Tweeting the Zeitgeist

I've been a little slow on my social media uptake so it was with great surprise last night when I found myself engaging in a tweetfest that actually affected something in the real world.

It was about three in the morning and I was loving another bout of insomnia. Luckily being in Avignon in the south of France I was perfectly in time for Sydney news and media and just general wakefulness. As I scrolled down my news feed I scanned the headlines (I think of tweets as headlines and prefer the ones that open into a world larger than 140 characters) looking for something interesting...

@GetUp - 'We should expect more from our political candidates & community leaders 

than homophobia, hate speech. #TessCorbett @BernardGaynor'

No idea what this was about but respecting @GetUp's take on issues I decided to dig around. Turns out @BernardGaynor is a senate candidate for a new political entity in Australia known as Katter's Australia Party (Katter's Aus Party). Gaynor had taken to Twitter to back up another party nominee, Tess Corbett and her comments made comparing homosexuality to bestiality...

@BernardGaynor -  'I wouldn't let a gay person teach my children 

and I'm not afraid to say it #auspol'

Uhmmm... ok! I was suitably aghast, I mean I'd heard that people tweet all sorts of crazy bullshit but had never actually had the opportunity to read it. This was completely different to retweeting inspirational articles about issues I believe in; here was someone making pejorative comments about people that included friends, coworkers, cool strangers that I haven't meant yet. I was kinda pissed but also felt strangely powerless to do anything against this hate speech.

I read through the post again and some of the follow up this goon had made attempting to justify his position. Some people had made some equally crazy comments wishing violence and death on the guy. I wanted to write something but didn't want to join the club of people venting their spleen. Basically I wanted to be clever, witty and concise (the last not being a huge problem on Twitter)...

@rightzblock - '@GetUp now you know people just don't vote for

 @BernardGaynor and take his voice away!'

I felt proud, I felt engaged, I reread it and realized my punctuation made the message a little ambiguous but I had said something against this guy. The way Twitter works though @BernardGaynor might never know that I thoroughly abhorred his narrow minded perspective...

@rightzblock - '@BernardGaynor Australia is a secular state, 

don't bring your misguided religious beliefs to the political debate!'

Now I felt better. I had spoken my beliefs in 140 characters or less and let some bigot know he had no place spreading his views. I could sleep easy, and despite the insomnia, several hours later I did.

In the morning I woke up and after covering coffee and the obligatory ablutions I got a little curious about what I'd been reading last night. I found this: The Australian - Twitter Gay Slur Story

I was stoked, energised and generally pretty damn happy... Of course this story has ignored thousands of others who also got online and expressed their unhappiness at this guys bigotry and insensitivity. Collectively they made the difference and were there representing the Australian public over the wicked minority. For me though it felt good that I had spoken when I felt moved to speak and stood up for my convictions.

When I sit down to write this blog I always hope that someone will read it and take away something of my message. It's hard to know when you write alone and receive little feedback; mostly your own opinions. The blog's pretty new though and I accept that few people even know it exists. But I do believe strongly in the power of our voices when we speak out on the things we believe (Rightzblock - The right to free speech?), it was great to see how it can come to fruition...