TOM EATON: How the EFF tried to convince me that play-play names are the same as proper job titles
Extract
This is a small story in the grander scheme of things, but I need to say it: henceforth, you will address me as Lord of All That Creeps Upon The Earth. And if you question this title, you’re a bigot working for Stratcom.
I have come to this decision after reflecting on the many, many tweets, sent to me by the devoted followers of the EFF this week.
The reason for this deluge of twittering was a tweet I wrote on Wednesday afternoon. Journalists who refer to Julius Malema as “CIC”, I suggested, are not in fact journalists. At best they are bro bono stenographers (a magnificent description coined by Nic Dawes), but mostly they’re just fans. There was an almost audible gasp from revolutionary cyberspace, and then the tweets starting pouring in. One of the first asked me if I was trying to be popular. This was a rather silly question. If you want to be popular in this country you don’t write words. Instead, you stand on a podium and make promises you’ll never have to keep. Another presented me with a Facebook meme, drolly pointing out that, even though there are 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoris, “it still isn’t as sensitive as a white man on the internet”. A meme responding to a tweet about a politician making stuff up: I won’t claim that it was Chomsky versus Zizek but it was one way to spend an evening. I know what you’re thin...
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