Save for indignation and mob justice, the other runaway social media trend is the “you’ll never believe what happened next” posting. You know them. You’ve clicked on them. “She raised a baby shark in her bath, but then flushed it down the toilet. She went surfing in Muizenburg. You’ll never believe what happened next!”
And, because you do not want to be outed as the only person who did not want to believe, you click on the link. You think you know what happened. Maybe the shark chased off the other sharks that wanted to eat the surfer. Or, perhaps, the surfer was a dentist, the shark was called Cecil and she killed it with a dead, stiff starfish used as a makeshift ninja star. You click because it is click bait and we are the fish of the internet. You click because you need to feed your hunger for the unexpected and, hopefully, to find something to be really, really annoyed about, something you can repost and send to your followers with the comment, “This person deserves to die. That poor shark.”
Yesterday I clicked on a link that promised to show me “Nineteen amazing English words we’ve totally forgotten about”. The link goes to matadornetwork.com, and it did just what it said on the label. Twirlblast was what they called a tornado in the 1700s. Chork is the noise your shoes make when you are walking in them and they are full of water. Interrobang is the punctuation mark that is a mixture of a question mark and an exclamation mark. Uglyography is poor handwriting. Feague is the act of putting a live eel up a horse’s backside, a throttlebottom is a dishonest public official, while crapulence is “easily the most amazing synonym for ‘hungover’ … (it) comes from the Latin word crapula, which just means ‘hungover’.
The best of the 19, though, are trumpery, for “things that look nice, but are actually pretty worthless”, and ultracrepidarian, “one who gives their opinions on things they don’t know about”. Both of these words describe Shane Warne on Twitter this week.
Adam Goodes is an Australian Rules football player, one of the best the game has seen. He has been named Australian of the Year. He is an aborigine. He has views on how his people are treated. He has been forced to stop playing his sport for a spell because he has been booed at every match he has played for daring to perform an indigenous dance after a score. This was, apparently, provocation. How dare Goodes celebrate his culture while playing with all those white fellas? The booing is racist. There is little other explanation for it.
A few years ago, Goodes was called an “ape” by a 13-year-old girl during a game. He stopped and pointed at the girl, who was removed from the ground. He was shocked, he said later, not by the racism, but by where it had come from. The girl later apologised to Goodes, who accepted the apology with grace. He said the girl was the face of racism. Some fans had not forgotten that, it seems, and when he went all “Abo” on them, responded with boos. In the way of all good lynch mobs, it became a thing to do. Then came the right-wingers, led by former Wallaby coach and now radio host Alan Jones, who claimed the booing was not racist. It was because Goodes had made himself into a figure of hate.
Then came Warne: “This whole Adam Goodes drama is ridiculous. The public can boo or chant whoever’s name they want ! It’s nothing to do with being racist...”. “If the public don’t like a sportsman because of the way they play the game, they boo, if they like them they cheer, nothing to do re racism.”
And yet none of them can give another reason why the booing is not racist. Statistics show he is not the worst diver nor fouler in the sport. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “a disgraceful West Coast Eagles fan, shouted to Adam Goodes last weekend: ‘Get back to the zoo!’ The same fan, explained himself afterwards: ‘It was just part of the banter of the game.’ His ejection, he said, was ‘humiliating’.”
Warne can’t see the difference. Racism has a face and it has apologists. Shane Warne seems to be both trumpery and an ultracrepidarian. Perhaps he would also feague if he had had enough to drink.