John Waters on Newstalk

I think a lot of people have been a bit reluctant to write about John Waters’ recent recent rants (and there really is no other way to describe them) about blogging for the simple reason that he’s clearly just dying to get some attention. The frankly lazy comments about bloggers being “stupid” are hilarious in their childish simplicity. For a man who holds himself out as a relatively erudite (quasi) intellectual you’d think he could come up with a more perspicacious (I just love that word) description than “stupid”.

Which brings us neatly onto his “debate” with Fergal Crehan from Tuppenceworth on Newstalk this morning. To those of you who weren’t aware of it Waters had issued a challenge to Gilroy and Byrne to find a blogger who could “string more than 3 sentences together”.

Firstly I’d like to say a huge fair play to Fergal. He was reassuringly calm and composed in the face of Waters increasingly nonsensical ranting. The 2 were both given a minute each to present their case to address the issue of whether blogs contribute anything to society (I’m paraphrasing). Waters argument was essentially that blogs (as well as being stoopid) are

• entirely negative
• are written by people with limited or no intelligence
• are like the “CB radio of the noughties” (i.e. just a fad)
• contribute nothing to society
• and are the equivalent of the random scribblings we see in public toilets

Fergal’s points were simply that

• you can’t make abject generalisations that all blogs are negative
• some blogs are written by Nobel Peace Prize winners and journalists (Waters completely avoided the question when it was put to him that writers in his own paper have blogs)
• you’re not obliged to read blogs – you filter the good from the bad

Most importantly Crehan noted that the whole point of blogs is that it gives people an opportunity to air opinions that would not necessarily find a space in the mainstream media and yes, while some of those opinions are those of cranks, you cannot possibly tar every opinion with that brush.

Two final points in me own rant. Firstly Fergal rightly took Waters to task for his random figure that apparently “60 to 70%” of the internet consists of pornography and more specifically he wondered where Mr Waters plucked this figure from. And this is where Mr Waters truly petulant childish manner shone through – “everyone knows that” (again I’m paraphrasing slightly) John Waters essentially came across like a small child who when stuck for an answer replies “just because” – but how do you know this to be true “just because! Everyone knows it’s true – stupid”

As if he hadn’t embarrassed himself enough (and the persistent talking over people really starts to grate after a while) Mr Waters managed to get the final word in – “I don’t read blogs anyway”

But they’re stupid

And negative

How do you know that Mr Waters?

Cause everyone knows it

...

Stupid