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Stephen Fry lets rip at The Mail..
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StonerFree Member
Not even my father will buy the Daily Mail. So god knows what kind of bigot does!
🙂
projectFree MemberWell said SIR STEPHEN FRY, new leader of the labour party.
Now that was and is a rant, look forward to clarksons return rant.GHe is sure to get involved sooner rather than latter just to promote himself, as a c word, a clue ,cconservative.
AdamWFree MemberAnd the great/amazing thing about this is that while the Daily Hate has apparently about 1.5m paper readership, Fry has a 6.5m twitter following.
Anything done online by the Daily Hate would be subsumed in their celebrity nakedness next to their usual ‘kill the pervs’ articles.
ImabigkidnowFree Memberwrecker – Member
My parents in law are well balanced, normal people. Not racist or small minded at all. I was dumbstruck when I saw that they buy the mail and asked them why; “the telly pages are good”
My wife is very liberal (bit of a plastic hippie yoga type), yet I catch her ogling the mail online celeb pages all the time!They just won’t stop!
POSTED 56 MINUTES AGO #
This
My father-in-law (also my boss 🙄 ) is an avid Mail reader.
Lovely guy, well spoken, thoughtful, never a strong opinion about anything though is borderline over-cautious. He Loves nothing better then settling down with the Mail on both days of a weekend.
Went to stay there for the weekend once and was asked to pick up a paper. can’t remember what I came back with .. could’ve even been a Telegraph 😆 even though I knew he usually purchased the Mail .. but he then went out on a 15 min drive (lives in the sticks) specifically to get the Mail.aracerFree Memberthe normal-minded among us would only ever countenance buying the Mail if we’d run out of bog roll, the we’ll be fine
I got offered a free one with my purchases at WHS recently – we had plenty of bog roll at the time though.
dannyhFree Member40mpg.
You flatter me!
I did try my best, though. One of the reasons I like Stephen Fry is that he makes me feel like I should try to learn more, speak better and broaden my horizons.
He is vehemently pro-thinking. The Mail is not. That has historically been the difference between tyranny and freedom.
deadlydarcyFree MemberMy mum too, who was a fairly leftie teacher back in her day. 🙂 And once came close to hitting me for suggesting that it might be ok to cross a picket line outside a bank if you really needed to lodge a cheque. 😆 And now, in her dotage, she reads the **** Irish Daily Mail and listens to crap daytime radio. I worry sometimes that it’s ahead of us all. 😐
mrlebowskiFree MemberThe Mail is a frigging horrendous paper. I wouldn’t use it to my wipe my arse!
wreckerFree MemberLovely guy, well spoken, thoughtful, never a strong opinion about anything though is borderline over-cautious. He Loves nothing better then settling down with the Mail on both days of a weekend.
I know! WTF is wrong with them?
I sometimes wonder if it’s a car crash reality TV style addiction.sobrietyFree MemberIn the place where I worked my summers at uni, me and the lead Quantity Surveyor used to steal the receptionist’s copy of the mail and fill out the crossword with the names of famous Nazis…
TooTallFree MemberIf I dare to make a broad assumption here – many of ‘our’ generation find ourselves looking at our parents with bafflement at times. As a few others here have commented, they have parents who also read the DM. We don’t think our older relatives are bad people, but they seem to hold views that are very different to our own. Somehow we don’t think the way they do, yet they raised us. Often they put a lot of effort into ensuring we had education, literature and experiences that formed us into the fairly free-thinking people we are today.
There isn’t really a point to this, but it is something that I mull over now and then. I suppose that they are products of a time and place we seek to distance ourselves from at times – as much as we are products of our times and places. They are not bad people, but they baffle the crap out of me with some of the utter guff they repeat having read it in the DM. Will my daughter look upon me in the same way?
StonerFree MemberIm guessing when the next generation of kids look on their Guardian reading parents they may well think WTF 😀
tonydFull MemberDaily Fail is read by idiots who can’t think for themselves and are full of prejudice
[quote]buy the Daily Mail. So god knows what kind of bigot does![/quote]Oi! That’s my mum you’re talking about!
Sometimes she does appear extremely bigoted however, I’m sure she directly quotes the DM sometimes whilst sharing her view of the (in her eyes extremely small) world with me 🙂
TooTall – good post and certainly gets you wondering.
