You could call this a right-of-reply to online abuse I’ve been subject to on private messaging groups. By its nature, it was invisible to me. That was the spur, this is the clarification.
My name is Nick McGinley.
If I were to do a one-man show, I’d call it People Displeaser, but I’d say I’d get heckled.
While not perhaps going the full Groucho Marx of never wanting to be a member of a group that would have me as a member, I’ve never tended towards tribes. I would meet my five closest friends singly, rather than as part of a gang. So most of the time, in work and life, that makes me a gregarious loner. Solitary hikes are my idea of a good time. But the gregarious part has started to veer into disagreeable. Because I’m a 48-year-old man who’s being bullied.
I know. It’s embarrassing. I’m a private individual with only occasional, brief incursions into the public eye. And if you’re a friend, family member or neighbour of mine and you’re embarrassed, well…that’s the point. That’s the intent.
The aim is to discredit, disparage and demean.
If you thought it only happens to kids and teenagers, think again. But it’s not direct. It’s never to your, or should I say, my, careworn face.
It’s instead conducted in that hidden whisper-campaign WhatsApp kind of way.
People steeped in consuming online mockery seem bound towards passive-aggression in real life too. Conflict-averse yet simmering with rage.
An added tech twist of course are the ever-present camera-phones – film anyone you wish to humiliate without their permission, then frame it with a caption of tutting disapproval. This is viewed as fine rather than predatory.
These are odd times where local backbiting can metastasize online, where Irish people are looking at others and themselves through handheld prisms of hate.
Steady ignoring of any scornful undercurrent is always the way to go but I suppose I’m old and tired and losing my patience. It was an irritating slur precisely because I couldn’t respond to it.
This was an outbreak of malicious rumour along familiar lines of ‘who does he think he is’ spun into the more sinister ‘he’s pretending to be someone famous.’
The comparison is meant to shame. To say – this person (it varies as to who it is, as long as it’s someone) is everything you’re not. It is simply meant as ‘You’re worthless, you’re ugly, you’re talentless, you’re nobody, you’re dishonest, you’re insane’ – all tied up in one neat little bow. As character assassination, it’s almost elegant, isn’t it?
And totally disingenuous. One of the things humans are best at is facial recognition and if anyone actually does want to check who any punter on the street or room is or is not, oh look, there’s a handy global face directory in every pocket. I barely have eyebrows.
It’s done to taunt a reaction out of you, which they can then point to and say ‘See? There, it’s just like we said.’
I’m clean-shaven with a face full of scars and wrinkles, have close-shorn balding hair and am perennially dressed down, with only a dark shaving line, brown eyes that tend to squint in daylight, and a daily exercise habit to combat insomnia that makes me about as conspicuous as any irritated middle-aged male.
It also has something to do with Insta-driven celebrity obsession, accentuated when actors are promoting new releases, a wish to have an encounter, projected onto a stranger, turned to angry disappointment – ‘wouldn’t it be great to find out that so-and-so was as wrecked-looking as this guy?’ And then from some people who know my name, it’s linked to an interest in twisting my past work in casting, which I’ve written about, into something else, connecting one and one to make five.
It was brought to my attention. Then it mushroomed overnight. By its nature, I have no idea of the wording or proliferation. I don’t know who instigated it, or who spread it. This could after all happen anywhere, and especially it seems, to me.
Besides I don’t blame anyone, (any blame will be directed back at me in any case) as it’s something I’ve experienced before, in good old-fashioned mob rule while working at outdoor events as a younger man, and then I didn’t get it for years and hoped that was the end of that. So it’s certainly not an original sneer or first attack, just an open goal born of social unease on my part, conflicting cues, age, height, gesture, theatricality and work background, but once dislike curdles to mockery in 2024, it’s spread by an insidiously amplified vector.
Sudden insults popping up about someone who’s been quietly law-abiding and on the planet for 48 years don’t just organically occur. If the person isn’t well-known, then why now? It’s score-settling. A defamatory push is made that gains dark momentum. It’s not of course then coming from just one direction – I’ve been on the planet long enough to annoy as many as I’ve helped, or both at the same time.
It got me thinking about the outsized influence of private group-messaging now, our old friend end-to-end encrypted data direct to your hand, weaponizing garden-variety gossip from the school-gate to the Dáil gate to the wedding party to the hotel conference.
