Of Twitter, Terror and Jane Austen

So it's been a while. Lots has obviously gone on in the interim - for example, the then-unborn recipient-to-be of the yellow bunny card mentioned in the previous post has been safely delivered into the world, and I was able to go and visit her two hours after she got home from the hospital and pass into her possession the card that had caused all the fuss. So you can stop worrying now.

In truth, things of great magnitude have occurred and I will blog about them at some stage, no doubt - but for now I am occupied with more recent happenings.

You see, four days ago I joined Twitter.

It's not like I wasn't aware Twitter existed. At least four different friends/colleagues had recommended I join or demanded to know why I didn't. I had looked once or twice; considered it a couple of times. In the end, the reasons I didn't and the reasons I then did aren't important here - what's important is that I joined and began selecting who to follow, and among them I added one Caroline Criado-Perez, primarily because I had heard of her on the radio that morning. I liked that she had instigated the campaign to get Jane Austen's image onto a UK banknote and thought she'd be an interesting follow.

Reader, I had no idea.

If you missed the general gist, you can catch up here, but it mostly went:

• Woman campaigns for renowned and well-loved author to appear on banknote
• Woman utilises Twitter to launch and expand campaign
• Campaign successful!
• THREATS OF RAPE AND DEATH

Now plenty of commentators better placed and informed than I have written extensively about this and the surrounding issues regarding trolling and so forth, but it did remind me of something I hadn't thought of in a long time.

Back when I was about twenty, I often spent my holidays from university working in a Belfast branch of a well-known high street bookshop. It was largely good, as shop work goes; my colleagues were well-read and fun, and I happily spent my wages like a twenty year old does, on leather jackets, cigarettes and beer. Thus did I breeze happily around the shop floor recommending Donna Tartt to everyone when one day the phone went and I answered it, as my job description dictated I should from time to time.

"[Formally approved standard shop phone greeting and offer of help!]" I chirped eagerly - I can't remember the exact words we used for the phone.

The man on the other end had no such greetings. He launched straight into his message, which was delivered clearly and carefully and was this: "As of today, we will be targeting all Catholics who work in [name of shop]. This is the Red Hand Defenders." He then hung up.

It took the wind out of my sails a little, I'll admit. I think I was still smiling when I hung up and told my older and more experienced co-worker, who looked horrified and called for the manager. People kept asking was I okay. A few people (mainly catholics, actually) made silly jokes about it. I honestly felt like it shouldn't have been a big deal and when the police were called I was equal parts embarrassed and gleeful at the thought of missing some work time. And yet after all this, and while I am no delicate little flower in general... I felt a little shaky. A smidge weird. A tad removed from the world, as though I was functioning normally but behind a layer of clingfilm. Without consultation, the manager told me she was phoning someone to come and get me. I didn't protest.

The police interview was standard - what did he say, were those the exact words, was there any identifying blah blah and so on - but I'll never forget something that was said to me during it, because it was so simple and made so much sense and yet I had never ever thought of it. In response to my vague expression that he hadn't said much/I wasn't upset/this wasn't really a big deal, the policeman shook his head.

"Well, they're terrorists," he said. "They're out to cause terror and that's what they do. There doesn't have to be an act of violence - the threat is enough." So simple, and yet I, growing up in a country famous worldwide for its particularly hardy brand of homegrown terrorism, had never thought of it before.

I certainly thought of it today, and yesterday, and the day before while reading some of the threats coming through to Caroline Criado-Perez, Stella Creasy and others - all women who had taken a stand against what they saw as sexism, misogyny and hate speech. Others can debate the rights and wrongs of freedom of speech, censorship and whether a button on Twitter will do the job - and have been doing so in minute detail. What struck me was the idea that when you post a threat to rape and kill someone, stating a specific time and place (for example 8pm at your house, as one poster "helpfully" detailed), you are intending to cause terror. The person on the receiving end, no matter how hardy, no matter how sensible, no matter how convinced you don't really know their address, will feel that flutter that I, a non-catholic good-in-a-crisis sensible former shop-worker, felt. Their mind's eye will forget the utter ridiculousness of a sectarian organisation thinking that shooting shop assistants will help their political cause, or the utter ridiculousness that someone would kill them for putting Jane Austen on a banknote, and will instead picture the threat, however briefly. They will feel the fear. They will be a victim of terrorists.

