Toby Young in last week’s Spectator remarked on the peculiar malice, as he saw it, of the online comments posted in response to his articles.
He has a point. The people who post comments are not the same reverential folk who form a paper’s traditional print readership. On the other hand, at a time when the Telegraph and the Guardian attract more than 18 million online readers each month, your online readership is no longer a small niche you can safely ignore. Why then do they seem so nasty?
Most people who comment on writings on- line aren’t nasty at all. Responses to blog posts are often complimentary and constructive. It’s largely journalists who get it in the neck — significantly, the online term for a merciless refutation is a ‘fisking’, after the brutal 2001 online dissection of a piece by the journalist Robert Fisk. Much of this is driven by envy and resentment, as Toby suggests.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in