HOW TO DEAL WITH INTERNET NEDS...

So that's where they come from. "Who?", you ask. You know - all those obnoxious adults you encounter through life and wonder how they ever managed to survive for so long without someone having strangled them. Then you realise they must have always been like that - as children, teenagers, and all the way up. And then you're compelled to conclude that, when they were born, the doctor threw away the wrong bit.

You see them as adolescents standing around on street corners almost every night. Surly, noisy (to say nothing of spotty), arrogant little thugs who find it fun to shout things, at a safe distance obviously, at grown-ups as they go about their business. If we see a piece of dog turd on the street, we usually walk around it, on the principle that it's better to avoid than to step on it and soil one's footwear. That's how we usually regard them - as little pieces of excrement to be avoided - until, one day, we realise that for the good of humanity we should have been prepared to get our shoe dirty and stepped (stamped even) right on top of them - hard.

They don't restrict themselves to lurking on street corners any more. Technology has enabled them to spread their pernicious influence beyond their physical proximity and to give them a wider reach. Say hello to the 'internet ned', an odious teenaged 'phenomenon' with a sense of unearned entitlement and no respect for their elders and betters, or even a simple sense of social grace or etiquette when it comes to interacting with adults.

Consider the following response which I received last year to one of my comic strips posted a good while back:

"Very intresting (sic) - and once again nice artwork! I'll be printing those images out and sticking them on my wall - so you'll be the third artist to go up there, and I've been looking for things for about a year!"

Nothing wrong with that, is there? No. Turned out to be from a thirteen year-old comics fan, as I discovered later from further comments on my posts. Then came messages from him to my email address (which I promptly removed from my blog's profile section), and a 'friendship' request from him on another professionally-run site of which I was a member.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think it's distinctly creepy for anyone around a certain age to be swapping private emails with teenaged strangers, so I ignored his embarrassing requests to 'be my pal'. Allowing him to comment on my posts on a public forum is one thing, but encouraging personal emails from him or anyone else of that age is quite another. Why the hell would any adult want to engage with teenagers unless they're related to them, or they're the kids of friends or neighbours?

However, not wanting to hurt his feelings, I occasionally commented on his blog about comics, in reciprocation for when he commented on mine. It surely couldn't hurt to lend a little public support and encouragement to a youngster interested in the medium from which I had earned my living for many years, could it?

As any regular follower of this blog will know, some of my posts about comics and their falling sales have come in for a bit of criticism from certain individuals with a vested interest in sweeping under the carpet anything which isn't of an entirely positive nature in regard to the source of their livelihood. It would be fair to say that I've come in for a certain amount of vilification from some quarters in response to the frank and unfettered nature of my views expressed on this site.

Imagine my surprise then, when the teenaged comic fan referred to earlier, put up a post on his own blog, repeating some of the criticisms and complaints of my detractors. I knew he had managed to ingratiate himself with some of them, but was he merely regurgitating 'gossip' he had picked up from this supposedly 'adult' crew, unaware of the specific target - or was his fanboy adulation being manipulated into taking 'potshots' on their behalf?

I replied to his post, saying that, as a child, he really shouldn't be publicly participating in 'disputes' between adults, and suggesting that his parents should take more of an 'interest' in his internet activities. I'm not a parent myself (as far as I know), but one can't be too careful nowadays, if what one reads in the papers is anything to go by.

At first he appeared to be apologetic, but then, in a sudden twist, he went on the offensive. A stream of invective now flows from his typing fingers, on his own blog and various other sites. Like a spurned lover, he recants his previous view on my artistic abilities and, no doubt much to the delight of his "hero's" (sic), he has joined their side, enthusiastically and with full abandon. Do I care? Not really. The opinions of odious, snivelling little creeps have never overly bothered me, but his misrepresentation of the facts is annoying. For example:

"...just because I wrote a post asking people to stop arguing about the whole incident does not instantly make me an impertinent kid."

I never said it did. It was his subsequent disrespectful and insulting reaction on various sites to which I was referring when I made that remark in the comments section of my own blog. Neither did he restrict himself to asking people to stop arguing, he indulged in a biased, one-sided presentation of the case. He admitted in his post that he probably shouldn't be publishing it, and he whipped it down not long after, obviously realising the rashness of his actions.  

"He said he pitied us on our ambition to draw for The Dandy, your once favourite comic. I see they never rushed to hire you though eh."

Overlooking his inabilty to decide whether he's referring to me, or addressing me directly, the fact is that The Dandy simply couldn't afford me, and it's never even been in my sights as a publication for which I'd want to work anyway. Neither have I ever claimed it was my favourite comic - only that it was once a far better one than it is now. He presents my above remarks as 'though they were in my original reply to his post, not as my subsequent thoughts on the matter in direct response (in the comments section of my own blog) to his insulting epithets on various other sites.

This disingenuous practice of repeating things out of sequence and context reveals a reprehensible disregard for accuracy and the truth, hence my taking the time to refute such cavalier distortions of the facts.   

"He also said: '...you really shouldn't be commenting on grown-up affairs that you know nothing about'. Grown-up affairs? It's about a comic. A comic is made for kids, not grown-ups. Sure, they can read them, but they are not made to appeal to people who grew up in a by-gone (sic) era."  

That seems like a prime example of ageism to me, but - ignoring it for the moment - once again he neatly sidesteps around the point I was actually making.

I was saying that he shouldn't be involving himself (or be allowed to get involved) in a dispute between grown-ups (regardless of what it's about), especially if he's going to present a far from impartial and unbiased account of the case in a fawning attempt to curry favour with his "hero's" (sic). And going by the current circulation of the comic in question, it doesn't seem to be made to appeal to anyone - or at least nobody with an IQ much above their shoe-size.  

"I think what's happening here is that this man is jelous (sic) becuase (sic) I'm still living my childhood, whereas his is long gone."

I think what's happening here is that, above, we have the self-important and uninformed ramblings of a poorly-educated, spoiled little brat, who, with an attitude like his, may never progress beyond his childhood. Somebody's bound to throttle him sooner or later unless he learns a bit of respect for his betters.

Now, you might be wondering, why go to all the bother of addressing the adolescent diatribes of some snot-nosed, pint-sized runt, the internet equivalent of a 'hoodie'? I'll tell you why. This person makes a point of accusing me of 'ageism' on his current post - of not regarding him seriously or treating him with the respect which he feels is his due.

He's also moaning over on someone else's blog that I'm picking on him because of his age; actually, I'm confronting him in spite of his age, for making rude remarks about me on other forums. If I were to ignore his insults and distortions solely on the basis of his youth, wouldn't I then merely be confirming his accusation? (Wouldn't it also be like 'walking past on the other side' without saying anything when some delinquent is indulging in antisocial behaviour on a street corner?)

Typical, eh? Children always bleat on about wanting to be treated like adults, desiring all the advantages and privileges that go with it, but without any of the duties or reponsibilities. When they're called to account for overstepping the mark, it's suddenly very convenient for them to remind us that they're 'only kids'. A case of wanting to have their cake and eat it, methinks. 

If he insists on being treated like an adult (despite behaving like an infant) then that's how I'll treat him; in the same frank and honest (or if you prefer, blunt) way that I would treat any person who behaves in an impertinent, insulting or disrespectful manner towards me - and that's to let them have it, both barrels, right between the eyes.

Consider it done. Perhaps now his mother should drag him away from the computer and involve him in something more suited to his 'talents' - like cleaning the toilet for instance - with his tongue.