This is how the whole thing started. It was meant to be a harmless tweet directed at the people who tweet me every single time Manchester United play. For some odd reason, people seem to think i am actually David Moyes or they just assume we're related, with most thinking i'm his daughter (who looks nothing like me). Most of the tweets were pretty harmless before this week, and usually just asked me to sort out the team. However what's happened since this tweet was posted on Tuesday night has been completely unbelievable.
In the first 24 hours, it had been retweeted about 1000 times. That's not counting the hundreds of new followers, favourites and mentions i was receiving every few minutes. By this point i'd already been contacted by the Manchester Evening News and had a call from Key 103 in Manchester about appearing on the Breakfast Show the next day.
Then on Wednesday evening, Gary Lineker retweeted it and my phone literally had a meltdown. I can't begin to explain how many times per second i was receiving new notifications on twitter. It actually took me about 15 minutes to scroll through them all to see the notification of his retweet because of the volume of mentions coming through.
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I guess that's when the really abusive tweets started. I'd heard about trolling before and i was bulled in school, but i have never ever experienced anything like this. I understand that these people don't know me and they probably do it to lots of other people, but that doesn't make it any easier to read. Here's a very small selection of some of the most extreme ones...
While these are horrific, I've lost count of the number of tweets i got telling me how ugly i am. It's not nice for any girl (i might be 27, but i still feel weird being called a woman) to read. While it can be easy to put on a brave face and brush off the extreme ones, i think i found it harder to read the ones attacking my apperance. You just have to ask my best friends how little self confidence i have at the best of times, especially when it comes to how i look. So by Friday night, i was pretty upset over the sheer volume of horrible tweets that were coming through.
It also makes you wonder if i'd have got the same amount of abuse had i been a guy. About 95% of the abuse was from men, the only girls having a go where those who told me to change my name. But i can't imagine they'd be calling another guy half those names, if it had been a man in my position.
Lucky i have some of the best friends in the world who lovely throughout the whole thing, and others who i may not have heard from in a while, but who definitely had my back. It was nice to see some comedians coming out to support me too (even if i don't actually know them)...
So when i woke up on Friday, my face was splashed across The Sun, Daily Record and Edinburgh Evening News...
That's not to count the various websites who picked up on the story including Daily Mail and Buzzfeed. I also ended up getting interviewed for Radio Forth, and i spoke to Des and Jennie on the Capital FM Breakie show on Friday morning too.
One of the main misconceptions from the people tweeting me and who still are tweeting me, is that i love the attention. I've got hundreds of tweets like these telling me so and calling me names in the process...
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I also want to say thank you to EVERYONE who sent me lovely messages over the past couple of days, it really has made all the difference. While some of it has been funny, it's also been pretty intense and i do appreciate the support I've had.
And before i forget, can we all pray that Man United win against Bayern Munich on Tuesday?!
Thanks!!
P.S - Thanks to Tony Jameson for the blog post title. If you saw his Fringe show last year, then it'll probably make more sense.
That is horrendous for you. You poor thing. People can be so vile. Beautifully written by someone who seems beautiful on the inside and out :D I would follow you but think your Twitter account is probably still smoking! Keep your chin up, at least not everyone is like the nasty bullies you've highlighted here x
ReplyDelete"The reason i don't want to change my name is simple, it's because that's what people have called me since i was 16."
ReplyDeletethen you have made your choice. Now suffer the consequences in silence please.
Why the hell should anyone "suffer consequences" for having a particular name? Or for any reason, for that matter?
DeleteYou are an awful awful person, schadenfreude. Stop being ridiculous and grow up.
DeleteDude [schadenfreude], chill and back off.
DeleteLiterally get killed.
Deleteif, schadenfreude, you read her blog post and that ludicrous comment is what you have come up with you need to have a good think about your own values and perspective on life.
DeleteWhile I wouldn't want you to get killed, you are a prick.
DeleteOr you could just not fucking look at anything she posts so both of you win.
DeleteIt's HER NAME. Jesus Christ. Sarah, you're gorgeous and you've handled all of this like an absolute pro. Hats off to Moyesy!
DeleteFirst, I have to point out how lovely this post is written. Being new to the blogging commmunity, I appreciate lucky surprises on my web ventures. 'Tis an article that erodes my faith in humanity while simultaneously bolstering my support for one unlucky lady on social media. I would tell you to "Stay strong", however the last thing I want is for the ridiculous abuse to continue. Thoughts and best wishes, Sarah. You deserve much better and may it arrive speedily.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would report each and every one of the abusive tweets. It's totally out of order.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am curious, did @moysey report these posts to the police? Might be worth these people facing the consequences.
DeleteTo quote Michael Bolton in 'Office Space': "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks."
ReplyDeleteMore and more, I'm ashamed to be male. The level of misogynism on display both in real life, and more usually, on social networks, is shameful. You shouldn't have to change, or pay any attention to these idiots, but I can't imagine how difficult it must be not to. I'm sure (I hope) this will pass soon enough, and you'll be able to continue with your life in peaceful anonymity.
ReplyDeleteHowever, all these clowns and arseholes who have abused you, will still be clowns and arseholes, after this has passed. And they will have to deal with the consequences of their actions eventually, I'm sure.
Take care.
You are clearly lovely and should never have to put up with this abuse (not that someone slightly less lovely should...). They're mindless and hateful people with nothing better to do with their time than trying to hurt people whose intelligence and beauty would scare the shit out of them in real life.
ReplyDeleteAlso, moyesy isn't even a widely used nickname for David Moyes or, I suspect, his daughter... so not only is the abuse horrible and unjustifiable, it's inaccurate. I might open up an @ditheringdave twitter account to see if we can deflect some of this abuse.
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeletewe never met, we probably never will meet, and this is probably the only topic we will discuss about. So if you had not written this post, I would not have stumbled about you, your situation, and now would not reply to you
I guess you do want people to think about, discuss, judge the situation you are in. So you do want publicity... Why else would you give interviews on the readio, etc. Isn't it obvious that listeners will then google you and see who this person is? Now of course that doesn't mean you enjoy it. It also should not excuse any of the terrible messages you are getting. There is absolutely no excuse for it.
But you need to make a decision: If you want this to blow over, stop talking about it publicly, just say it is not worth it. Concentrate on your life. People write those comments because they hope they can touch you. And you reacting, retweeting, etc gives them a feeling of succeeding.
So, your choice now:
you wrote about it - you saw those stupid, unfair, nasty reactions.
you write about it again in the future, you will get - guess what - stupid, unfair, nasty reactions.
We can all moan about it (and ask for world peace :-)) - but unfortunatly that won't change a thing.
So switch off your phone, have a cuppa, and laugh about those idiots who judge your life without knowing anything about it.
Cheers
And you look "gawjus"
ReplyDeleteYou have your face splashed across newspapers because you are pretty!
ReplyDeleteYou're very attractive, just so you know.
ReplyDeletelol what a fucking bitch.
ReplyDeleteIf one tenth of the energy spent spreading negativity and hate was instead spent spreading love and positivity the world would be a much better place.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right... if it was a guy it would have been an article written called 'check out this hilarious tweet' or some sort of man-praise. As a woman you clearly have an ulterior motive lol. Anyway, just popping in to say I thought the original tweet was very funny and the subsequent story was well written, if not a little sad :/ and as others have mentioned you are a beautiful person so let the hate wash off your back.
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