Saturday, July 16, 2011

I Got Trolled

A lot of newpaper columns are actually examples of trolling- coming out with things that leave readers incredulous and fuming- which generates page views and comments that keeps the advertisers happy.

This is an example, the troll in question Ellie Mae O'Hagan is good. Writing on the subject of Charlie Gilmour's 16 month prison sentence she lays it on thick:
He simply should not be imprisoned for crimes that hurt nobody. 
Outrage level-Tut tutting loudly.
certainly Gilmour did wrong although, having admitted that he had taken LSD and Valium prior to the protests, it's arguable whether he was wholly responsible for some of his more extreme idiocy.
Outrage level- Simmering in silence.
Perhaps, given this background, it was inevitable that Gilmour would be made an example of: living evidence that one does not question the order of things. During the protests he was filmed shouting "they've broken the moral laws, so we must break all the laws!" and this desire to question has cost him, unfairly to my mind, his liberty.
Outrage level- Explosive Rage. He actually says "we must break all the laws" yet she twists that into "a desire to question" IN THE SAME F***ING SENTENCE!!!!!
And as more and more people are criminalised, what is this all for? If the public sincerely feels safer knowing an LSD-riddled student is behind bars for the next year, we have become a paranoid nation indeed. And nobody benefits from a society where lack of dissent is the result of fear, not happiness.
Outrage level- Fist through monitor!

5 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

I agree with her, actually.

Ross said...

Seriously? Gilmour was filmed attacking an occupied car with and trying to start a fire outside a building.

I did say yesterday that 16 months was a lot but no prison at all would be amazing.

Mark said...

As well as being an apprentice troll, I wonder whether Ellie Mae O'Hagan is also the offspring of a famous father- hence her identification with Charlie Gilmour's fate ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_O'Hagan

The belief in Equal Ops promoted by the Graun, and other 'quality' organs, tends to go out of the window in cases such as these.

Yaffle said...

I met EMO'H recently - she's quite sweet but wouldn't have the nous to concoct a post purely to make a stir I don't think. What she writes is, for better or for worse, from the heart.

BTW Mark she's a Scouser whereas AO'H is a Weedgie so prob no relation. Also AO'H would have had to have sired her rather young.

Mark said...

Yaffle- thanks for the correction.

The number of hereditary mediacrats at both the Beeb and in the quality press prompted my suggestion; given the extreme unlikelihood of any connection in the light of your information, I think you have her right- she's merely a gal who wears her heart on her sleeve.