Davina Mccall

[andy-hughes]

Did anyone see the half-page piece about Ms. McCall in the Mail?

The Mail is somewhat unhealthily obsessed with women it sees as 'toned' or 'ripped', it's online sidebar features dozens of them every day - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

so it was thrilled to show a large picture of Ms McCall in a bikini showing her 'toned abs' blah blah blah.

The 'news piece' concerned Ms McCall's weepy social media message about 'lonliness' over Christmas and her fans' concern for her well-being.

So why does the Mail devote a half-page of its newspaper to a shouty TV presenter who looks like a nylon bag full of spanners? Because (and it mentions it of course!) she has a new exercise DVD on release that day!!!

We really do get the media we deserve.

[naomi24]

andy-hughes, //I don't snipe at you because you *** about Islam for free do I?.... hopefully we can stop this exchange now and return to the OP. //

I haven't a clue what that first bit means but certainly we can return to the OP. After you.

[tonyav]

Yes best of luck to them, not that it changes my opinion of her.

[andy-hughes]

Thank you Naomi - appreciated.

[ummmm]

Why xmas? What's so special about that?

[andy-hughes]

ummmm - Not sure if your statement was ironic - ?

[Mamyalynne]

Quite a few couples seem to try to get together at Christmas for the sake of the children, hope it went ok for them.

[hereIam]

I have always liked her, but when I saw the picture of her with all her abs on show and so on, my first thought was she looked almost skeletal.

[Ellipsis]

Finding an excuse to say unpleasant things online about the looks or character of people you don't really know is a bit low, whether on Twitter or AnswerBank. It's somewhat hypocritical to complain that people do it to you, when you're prepared to dish it out to people who have never had a bad word to say about you, andy-hughes ...

[andy-hughes]

Ellipsis - // Finding an excuse to say unpleasant things online about the looks or character of people you don't really know is a bit low, whether on Twitter or AnswerBank. It's somewhat hypocritical to complain that people do it to you, when you're prepared to dish it out to people who have never had a bad word to say about you, andy-hughes ... //

It's part of the price paid for being a 'celebrity' - but the thrust of my point was the pointless use of half a page by the Mail to publicise Ms McCall's DVD.

[Mamyalynne]

It's a pity then that you wrapped your thrust up in derogatory remarks.

[Ellipsis]

> It's part of the price paid for being a 'celebrity'

That they get abused by trolls? OK, andy-hughes, if you put yourself in that category ...

[andy-hughes]

Ellipsis - // > It's part of the price paid for being a 'celebrity'

That they get abused by trolls? OK, andy-hughes, if you put yourself in that category ... //

If I placed my opinion on Ms McCall's Twitter, that would make me a troll.

I am confident that she will know nothing of my opinion - and I would not dream of placing it anywhere if I thought she would.

I am many things, but I am not a troll - expressing a viewpoint on here does not make me one either.

[andy-hughes]

Mamya - I think my opinion was perhaps a little sharp, but not really derogatory - so we can agree to differ.

[douglas9401]

There's some amount of time, effort and gymnastics going into this back-pedalling corkscrewy guff when all that's really needed is an admission of (yet again) misjudging the room and the one time bond of solidarity that may have gone for ever.

[Ellipsis]

> If I placed my opinion on Ms McCall's Twitter, that would make me a troll.

You're saying that the exact same thing posted on AB and Twitter is OK on AB yet trolling on Twitter. And you'd rather say that nonsense than admit you were wrong to post "a shouty TV presenter who looks like a nylon bag full of spanners" in the first place.

[jno]

I think that first bit is right, Ellipsis: abusing someone where they'll read it (their FB or Twitter accounts, say) is trolling them; saying it somewhere like AB, where they won't, isn't. Ungallant, to put it mildly, but not real trolling.

[Ellipsis]

OK, a bit of pedantry. You don't post to their Twitter or Facebook accounts, you post to yours, just like on AB you post to your AB account. Twitter and Facebook let you tag people in your post and, if they care to read posts in which they're tagged (I wouldn't), they'll read your posts that tag them.

AB doesn't allow tagging, which is a blessing and a curse. The nearest AB gets to tagging is making someone's name the title of a thread, as in "FAO jno" or, as in this case, "Davina McCall" (note that's "Davina McCall", not "Daily Mail pointlessly advertising DVDs" ...).

If Davina Mccall was particularly masochistic then, as well as reading Tweets that tagged her, she could set up alerts for where her names was mentioned. Then she would see this thread. The truth is that she probably doesn't read either. I hope she doesn't.

The point is that there's not a lot of difference between posting in one venue and post in another. Posting nasty stuff in public on the Internet is not excused by saying "But there are hardly any visitors to that site". This site is on the public Internet and this thread can be found in Google:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.theanswerbank.co.uk%2FMedia-and-TV%2FQuestion1586691

It's impossible to know for a fact whether Davina McCall views this thread, this site or is even a member. Maybe she likes crosswords. Posting nasty things about her on the public Internet is troll-like behaviour no matter where it's done or whether she reads it or not.

[NoMercy]

If I'm terribly, terribly bored I go on the DM website and see how many "news" items begin with the words "busty" or "braless".

[andy-hughes]

douglas - //There's some amount of time, effort and gymnastics going into this back-pedalling corkscrewy guff when all that's really needed is an admission of (yet again) misjudging the room and the one time bond of solidarity that may have gone for ever. //

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I am not 'back-pedalling' about anything, I have not 'misjudged the room', whatever that is supposed to mean, and I know of no 'one time bond of solidarity'.

If you think I am bothered if people take issue with what I say, then you don't know me very well. People are entitled to their opinion of what I post - a rule that applies to all of us, but if you think I say or don't say anything in order to impress anyone, then you are seriously mistaken. There are people on here whose views I respect, and whose opinions I value, and there are others to whom the opposite applies, so I have less than no interest in your 'solidarity' nonsense, and if anyone is writing 'guff' on this thread, it would appear to be yourself.

I repeat, I have no idea what you are talking about.

[andy-hughes]

Ellipsis - // Posting nasty things about her on the public Internet is troll-like behaviour no matter where it's done or whether she reads it or not. //

Since you appear to be a captain in the Internet Morality Police, I shall be studying all future threads anywhere on the AB where anyone says anything hostile about any celebrity, and I shall expect a robust attack from you to follow swiftly afterwards - which is only right and proper since you are being a moral guardian for the rest of us.

If however, you accept that people make comments on websites and the subject has the right of redress (so unlikely as to be dismissible) or to ignore the comment from someone they know nothing of, and care less about.

This is the equivalent of a pub conversation, it is not a personal attack on anyone who is likely to take the remotst notice of it.

If you beleive that comments on websites make that much difference beyond their immediate orbit, then you are communication in the wrong medium.

If I wanted to attack Ms McCall personally, I would post where I know she can read what I say - I don't, so I haven't. I would reiterate that my post is about the Mail pointless obsessions, not Ms. McCall herself.

So - be an Internet Guardian, as you appear to think you are, or accept internet exchanges occur and are ignored by the vast majority of the population, including people mentioned in passing.

Make your mind up - I will be looking to see which way things develop.