I cannot fathom what kind of person imagines it is good, worthwhile or fun to threaten strangers online, any more than I can fathom one who sees the sense in strapping a bomb to one's own body and detonating it in a crowded marketplace in the name of a sincerely held belief. What I do understand is that in one way at least they are two of a kind - causers of terror, infringing on the rights of others. Your right to free speech does not supersede your responsibility to avoid harming other human beings intentionally, whether you harm them through direct actions or by the causing of terror. Perhaps the men who do not cringe at the idea of being thought women-haters might feel differently at the prospect of being called terrorists... though sadly the force of their bile - even after two real-life, not-on-the-internet, actual arrests (to date) - does make me wonder.

And how do we deal with terrorists? I suppose that's a question over which to agonise. But I've seen enough movies to know that we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not succumb to their demands. We don't "ignore them" and "hope they'll go away". It is the duty of society to show them that their behaviour is unacceptable and wrong and that their terror does not have the desired effect of letting them win. We don't let terrorists win.

Fame-us, People

Recently, a colleague sent me a link to this article, partly because I'm his semi-boss-lady and have to keep tabs on his every working moment (or, like, three of his working moments per fortnight), and partly because he knew I'd be interested anyway. And who wouldn't? The internet is mind-blowing. Twenty years ago (yes, I'm old enough to remember back that far) we had four TV channels which didn't even broadcast on 24 hours a day, and if you were a lucky little sod like me your dad had a computer and might let you play Space Invaders or Commander Keen or something on it when he wasn't 'busy' (playing Space Invaders or Commander Keen or, in the case of my dad, flight simulation bomb-a-thon Retaliator).

Nowadays... well you know. It's a big mess of Twitter feeds and abandoned Myspaces and cyberbullying and pirated music downloads and free amateur porn videos streaming live to your phone. And EVERYBODY has it. It's awesome and terrifying and excellent and wrong, all at the same time.

And while I can find many many worthy rant-targets online, I will save them for later because the one I want to talk about is fame, and our access to those we deem 'famous'.

I have four main heroes/role models in my life. One is Batman, who isn't real and so doesn't count for the purposes of this discussion. Out of the remaining three, I have been lucky enough to be 'connected' to two of them via the wonder of the internet. One was the (unsolicited!) retweet of an article I wrote by a man whose work I so admire that it is truly an honour to have been noticed by him in any capacity. The other instance was when I sent a Facebook private message to a person I respect with such fervour that I refer to him mainly in passing conversations as 'The Nearest Thing I Have To A God'.

I didn't want to message him - not at all. A friend and I were embarking on a half-assed mission to internettishly bother a bunch of people about the UK release date of this thing we like, and since he was a primary producer of this thing, the friend suggested I message him. I was all abashed and unsure and I can't remember what eventually made me do it, but I did - and as I fully expected and accepted, he gave no response.

For about ten days, that is. Then I logged into Facebook and there it was - a message from the number one living human-Earthperson I admire.

I won't go into masses of details, but I replied in a jokey 'Well thanks!' kind of way and made a flip comment in my sign-off. To which he replied. And I wrote back again. And so did he. Eventually, not wanting to endure the indignity of him getting bored of and no longer replying to an admiring stranger who was desperately trying not to say anything too fawning, I wrote him a little 'Anyway, thanks for this and I'll let you get back to your work' type thing and he took the out. No resentment here - the man has better things to do than converse with random strangers, and he had been very generous in his time and answers.