ImabigkidnowFree MemberI forgot to mention: the rest of my father-in-laws family; his siblings and mother (my uncle-in-law and grand-mother-in-law) are more like what I would perceive a Mail reader to be (and they all are).
i.e. there is some mixed-racial relationship in there. i.e. white-british uncle marrying and having kids with Thai, and also ‘illegitimate child out in nigeria too. One of the British-Thai kids now married and had [grand]kids with British Ghanian .
Yet that particular branch of the original family are constantly moaning ‘muslim this’ ‘blacks that’ ‘taking our jobs those’
😀 even with them present at the same family event!!!!!nedrapierFull MemberGiven all of the comments about older, seemingly sensible relatives reading the mail, I wonder whether part of the paper’s appeal is in giving sensibly-minded people who think that the world is a little too liberal the feeling that however right-wing their own views are, they’re comfortably left of the DM.
They can indulge their inner Mosely, while still being able to stay comfortably left of a mainstream newspaper, thinking “Agreed, yes. I wouldn’t have put it as strongly as that, but they do have a point.”
For people looking for comfort, I’d imagine reading a paper voicing the worst of their concerns, at the same time as giving them a marker for counting themselves as comparitively liberal, is a happy place to spend a morning on the patio with a couple of cups of tea.
MrWoppitFree MemberThe idea that Stephen Fry is not entitled to voice his opinions via his celebrity status but Paul Dacre is, via his controlling position as editor, is indicative of the Mail’s inner Nazi.
littlemisspandaFree MemberAwesome work, Stephen Fry. Epic rant, and every word true as well!
I also have the said older relatives who read the Mail. However, they also vote BNP, so definitely not sensible, more on the incredibly bigoted side.
NobbyFull Membersteal the receptionist’s copy of the mail and fill out the crossword with the names of famous Nazis…
This will be my new office sport from tomorrow. 🙂
nedrapierFull MemberThe idea that Stephen Fry is not entitled to voice his opinions via his celebrity status but Paul Dacre is
Has that been said? Not read all of the links.
Not surprised. I can’t imagine the overlap between the 6.5m of Fry’s twitter followers and the 1.5m of the Mails readership is anything bigger than miniscule.
Erm… except for those that follow for the sole purpose of being outraged, which, to be fair, is probably quite a significant number.
FrankensteinFree MemberFirst they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.Martin Niemöller.
sobrietyFree MemberI do love when my mum starts ranting about immigrants, and I say, innocently, ‘but wasn’t grandad (her dad) Irish?’
Also my uncle reads the mail, his family are romany originally, I don’t point this out to him, as I don’t want a fight!
jamiepFree MemberMy parents (65yo) have always read the Mail and Express since I was a child. They are perfectly reasonable, intelligent, liberal, young outlook, left-leaning, etc, so I have never understood why.
My Mum’s reasoning seems to be that it isn’t a red top and it isn’t a broadsheet, which is too big for her small frame to hold
nedrapierFull MemberIt’s like a classic helmet thread on here, it’s not likely to chnage much.
The people who recognise how objectionable the Daily Mail is will applaud it.
But however well-reasoned Stephen Fry’s attack is, it’s still written by Stephen Fry, which will give the DM editorial message, supported by its readership, the allowance to deride and disparage it.
CloverFull MemberGood point. I should be following Stephen Fry on Twitter. That was truly excellent.
chrismacFull MemberI don’t understand why anyone is giving this letter any time at all. If it had come from any of us it would not have made news. So why is it deemed news when it’s written by someone who has been on the telly? What makes his opinion any more valid, right, or wrong, then anyone else’s?
joeydeaconFree MemberI really don’t get the hatred for the Mail. Sure it’s bigoted and prints/publishes some pretty nasty articles, and constantly contradicts itself, but not even the actual “journalists” actually believe any of their trashy content.
It’s funded by your outrage – they print something offensive, Twitter goes berserk, the DM website gets loads of hits and consequently makes money from ad revenue. Professional Trolling. The best thing you can do is to just ignore it.
Once you realise that it’s all just their (admittedly bad taste) business model, then there’s no need to play into their hands and rant about them, their articles or their readers.