Human backchat amplified by Signal/Telegram/Discord, take your pick, to democracy-threatening, racist riots or just for entertainment, slander that guy or girl over there, whoever they are, I don’t like them, they’re not one of us.
There has always been gossip and fear and blame and flawed, divisive men and women, but has a business model that pushes engagement by rewarding outrage and then conceals its delivery amped up the whole tenor of it?
It’s as if there’s a putrid black river flowing under the streets, bubbling with spurious suspicion, invisible, but you can smell the stench and almost hear it. You can certainly see the consequences.
If I had a public profile, if I’d sought one, it’d be a thousand times worse, wide broadcast magnifies everything, the good and the bad, so good luck to the female politicians and football coaches out there. There’s been a rapid coarsening of complaint and a sense of entitlement in attack that’s a striking change in line I think with the growth of free private encrypted messaging. It’s made people more callous.
It makes it challenging too for non-writers, parents on schools’ WhatsApp, players on the GAA groups, teenagers on socials, worried over how their tone is going over to a judgmental audience of rivals, how jokes go awry, how every message gets read for implied slights. And re-read in different moods. Little online pitchforks get sharpened at the kitchen island come wine o’clock. Or at the pub counter. How once things are written down, true or false, they become somehow real.
Dehumanise, deflect, but now that you mention it, no smoke without fire, right?…and repeat.
I’ve only got one haggard head to go about my errands with, I’m not Worzel Gummidge, although the farm cottage and scarecrow-like aversion to impolite society might make you think otherwise. I don’t tend to get meanspirited attention about my physicality when I’m two stone heavier.
Irish people of all ages have long been covering themselves in tattoos, piercings and carefully tended hair & beard variations and more power to them if that’s what makes them happy in the identities they sought out from youth – but if you bar body hair I have no such accoutrements. Up against a heaving data centre or two full of shirtless gym selfies, do I look like I’m seeking attention, or basic human dignity?
People don’t go about their days encased in an avatar from the Zuckian meta-mare yet and hopefully never will, even if that might quite suit the introverts, the unhealthy or the fearful. I’m an introvert too but I value short bursts of human contact, and then a return to peace.
The disingenuity extends to morality. Anyone who has a go at me after getting to know me at all, also knows I’m decent, they just don’t care, they’re probing for softness and think they can paint me anyway they choose.
I’ve never been great with groups. I’d be a person-person, rather than a people-person. I try to meet the world at a manageable level, one at a time, where you can see each other’s reactions and hopefully remind one another of common ground or shared vulnerabilities. You know, humanity. That old thing. Before we get into a game-show contest of ‘My Humanity Trumps Yours.’ It doesn’t. Rights, truth and the law works, or cuts both ways. We have to learn, somehow, to share the world, or we perish.
I always thought I could be, if I chose, that I was allowed to be, non-tribal, a man standing over to the side, unaffiliated, who could join or leave any friendly groups but be prepared to defend himself if necessary.
My territory was whatever piece of ground I happened to be standing on. But I realise that a man not settling down permanently in a community makes people nervous. Perhaps I should have sought to align myself more to one place, one group? Is that what people do to keep themselves safe? Does it work?
My first experiences of being bullied (and bullying a weaker boy I’m not thrilled to recall) growing up in Dundalk were a variation on a bigger lad saying he didn’t like my head and proceeding to punch it. At least it was direct. You could combat it with a quick, hurtful tongue which I’ve retained to sometimes unhelpful degrees. And then when you’re older, they leave you alone. This retained sense of threat that sometimes radiates off me is equal parts useful and redundant.
At secondary, I played a mean prank on a male teacher needling his perceived vanity. I didn’t even dislike the man, it was just evident he was confident in his physicality and didn’t much like teaching. But spotty teenagers can be little bastards. I think friendly chance meetings over the years since have somewhat ameliorated memories of this wounding offence. Indeed the circular levelling occurred when I was giving drama classes at a school in Eindhoven – a young sports jock there gave me an inventively hard time.
Live long enough and garner many reputations. Any stories of hedonistic mayhem told and re-told for a variety of motives can be decades out of date. People tend to chart their own mature evolvement minutely while keeping the same shopworn labels on everyone else.
