war pamphleeters output and probably even further to the Town Criers local gossip pedalled as headlines about the hunters & hunted of their time.
When it comes to shouting at each other, airing our prejudices, not offering any solutions for our ills and not listening to a word anyone else says we are a World leading Country indeed!
Bulk and The Devil 