Gerry Hassan: Fry leads the move from mob rule to blog rule

Published on Tuesday 3 November 2009 19:48

THE big issue facing the planet these past few days has not been Tony Blair trying to become European president, the on-off Afghan elections, or MPs' expenses. That's so old thinking and square.

The only issue in town has been Stephen Fry throwing a hissy fit on Twitter and taking umbrage at being called by a fellow Twitter "boring" to which Fry announced his "retirement" from the site.

Fry has 945,295 followers and has been ranked the third most influential Twitterer in the world – after Jonathan Ross and Perez Hilton. So no cause for worry about "dumbing down" then.

Some readers will ask what does this amount to, and why should The Scotsman and other media outlets such as the BBC care about this? Isn't this just giving free time to Twitter? Or to the media's love of commenting on modern-day fluff?

Twitter matters and the Stephen Fry case throws light on our modern age, but it does not show it in a very favourable way.

Twitter is only the latest online social networking site. We have already had Friends Reunited, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and YouTube, all of which the media have got excited about reporting. And no doubt, after Twitter, there will be more.

Announcing his retirement from Twitter, Fry reflected that: "I am obviously not good enough at Tweeting."

The critical Tweeter was then subjected to what he called a "baying mob" of Fry fans. After Fry and the Tweeter exchanged comments, Fry revisited his decision and, Sinatra-like, reversed his retirement, claiming he had been caught at a "vulnerable time".

Fry has history here: 52 years old, a renaissance man and "national treasure", he clearly feels that something is missing in his life of late.

He was one of the main instigators of the Twitter campaign against Jan Moir's unPC and unpleasant article on the death of Stephen Gately, the Boyzone singer, which prompted more than 21,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission. He also recently intervened in the furore over the Tories unsavoury Polish and Latvian friends in Europe.

Fry on the one hand wants to intervene in serious, controversial issues of the day and be seen as someone who can have influence, yet at the same time – when a fan offers the most innocuous criticism – he pleads hurt and innocent. There is something fragile and instable in all of this and in Fry's increasingly hyperactive public utterances and search for attention and adoration.

It is all a little desperate and clearly not going to end well, but it also offers points to the perils of Twitter and the plight of being a modern celebrity.

What kind of world is this all leading to?

People on Twitter say it makes them "feel famous" or feel they are "being heard and seen".

There are similarities with the way reality TV gives participants a public profile, a voice and even, potentially, a following. In a way, Twitter, other social networking sites and reality TV make some people feel visible and "real".

Ray Pahl, an influential sociologist has researched this phenomenon, of which he has said: "Anyone who thinks they have two hundred friends, has got no friends."

In his analysis of BlackBerry users, he found people used them to keep acquaintances at bay and to spend more time with real friends, which wasn't the findings BlackBerry wanted with its myth of the hyperconnected, influential professional.

Once upon a time, a boy or girl had, at certain points in their lives, an imaginary friend or group of friends, and this was seen as a phase, out of which they would grow. Now we are all encouraged to have lives filled with imaginary friends, and to judge our worth by how many we have and to avoid the pitfalls of appearing electronically friendless.

James Harkin analysed this new world of constant communication in his book Cyburbia which offers the illusion of dispensing with hierarchies, boundaries and borders to bring the summation of the 1960s hippie dream of egalitarianism.

We now live in an age of continuous information loops, with constant feedback and communication, and with less time for listening or altering the pace. Dominic Sandbrook, writing before Fry's Twittergate, commented that we are shifting from 18th century mob rule to present day blog rule.

In many respects we are at the start of a long journey. The first long distance telegram came in 1844 and its sender commented, "What hath God wrought?" TV, telephones and the modern media age have changed us as individuals and the societies we live in. The same is true of mobile phones, the internet and the 24/7 media.

There are many new opportunities offered by this new age. We saw Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency use the internet, the protests over the Iranian elections and the mobile phone footage at the G20 summit of the death of Ian Tomlinson, among others. There are many new ways of connecting, organising and communicating.

There are also significant dangers, one of which is the remaking of self, the individual and the nature of society in ways we are only beginning to comprehend. A more fluid, porous idea of the self is emerging which bases itself – la Stephen Fry – on the validation and approval of others. We used to say "I shop, therefore I am", but a more apt description today would be, "I connect therefore I am", as people judge their worth on the number and volume of contacts they have. All of this is changing the nature of relationships and making less space available for deliberation and taking a step back.

The electronic village of real dialogue is at the moment nothing but a pipe dream. Trusting in the cyberworld and imaginary friends, as Stephen Fry has shown, leaves the fragile and sensitive self – in this case one with a diagnosed bipolar condition – taking offence and feeling hurt.

Instead, we need to start thinking what we are doing. Are we creating some strange Ray Bradbury-like world of atomised individuals whose contacts are mediated through the net? And how can we create the appropriate cyber body-armour to protect our notion of ourselves from the very world we have created?