The media has been bowling me over recently. Last week came my battle with the most irksome tabloid of all, the Daily Mail. Or rather, the hothouse that is the Daily Mail Online. I'm the first to admit to shamelessly browsing the right hand column of the page quite regularly; the renowned 'Femail' section consisting of, you guessed it, hundreds of pieces of female-based celebrity gossip. This is something which I don't take too seriously, more for my own sordid entertainment when I'm feeling down on my luck; a picture of Britney Spears in unflattering trousers is just the ticket. But let me be clear: I don't in any way wish to condone the kind of crap they come out with. Perhaps unsurprisingly, worse than the appallingly-written stories and attitudes conveyed by the 'writers' themselves is the abhorrent species of folk that take time to comment on these articles. For the Daily Mail allows anyone and everyone to write a comment underneath almost all their online articles, supposedly 'moderated' before posting. I can only imagine that this moderation consists of merely checking that there are no 'swear words' in a comment, as there is very little else that fails to slip through the net as far as I can see.
What I witnessed last week was nothing short of bullying targeted at my favourite artist and friend Bo Bruce. A crude article to start with, reporting on a so-called 'wardrobe malfunction' of hers, which, thanks to the bitter low-lifes who commented on it, turned into a full scale attack on everything about her. Perilous insults were thrown at her via the comment box - 'she's on drugs', 'she's anorexic', 'she's ugly' to name but a few. Call me biased and over defensive, but I was completely gobsmacked that people were taking their time to sit behind a computer and fearlessly insult someone they know nothing about. To make matters worse, the outfit in question was worn for a charity event - rendering the whole debacle completely and utterly disrespectful not just to Bo, but to the charity. Bo has, extremely bravely, battled through a life of turmoil to come out the other side and prepare to launch her dream career, at last. How anyone can sit there and say such disgusting things about someone like her is beyond me. I only hope that these trolls eventually find a way to deal with their issues in a more effective way than anonymously bullying others over the internet.
Amen.
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