If we all just ignored it then it would all go away.
loumFree MemberAn enjoyable rant,
…makes me feel justified in my intense hatred …
for the Mail.
Isn’t it exactly that mindset that the anti-mail brigade object to?
Could it be that it’s the development of any “intense hatreds” earlier in life that leads to Mail Reading in the later stages?
kimbersFull Memberjoeydeacon – Member
I really don’t get the hatred for the Mail.If we all just ignored it then it would all go away.
isnt it the most read ‘news’ website in the country, mayeb even the world
it gets most of its hits from the celebrity gossip trash, but its the subtle rightwing brain washing that goes along with it
my mum started buying it for the free dvds but now shes suckered in
scuzzFree MemberNice rant, poor argument.
Fry is far too arrogant & pompous for my taste. I prefer people who put equal amounts of care into their message and their delivery.Nice read though.
JunkyardFree MemberTheir “Journalists” should hang their heads in shame that they prostitute themselves for this.
THIS A close friend knows one of the journos and he is a rabid lefite
I simply refer to them as the intlectual prostituteIf we all just ignored it then it would all go away.
If only it would
I get your point but ignorance and prejudice will not be overcome by putting your head in the sand and going lalalal till it just goes away, sadly.
fervouredimageFree MemberI got offered a free one with my purchases at WHS recently .
Panini Swastika sticker book?
fervouredimageFree MemberIf I dare to make a broad assumption here – many of ‘our’ generation find ourselves looking at our parents with bafflement at times. As a few others here have commented, they have parents who also read the DM. We don’t think our older relatives are bad people, but they seem to hold views that are very different to our own. Somehow we don’t think the way they do, yet they raised us. Often they put a lot of effort into ensuring we had education, literature and experiences that formed us into the fairly free-thinking people we are today.
There isn’t really a point to this, but it is something that I mull over now and then. I suppose that they are products of a time and place we seek to distance ourselves from at times – as much as we are products of our times and places. They are not bad people, but they baffle the crap out of me with some of the utter guff they repeat having read it in the DM. Will my daughter look upon me in the same way?
Great post sir.
joeydeaconFree MemberI get your point but ignorance and prejudice will not be overcome by putting your head in the sand and going lalalal till it just goes away, sadly.
Yeah, but when that ignorance and prejudice is largely only present in order to gain attention, then it will soon disappear if the hits suddenly dried up. Ultimately the DM’s a business, and has to keep doing what works – if the current model stopped working, then they’d be forced to change, and work out other ways of attracting visitors.
I agree that unfortunately it’s pretty unlikely that this will happen in the foreseeable future.
JunkyardFree Memberyour argument is broadly accurate of how the website works
Shock jock tactics and celebs stuff to generate hits even though a reasonable percentage much just go WTF at the articles.
Not sure it is for the paper as a large portion of society [ old it appears from this thread] are still rather conservative [ small c and possibly politically as well] so the paper would still thrive/sell.
It an easy and successful business model be it the Mail or Clarkson and your right it should not be taken seriously. problem is many of those who follow them do take them seriously [ less so for clarkson I assume]
tomdFree MemberMy aunt has lived in spain for a long time. She speaks to my mum regulalry, but my mum start getting worried about her. Everytime they spoke on the phone my mum said she was asking how my mum was coping with the place being over run by imigrants, cancer rates soaring, the NHS crumbling, swans being shot by feral youth on mini motos with airguns etc.
Turns out she had starting going to some coffee shop that had inetrnational papers and she’d started reading the daily malice. My mum told her to stop.
hjghg5Free MemberTomd – snap! My mum lives in Spain and reads the mail in a bar. I now preface any response to information from her with “did you read that in the daily mail”.
thekingisdeadFree MemberMy Mum’s reasoning seems to be that it isn’t a red top and it isn’t a broadsheet, which is too big for her small frame to hold
You’ve told her that the Independent, Times and Guardian are all available in ‘compact’ size haven’t you? 🙂
AdamWFree MemberOne of the best things I have done recently (which shows what a saddo I am) is to put kittenblock on my chromebook which then gets picked up on all chrome browsers I use when I log in. No more seeing Daily Hate even accidentally!
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