Tuesday 3 November 2009

Stephen Fry returns to Twitter but the @brumplum controversy continues

About half an hour ago (it's now almost 3.30am UK time) I was about to close down my laptop and go to bed having finally had a fairly normal day in both the real world and on Twitter, when all of a sudden the "mentions" column in Tweetdeck suddenly sprang to life, with several people posting the same link (actually, the same title, but different abbreviated links every time).

The link was to an article on an Australian tech blog called Blorge.com (never heard of them before, sorry). I tried to leave a comment, but this resulted in an error message which said that my comment looked like it might be spam and that it would have to be approved by an admin (I don't hold that against them, as long as an admin actually does get to see the comment, and hopefully approves it, and it's not just been sent into a black hole).

Here's a link to the blog and a slightly re-written version of my comment:

Stephen Fry returns to Twitter but the @brumplum controversy continues

The topic has actually been all but dead for the last 18 hours or so (certainly nothing controversial, although I have picked up on a few jocular comments here and there). I have spent the day able to treat Twitter the way I always have and have resumed my usual activities and normal inane rambling and sharing pointless information with my (now-enlarged) group of friends. Mentions of my username have come from either those friends or other people with questions or comments which are generally unrelated to the controversy.

Until several people starting linking this article about 20 minutes ago, the @brumplum controversy was no more, and it is this article which resurrected it!

I'm not making any kind of moral judgment about it (I find the whole thing rather amusing), but I hope you realise that by publishing this now, its title has actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

(I hope that people reading this will draw appropriate conclusions and let this matter drop now; I am posting this blog mainly for the benefit of those who've already seen and retweeted the Blorge article)

3 comments:

  1. It's a rather sensible blog on the matter... just a pity about the timing!

    Hmmm. By commenting, am I also helping perpetuate the drama?

    Oh dear, such confusion!

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  2. I agree, Sue. Had the article been posted 24 hours ago, I would have presented it as a paragon of good journalism. But in my opinion (as an "interested party" I submit that my opinion counts more than most) posting it now, especially with that title, was a mistake.

    On seeing the title, my first reaction was for my heart to sink and to wonder what had happened to reignite the flames after a day of calm. As it happens, nothing new had happened at all....

    I don't consider comments here to be a perpetuation (this has a tiny readership and there's a visible context), but the fact that links to the article continue to be tweeted (I've seen three pop up in the time it's taken me to write this) is beginning to annoy me...

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  3. i must say , youve dealt with the whole thing very well. lots of other people wouldnt have been able to cope with the stress of having celebs and followers baying for blood! however, i think maybe you have the same disposition as myself; laugh ( a bit) and then get on with life. does it feel wierd , tho, that the whole world now knows you as @brumplum? wait til you get people coming up to you wanting autographs...heh!!

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