Overall, really, the experience was a weird one. A part of me feels really grateful to have been allowed a little time with him (and grateful to the friend who suggested it). A part of me feels weird about it in a near-but-far kind of way that has trouble reconciling the artist and the guy I chatted to. And a part of me feels dissatisfied - not because we aren't still corresponding like the bestest of buddies, but because I'm frustrated with myself for contacting him as A Fan Of His Work. I have this ego, you see - when I admire a person, I feel like I want to meet them on equal ground, or at least something halfway approaching it in the far far distance (like that out-of-the-blue, amazing unsolicited retweet by Other Hero). Not to be A Famous Person As Well, exactly... but to have done something that means I can hold my head up knowing they know I am not just some person there to tell them how great they are.

Because really, what does one say to a 'famous' person?

There are different levels of fame, of course - one person's David Beckham is another person's local weatherman. I have met well-known people about whom I couldn't care less and struggled to say anything at all - not star struck, just struggling to find the balance between beaming 'I loved you in _____!' and standard civility. I have stood drunk in a club and either bored or terrified (maybe both - it was hard to accurately tell from his expression) a well-respected rock musician in my earnest attempt to have a meaningful, pleasant conversation with him. I once served Nick Cave (whose music I really admire) in a shop and accidentally mortified him by good-naturedly mocking something he did in the friendly way I would have treated any other customer. In contrast, I once found myself standing next to a (then) well-known British sitcom actor at a party, brightly told him who he was and then grasped in aching silence for something I could truthfully say I'd liked him in, eventually naming perhaps the tiniest guest-role he had ever played. The way he fake-smiled in acknowledgement and immediately turned away told me he was equally underwhelmed by me.

I embarrassed Nick Cave unintentionally, because I like him and wanted to treat him like anyone else. I underwhelmed the sitcom actor by trying to be pleasant without lying. Someone's fame, or perceived fame, changes their relationship with everyone they meet. It makes it difficult to be friendly and nice and normal. It makes it impossible to accurately, politely and non-scarily express admiration, or lack thereof.

This weirdness is distorted still further by the internet. Instead of meeting someone once, at a signing, and saying standard platitudes or maybe something kooky you worked on for a while to be remembered, you now have a chance to insinuate yourself over time. Private messages - hell, even public messages. Links and things. This thing you wrote. This picture you drew. Some of it will get through, might get a response. Some of it won't. Some of it will be dignified. Some of it will come across as maybe worth calling the police about. It's hard - or at least I find it hard - to equate this array of pally singsonging with any attempt to meaningfully connect with your chosen godlike genius. And still, after all of this, they are not your Friend. They are not your colleague. They do not know you. They probably do not want to know you, no matter how sure you are that the two of you would go together like a horse and cabbage.

I remember that, during the period of time I spent being both a young child and a fan of Inspector Clouseau, my father mentioned he had once seen Peter Sellers in the street. Please understand I grew up in Northern Ireland and we don't really have famous people there (not ones who stick around anyway), so this achievement was even more impressive to me.

"Wow!" I marvelled breathlessly. "What did you say to him?"
"Nothing," shrugged my dad, nonplussed.
I was astonished. "WHAT?! Why?!"
"Because he was just walking down the street being normal, and I didn't want to bother him."

At the time I had no conception of how a person could feel this way on seeing a great, funny, interesting famous person - a person who had been on TV! And in films! And stuff! These days I understand it very well, and on the very rare occasions I find myself able to interact with people whose work I am keen on, now I tend to just slink off without bothering. It's too weird.

Should you never meet your heroes? I dunno - I have no real experience to suggest an answer. I do know that I wouldn't want to meet mine without having something to show for myself above and beyond telling them they're great or trying to prove I'm their biggest fan. I do know that while I enjoyed our messages and I follow his posts, I did not add The Nearest Thing I Have To A God as my Facebook friend, because he isn't my friend and he does not know me. I do know that when I see some of the things other people post on his page, I feel both a little smug-superior and quite frustrated on his behalf, even though I have neither the right nor the status to feel either.

Maybe in a world which contains such wonderments as reality TV 'stars', 'cool' politicans and Jedward, admiring from afar is best.