"Get your arm swing just right when you’re walking and you occasionally touch a bit of minge by “mistake”, they love it." #BANTS

Monday 10 November 2014


I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of celebrity. Less so of social media celebrity. I don't care about Zoella, the Londoner, whoever. They don't really have anything to do with my life or my industry, and while I find them annoying when they're thrust in front of my screen intrusively (can Rosie write? Technically yes, she can work a keyboard and write words. Is Zoella shrill and annoying? Not to 13-year-old fangirls), they get on with their life, and I do mine.

Except, there's a problem. If you're a twitter fiend you may have heard of Dapper Laughs. A guy who's famous for, well, I literally have no idea. Having a few social media accounts is the only thing I can come up with.

Up until about a week ago, I was totally oblivious to him or the fact he even existed. I ignored the hashtags that showed up on my journo twitter account until the RTs got too much and I had a peek.

But now I know he's from South London, and has a programme about ‘dating’ on ITV. His real name is Daniel. Oh, and he's totally ok with joking about sexual assault, rape, and abusing homeless people. FOR BANTS, innit.

See, two writers reviewed his Christmas album (proving anyone can, in fact, create a Christmas album), and when they heard him talking about giving a woman “one up the bum” and a tramp stinking of s**t in The Name of Bants, they told people to not put themselves through the torture. It wasn’t a harsh critique, and they even included the links in case people did want to make their ears bleed listen

Anyway, he took real offense and got his legion of insane followers (who’d give the puppy-killing One Direction fans a run for their money) to threaten and abuse the two writers, blaming them for the lack of sales and that he WAS going to donate proceeds to a homeless charity but he can’t now, innit.

When Shelter got wind, they refused to accept any donations from Dan, Dapper, whatever, which then prompted an apology from him, because seriously when a charity refuses to take your cash, you’re on slippery ground.

His fans couldn’t understand what went wrong...







Ah, the old ‘if you don’t like it don’t look’ argument. See, as I mentioned above, I get that. I don’t read certain blogs and I don’t watch certain tv shows because I don’t like them, and because I don’t like them, I don’t look. But then again, none of them advocate sexual assault.

Anyway, it’s now come to light that he said one of his audience members was ‘gagging to get raped’ and that she should bring two friends with her backstage as she was going to need them.

ITV seems to think there’s literally nothing wrong with this. That he’s a bastion of UK humour and that comedians need to be risky. They’ve refused to recall his show, and may have potentially given Dapper Dan two more series. BECAUSE HE’S A LAD.

So no more talk.

I’d love everyone to take a look at this petition, and, if they agree, stick your name on it. We don’t need a generation of men thinking this is what women should tolerate, for jokes, bants, whatever. We don’t want boys growing up thinking this cheeky chappy persona is an excuse to threaten and demean the women they encounter in their day to day lives.

Because ‘if she cries, she’s just playing hard to get,’ right?



Facebook
Labels: , ,

0 comments :

Post a Comment