'Accio Controversy' - J.K Rowling Wins the Fight Against Twitter Trolls
Hardly a day goes by on Twitter without some kind of heated debate kicking off, and at the centre of it all this time around is renowned British novelist J.K Rowling.
The Bristol-born, Edinburgh resident ignited a frenzy earlier this month when she called out political commentator Iain Macwhirter, asking him to substantiate claims he had made on the SNP's complete lack of 'Anti-English Sentiment'.
Rowling made a fair point. At no point did she generalise or attack the SNP as a whole, instead she simply pointed out the fact that this claim was near-on impossible to prove. Every major party has its own little pool of idiots, nutters and straight up hate-mongers sitting ready to tarnish their reputation, and any claim to have expunged all negative sentiment from such a large group of people is, in itself, somewhat ridiculous.
This well reasoned argument did nothing however to quell the fires burning in the hearts of thousands of Scottish nationalists, who felt in some way wronged by Rowling's statements. Accusations of stereotyping came pouring in over Twitter, with many users launching personal attacks on Rowling for supposedly branding the Scots as 'Anti-English'. Absurd. Completely.
To her credit, Rowling handled the trolls with a perfect balance of reason and humour, quickly disarming their arguments. This, unfortunately, failed to stop others from jumping on the bandwagon, fuelling the debate (I use that term loosely) for days to come. In that time Rowling has been accused of everything from generalisation to pure racism, blowing the situation dramatically out of proportion.
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| telegraph.co.uk |
.@iainmacwhirter Quite a claim. How many English incomers were polled before the making of that confident assertion? pic.twitter.com/Pfp6vy3IGe
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 18, 2015
Rowling made a fair point. At no point did she generalise or attack the SNP as a whole, instead she simply pointed out the fact that this claim was near-on impossible to prove. Every major party has its own little pool of idiots, nutters and straight up hate-mongers sitting ready to tarnish their reputation, and any claim to have expunged all negative sentiment from such a large group of people is, in itself, somewhat ridiculous.
This well reasoned argument did nothing however to quell the fires burning in the hearts of thousands of Scottish nationalists, who felt in some way wronged by Rowling's statements. Accusations of stereotyping came pouring in over Twitter, with many users launching personal attacks on Rowling for supposedly branding the Scots as 'Anti-English'. Absurd. Completely.
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| YouTube / movieclips.com |
.@iainmacwhirter I questioned *your* claim of total non-existence of anti-English prejudice in the SNP. I made no claims. You did.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 18, 2015
.@bt_betot Hogwarts is in Scotland.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 19, 2015
Good God, I haven't got the energy to feel victimised! It's hard work keeping an entire nation under my stairs. pic.twitter.com/1txv8suiI1
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 20, 2015
Really, this seems to simply be a continuation of the backlash Rowling received when she donated £1 million to the 'Better Together' No Campaign during the Scottish Independence Referendum, opting to support a united Britain. I can't help but feel that many Twitter users are attempting to twist her words in order to back up their own prejudices, but they may have made a mistake in choosing to engage such a seasoned master of the written word in a Twitter feud.
Sam Bonson
Sam is an aspiring novelist with a passion for fantasy and crime thrillers. Currently working as Editor of Social Songbird, he hopes to one day drop that 'aspiring' prefix. Follow him @SamAtSMF
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'Accio Controversy' - J.K Rowling Wins the Fight Against Twitter Trolls
Reviewed by Unknown
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Monday, June 22, 2015
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Reviewed by Unknown
on
Monday, June 22, 2015
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Unknown
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