The comments thread on this blog has got to be the funniest thing I’ve read in months.
A Nathan Barley-esque 19-year-old has been given a column on the Guardian’s website to share his adventures while backpacking around Thailand and India for two months.
He is getting slaughtered in the comments section because:
a) his dad happens to be a travel writer who contributes to the Guardian and other national papers
b) he comes across as smug, spoilt and vacuous
and
c) he can’t write.
Putting him onto that site to write about his self-indulgent holidays, financed – by the sounds of it – by daddy’s gold card, was like throwing him into a pool of sharks. Highly entertaining though.
As I write, his piece has attracted 350 comments – which must be an all-time record for Guardian online. And it only went live at 9.55am today.
Nepotism is of course alive and well in many areas of work, but the media has to be one of the worst. How else would Peaches Geldof get to write her mindless drivel in the Guardian?
Sadly no one in my family works in the media, so most of my approaches to commissioning editors don’t warrant so much as an email response to say: ‘thanks but no thanks’. I just get the metaphorical – or should that be ‘virtual’? – tumble weed.
The upside? Retaining at least a modicum of credibility.
postscript 6.40pm on 15/2
So the comments section got closed down for that blog last night, after 475 posts, which must be the highest ever. Threads normally keep going for a few days at least, from what I can tell.
The travel editor responded with his own post today, which has failed to satisfy most of the paper’s critics and has already attracted 330 comments…
Max’s dad also added his thoughts, revealing that his son won’t be continuing his blog and that the whole family is very hurt.
While I do feel sorry for the lad, as some of the comment yesterday was very personal, I can’t help thinking his dad and the paper were really very naive if they didn’t anticipate this kind of response….hope he at least has a nice holiday after all this has died down.