I correctly decided that on grounds of look and temperament, I had a better shot at working behind the scenes in any story forms. I digress to point out that I’m proud of the work I’ve done and the hard-won identity achieved in doing it. When I was running casting searches around the country for films like Calm with Horses, Kisses, ’71, The Guard, Wildfire, Dollhouse, War Horse, The Other Side of Sleep or TV like The Virtues there was also a certain insulation, since I was known for finding unknowns, people were generally nice as you never knew who I might yet discover. The sign on my back read Opportunity, not Bullseye. As ninety-nine actors out of a hundred are turned down by the CD, I always expected pushback, from actors or agents which, bar one or two, rarely came. I hoped it was because of my attempts at making a soul-crushing process warmer than the rejection process or lack of insulation I routinely experienced as a writer.
Nobody batted an eye at me during this time, visibly delivering the work in a matter-of-fact manner. I had also taken precautions. Knowing the innuendo that can accrue around male casting directors, I made sure I never went out with an actor – when the only women I met for years were actors – but both at the time and in retrospect, this was vitally important.
Noxious gossip has the added sting of attempting to erase all that hard graft. Perhaps those years don’t help perceptions now. People can behave strangely around anyone with a connection to the HR end of show business. And you’re only ever supposed to do one thing. Forever. Stay in your lane.
If anyone thinks any confidence of mine stems from a misguided view of my own physicality, I’ve been single since the end of my last relationship. Why would I involve a woman in this nonsense? I’m under no illusions about my demerits, which pointed me behind the camera and to the desk from the start.
Residual confidence comes more from the crucial knowledge that I’ve helped more people than I’ve hurt, pugnacity, and well, I’ve done varied work many would’ve found challenging which would be the basis of grudging respect for the professionalism of another man. But this isn’t about reality, though, is it?
Tom Waits nailed fevered curiosity turning to neighbourly dread with his mantra question What’s He Building in There? Do you have a right to know? When your face isn’t actually part of what you’re selling, there are many ways to skin the cat.
At certain times in past crowds, I’ve been subject to the ‘who does he think he is’ line of ridicule, and sometimes reacted poorly. Wouldn’t you? So I tended to just avoid anywhere where status anxiety is rife amongst a large group of Irish people drinking – weddings, festivals, airports, theatre openings, and see-and-be-seen restaurants. In youth I tried to drink through social anxiety – it didn’t help matters so I eased out of group socials and cut back on the booze. Which leads to looking healthier and being more visible. You see? He still thinks he’s somebody.
But every now and then, a friend suggests doing something out in the world and I do it anyway, because I’ve got to enjoy my life and need no one’s permission. Sometimes I’ve even had the temerity to go on holiday. I forgot about precautions of old when family health crises meant I’ve been haunting hospitals and nursing homes and Saturday pubs and Sunday lunch venues to bring one-pint respite for my dear dementia-addled father. When it’s up to me, I do my groceries at quiet times with businesses where the owners are pleasant. Don’t you? Vote with your feet? I’m still connected to the North-East region out of duty of care to elderly parents, so I’m trying to use that time as well as I can, on projects I can write with authority about.
Certainly, I’ve never been tempted to write anything political, complicated or contentious on social media. I’ve admired the people who do attempt to tackle thorny issues in the thumbs up/down binary Coliseum, but for the sake of an easier life, I stayed off it, rarely posted, self-censored when I did, always kept it upbeat. Less selfies, more wildlife. I kept these near-dormant profiles as placeholders, sometimes bemused at the incontinent addiction of super-sharers, as if these adults were genuinely scared that if they didn’t post pictures of themselves and their friends, they didn’t exist. To which they might say to me now, You see? We were right. But there are other choices you can make.
It’s one of the central tenets of humanity to feel generally misunderstood – that’s the whole gig for most people, most of the time, whether you’re non-tribal or embedded in the dubious embrace of your fractious community. But in person and one to one, you have a better chance of not having your tone or intent misconstrued, wilfully or otherwise.
Everyone experiences the same room differently. I don’t know what it’s like to be a young woman with lascivious eyes sliding over her body, or to be a recent immigrant gauging which Irish stares are harder than they should be. In fiction, I can imagine what it’s like and I’ve a right to do that too. We’re trapped in our own imperfect carapaces and all we can do is correctly calibrate the warmth we beam out. Be too polite and people may think you’re trying too hard. Or that you’re an easy mark.
