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'The Room Had Started To Smell. Really Quite Bad': Stephen Fry Exits Twitter (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: For a man so readily associated with words — and certainly for a wordsmith so enamored with technology — Twitter seems like something of a natural home for Stephen Fry. Over the years he has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, but last night he closed his account. Fry's latest exit from Twitter (there have been several over the last few years for numerous reasons) came about because of the backlash he received for making a joke at an award ceremony. Hosting the BATFAs (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) on Sunday, he referred to costume designer and award winner (and, indeed, friend) Jenny Beavan as being 'dressed as a bag lady'. 'Offended' Twitter users attacked Fry in their droves, and he fought a valiant battle, before eventually giving up and terminating his account. It comes just days after Twitter set up a new Trust & Safety Council.
Closing your account stops them from tweeting at you. But they are still out there.
A stereotypical homeless woman who wanders around the streets with bags of "stuff" she has collected, frequently recovered from garbage cans. The bags are frequently piled high in shopping carts, with other bags being held in a free hand and often even attached to her back. When the police crackdown on the homeless these women can be seen obsessively gathering up their bags and hauling them off to some other place. It's a real thing if you spent any time in a big city like New York. (Often in this case, the bags are full of recyclable cans and bottles, which return $.05/unit returned at recycling centers...or did 10 years ago when I lived there)
It's probably rude in polite company to use this term about an actual bag lady, it's ruder still to apply this to someone's appearance. But in the past one can be rude and crude and you simply ignored and avoided him. Now it seems as if a portion of the population feels empowered to make their own random comments based largely on ignorance and a misguided sense of judgement via Twitter. Turn-about is fair play I guess, but whatever happened to "taking the high road"?
He's a delightful person, much beloved in the UK, but definitely not as known in the US. He's known for being 1/2 of the comedy sketch duo "Fry & Laurie" (Laurie being Hugh Laurie, aka Gregory House, M.D.) and for being the current host of the British program Q.I.
I thought I read that statistically Poles were smarter than the rest of Europe. Marie Curie, those guys that broke the Enigma before the war started, and so on.
My uncle was tending bar at one point in Chicago when a friend of his walked in. "John! I just heard the best joke ever! You have to hear this, it's great! So this Polack is trying to buy a watermelon, right? And—"
"Hey buddy, what's the big idea? Don't you know I'm Polish?"
"Oh! I'm so sorry! I had no idea. Okay, I'll tell it slow..."
Stealth Mountain is a Twitter bot that tersely informs Twitter users when they mistakenly write “sneak peak": @___ I think you mean sneak peek.
The enraged, frothing responses confirm that this is an exemplar of how Twitter should be used.
For those who live outside the U.K It's hard to explain what Steven Fry means to a large proportion of the population and the esteem he is held in. We have the term national treasure to apply to people of Steven Fry's standing, a term that is not applied to many people. Steven Fry leaving Twitter will make the main news bulittins in the UK, and the question that will be asked by the media is what does this mean for the future of Twitter, does this mark the beginning of the decline of Twitter.
Those outside the UK will stuggle to believe that one man leaving Twitter could bring its prospects into question. However in UK when Twitter was starting to be know about, Steven Fry's presents on it was used to bolster its reputation. People took Twitter seriously because Steven Fry was on it. Steve Fry for a long time was the most followed person on Twitter, and every time the media mentioned Twitter Steven's bane followed shortly after.
I would frankly be amazed if questions are not raised in parliament about this matter. Again outside the UK some poeple will scream how stupid I am for saying this, however every time Steven has drawn attention to an Issue questions have been raised in parliament. If these statement surprise you in any way you've simply failed to appreciate how those of an intellectually bend in the UK regard Steven Fry.