Don't blame me for creating stories on Twitter, says Stephen Fry

Don't blame me for creating stories on Twitter, says Stephen Fry

Posted by
Mercedes Bunz Tuesday 17 November 2009 11.23 GMT
guardian.co.uk

The millions of Twitter users make stories - I only point them in a direction, says Stephen Fry in speech to conference


Stephen Fry, speaking today at the 140 Characters Conference in London, said:

"There is a power of Twitter. We can't deny it any more, well for sure not as a celebrity Twitterer. A year ago, nearly no one heard about Twitter. But things move so fast today - and the bewilderment, content, disbelief with which Twitter was greeted ...

They called it the most banal and pointless waste of time. And do you know what they say now? Now they say: Our Twitter strategy is ...

It is a very odd thing when people think they are being smart when they speak not as humans but as business people. They say, I need a phone that does this, I need a social network that does that. You know what? I know a lot of executives that lead big companies, and they talk about what excites them and what convinces them. They are driven as human beings.

And you know what? Before humans are reasoning, they are emotional beings. With gadgets you communicate with other people, and therefore this is an emotional internet that you have. Not just plain function. It will come as no surprise that as the next big thing it wasn't designed as business for business. Twitter was created to babble to each other. Remember it was called Twitter and not serious debate or marketing tool.

It is important for all of us to understand its nature. It is human shaped, not business shaped. And the swell will move elsewhere if you try to make it all neat and attractive. The greatness and the magnitude of its energy will all move.

Think of Twitter or the internet like the invention of the printing press. 1450 - when there were no printed books and about 500 years later there were 20m. The press became available for a great number of people. There was a new freedom of the press. This caused upheavals. Huge numbers of magazines, broadsheets and pamphlets were published. And the most popular ones were not called "the Debate". They were called the Idler or the Spectator.

There was no class more contemptuous of Twitter than the commentating journalists. Why should we care about what Britney Spears had for breakfast, they said. So may I ask you, why do you write about it in the paper? The journalists said, who needs this Twitter thing and in the next moment you read: Follow the Daily Mail on Twitter at ...

But like with the printing press, Twitter changed the situation. People like me, Twillionaires [people with more than a million followers], we can cut out the press from our PR requirements. It used to be a pact with the devil. You wanted to inform the press about a new film and they said they will interview you, but only if they are allowed to ask you around other themes about your private life. Today, Britney Spears tells her PR manager, why should I care about that this journalist of this newspaper with big circulations, I will reach this circulation just by typing into my keyboard.

So well, whole newspapers are on the one side filled with resentment against Twitter, on the other side they are using it and searching Twitter messages. By the way, have you recognised, they are using it as a feed, the deadwood press doesn't say stream. Puzzling.

Then there are good moments. There was the case of Trafigura, which forbade the Guardian to write about it. It caused a storm on Twitter, which I joined in quite late as that morning I came from the gym - it is pathetic, I can't believe I said that but it is true, and the thing reached such a heat by 1pm or 2pm that the lawyers had to do something about it. This can be considered a victory.

Or a journalist from the Daily Mail wrote about something very awful which happened to affect a friend of mine, although I don't make a big deal about that fact. But I saw this brilliant answer from Charlie Brooker and so commented and pointed there. And then they said, 'Who the hell does Stephen Fry think he is forbidding this journalist to think freely?' Well I never did.

But because of the weight of my numbers I am now credited or blamed for inventing these stories. But this is not the way Twitter works. The Twitter millions create the story. You can only point them in a direction. It is like with your parents, when you come home and say you did this because a friend told you and they go like: well if he told you to stick your head in the fire, would you do that?

Twitter is about participating - by which I mean you tweet and read other people's tweets. Then you understand it, and get its rhythm. But remember: It is about being authentic. These things are human-shaped."

Fry is afraid that Twitter will be swamped by PR professionals. What do you think?