So if you champion your own and others’ positive mental health on broadcast or social media, then perhaps try to extend that empathy to anyone you label as mentally ill based on your dislike of their appearance or personality. Realise they may use exercise as much for its mental as physical benefits and that your derision on chat-groups has real effects despite, or because, of it being out of sight.
So be sincere, you’re not concerned, you’re not worried about me or anyone else, you’re just vindictive because of slight jealousy of the perception that I may have more freedom than you do. Perceptions can be misleading. But I just might.
If you’re ready to condemn based on feelings rather than facts, then your turn is coming. Once a smear has its online legs, every subsequent action, every coat or winter hat, is taken as more evidence. See? Look at him, walking around, going about his business. How dare he. The dark consensus has formed. Once the poison’s plugged into your mind, that’s all you can see. Is that phone in your hand also tainting the way you see anyone else?
If you dehumanise someone you despise, you get baseless fear of the outsider, of the blow-in, of the stranger, of the immigrant. That’s the glowing ember. That’s just the start.
You’re allowed to hate anyone you choose, including me. And I’m allowed not to care. Conflate opinion with fact at everyone’s peril, even yours. Yet some of what I’ve said here might still chime with you despite underlying antipathy.
There is however one bleak benefit to being the target of a pernicious slur – you get to see who your friends are. The ones who are in touch. The ones who shut the prattle down in your absence, or counter it with verified positives. The ones who greet your eye warmly – because they know how you behave. Thank you. I do understand loyalty to me can be an exhausting job, running down the credits built up over years.
You also get to see which old rivals and enemies pile on to enjoy the schadenfreude, but there’s little surprise there. Any past disagreements can be gleefully dusted down. The times when I went the distance for others in ways that left me exposed can be casually forgotten. Conflict is everywhere and some of the times I’ve waded in or punched up, I’ve been right to do so. Hopefully enough to outweigh any lapses in good behaviour. And I do regret some lapses.
The Uriah Heaps and cut-price Iagos hide in plain sight pumping their impotence into malign blather when they could be using all that energy into doing something productive instead. There is only ever one motive in browbeating another online and that’s to delegitimise and hopefully deprive them of work, or opportunities to earn a living. That’s a good reason to say nothing about any project online or publicly until it’s complete and you’ve been paid. I’ve been doing that for a while.
When I was recently in a public place, I’m 90% certain from the dead-eyed stare over the device and phone position, the man in the chair opposite was filming me while he pretended to scroll. The old joke I blame society, now comes with the addendum yeah well society blames you.
‘Look at that gowl, tinks he’s…’ Who? I can’t quite hear you.
I’m a writer, can’t you tell? You know, with like, the words…
From the age of two, of will and choice, we all must answer Nuala O’Faolain’s question with a resounding Yes.
For less entertaining instances of harassment, of people unwilling or unable to defend themselves, might it be an idea to institute compulsory red lights on devices when in shooting mode as an alert to invasions of privacy in public waiting areas, sports halls or restaurants?
Last things: to anyone going through similar online abuse at school, in your locality or in a workplace, don’t assume that whipped-up antagonism is the homogenous opinion. People can surprise you, in either direction.
Beware of viewing yourself from the outside through the same warped funhouse-mirror of strangers’ phones. Define yourself by your actions.
Watch out about giving out too much personal information about your work and your life – not everyone has your best or any of your interests at heart.
Be careful about being too courteous but if it’s choice between brusque self-protection or being guardedly warm and damned for it, choose the latter.
The Russian roulette assumption is that you’ll never call online slander out. Because that only spreads it further.
Call it out anyway.
Or not, up to you, there are risks both ways – you can always read Jon Ronson’s book while you wait for them to move on for their next sadism hit. It’s just their pastime.
Remember that millions have far worse problems than some bored, frustrated people being cruel to you.
Meet the world one at a time. With hope. Apprehensive or not, step through the door. It’ll be better than you think.
Oh and one last thing, when they tell you you’re nothing, create something. From nothing.
Do something they cannot imagine. Whatever you feel like.
Something original. Something your own.
And smile. It really pisses people off.