Paris Brown: leave the girl alone

First of all, apologies for not posting for so long; I've just been so busy with other projects, but I'm going to try and post more often from here on out!

My first thoughts upon hearing the news of Paris Brown’s foul-mouthed tweets were actually that of sympathy.

I can’t help but feel that everything has been blown well and truly out of proportion. The teenager’s tweets were from quite some years ago, and chances are she was a young, impressionable child, showing off to her friends online, as so many kids do nowadays.

If you haven't heard about this story, you can have a look here

In a way I sort of feel her pain. The Internet has changed in recent years; it’s no longer exclusively for chatting to friends, shopping or playing games. It’s a much more powerful tool, especially when it comes to employment and upholding your reputation.

Over the past year or so I’ve really used the Internet to my advantage: I’ve gained loads of experience writing for online newspapers and blogs, and I’ve started to build my reputation as a journalist. And one of the things I’ve done to create a more professional online presence is vetting my Twitter. I removed tweets that could be deemed as offensive or taken the wrong way, and I changed my handle from the rather girlish and ditsy @graciebabesxo to a simpler @gracehutch28. I’m not sure if I can say yet whether doing any of the above will have helped, but at least I have my own piece of mind that something I posted on Twitter years ago won’t come back to bite me on the ass.

Whilst I understand that there are endless cases of racist/threatening/abusive tweets and messages posted online by the likes of celebrities/politicians/footballers and the like, but they have one thing on their side which makes these tweets less excusable: age.

With age comes experience, and with experience comes common sense; both of which Paris was obviously lacking when she posted about hash brownies and drinking binges. But we all make mistakes, and most of them are made when we’re young and naïve. And unlike Miss Brown, most of us get to make them out of the spotlight and away from media scrutiny.

So before you judge the 17 year old crime tsar – as the Daily Mail today dubbed her – just think back to when you were in your teens, making whatever mistakes you did and only having your parents to answer to, not the entire British population.

Is it about time to stop horsing around?

There's been one unavoidable topic - or should I say joke - that has been overcrowding the social networks over the past day or so; of course I'm talking about horse burgers.

The news that one of Tesco's suppliers were found to have contaminated some of their products with as much as 30% horse meat, saw their market value plummet by millions overnight. But it has attracted more laughs than anger in the most part, and despite being a red hot animal welfare and food standards issue, we just don't seem to be taking it seriously.

I'm as guilty as the next person for re-tweeting and sharing various horse-related banter, and I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm just surprised at the reaction the shocking news has received.

I can't help but wonder, if traces of cat or dog had been detected in those burgers, would we have taken it a little more soberly?

Top trending: #favouritechildhoodbook

I've been transported back to my childhood years this afternoon scrolling through the thousands of tweets in response to the hashtag 'favourite childhood book'.

Amongst the tweets a few of my favourites jumped out at me: James & the Giant Peach, The Hungry Caterpillar and Bear Hunt to name a few. However, no one seemed to mention my absolute favourite which was of course the Milly-Molly-Mandy series by Joyce Lankester Brisley. Perhaps this is because the original books date back to 1928, even though these were being read to me by my Dad in the late 90s.

Looking back the stories were beautifully simple, as most children's books are. The Milly-Molly-Mandy series described the everyday adventures of a little girl named Millicent Margaret Amanda, nicknamed Milly-Molly-Mandy as her full name was thought to be too long. The character's most memorable features had to be her pink and white striped dress, and the fact that she lived in "the nice white cottage with the thatched roof", and these features were always described just so, with no need for any more detail.

Another characteristic of the books which kept me begging my Dad to read to me every night was the illustrations. Only every few pages as to not ruin the magic; I always looked forward to my Dad reading a page to me that had an accompanying picture.

I couldn't have described these wonderful stories better myself when Lucy Mangan wrote in The Guardian: "each story is a miniature masterpiece, as clear, warm and precise as the illustrations by the author that accompanied them."

Who knew Gareth Gates had so many fans?!

Had my first experience of a 'superfan' today, or rather, several off them. Logged onto Twitter at lunchtime at Uni, to see none other than Gareth Gates trending. Eh?! I thought.. So posted a tweet saying "Why is Gareth Gates trending?! Did spiky hair and gappy teeth make a comeback..?" WHOOOOA. BIG MISTAKE.


Anyway, the next 20 minutes or so saw me replying to a barrage of tweets from dedicated GG superfans. Oh my god. The first one was from someone asking me: "who are you really? Just cos u arnt trending cos ure NOBODY!!"

Exactly like that. Spelling, grammar, everything. Or rather lack of it. Thought that demonstrated in a nutshell what pathetic little girls idolise the likes of Gareth Gates. Pretty laughable. Tweeted back "You're clearly some sort of superfan.. (starting with the obvious there!) .. replying to everyone's tweets.. Why is he trending btw?" She didn't reply to me. Willing to slag me off for poking fun at her idol, but unable to tell me why he was trending. Real good fan right there. Was a genuine question too!

Couldn't resist another one so went in with: "Gareth Gates superfans getting all up in my shit = LOL!" Haha, had to be done! WELL. Another barrage of tweets! This time from more girls claiming to be his sisters, not 1 but about 4.. Beyond funny.

Sisters or not.. (my money's on not) today proved how sad and desperate people can be when it comes to idolising others. They say jealousy is the most flattering form of admiration. But I just think it's sad. When it comes to elevating Z-list celebrities such as the likes of Mr. Gates, to God-stature, you're clearly not happy with yourself in some way.