My personal feelings about the Daily Mail have been well-documented around these parts in the recent past. That, however, is irrelevant.

I have never read a Richard Littlejohn column. I've been told about the kind of things that are in them, though, and I am sickened and disgusted by the sort of opinions he holds and shamelessly foists on an eager public, who will lap up everything he says without question. It is dangerous for people to be allowed to say things that I don't agree with.

Thank goodness I have b3ta to tell me how to think, so much better than having the Daily Mail telling me how to think.

You've probably come here to see if post 10101010 was anything interesting.
It wasn't.
Nobody even noticed it.
Ah well, eh? See you all again at 10203040!

It's not the shop-this-person aspect of the challenge, he's a media personality after all, it's the google-bombing aspect of it that's making me uncomfortable. It has the feeling of a raid to me.

R4TE mE /B/3TA!!!1!

IF I GET 100000000000000 RePLIz: SHARPIE IN POOPER! Also the game.

KEYBOARD ON HEAD KEYBOARD ON HEAD

edit: oh fuck, I thought this was a reply to the comment about Julia Gillard.
Indeed, my package is rather limp at the moment...

yes to all three

Entry fee is only $30. If I can actually get her to sit for the portrait...

"Other information: Portraits submitted for the Archibald Prize must be painted from life. This means that the subject is known to the artist, is aware of the artist's intention and that there has been at least one sitting by the subject for the artist, for the portrait in question. Artists must provide a written statement signed by the subject stating that they had at least one sitting with the artist."

I feel used, but in a nice way.

I'm completely on song with Manic on many of his internet missions, but not this one. And the fact that I'm finding myself siding with the Daily fucking Mail is leaving a very nasty taste in my mouth, but politics make strange bedfellows and all that.

Do we have to sleep in the same bed?

you know what I mean. We can just not enter the challenge.

I'm having a drunken internet point-proving session right now, though.

testify brother.

www.b3ta.com/board/10099071
oh and last weeks compo I like nuclear power edf rock wind power is not viable

I wouldn't dare, I would be scared that you'd find a photograph of me and turn me into a squirrel.

I agree with the whole liberal extreemists shouldnt exist idea but, In work there is usually a copy of: the scum, the daily fail or a tvquickmyhusbandfuckedmydaughterlookhowtragiclifeisinfiveminuets magazine on offer. So as you can imagine I am immersed in bigotry for 8 hours a day and its (by proxy) littlejohn big cunts fault. I am feeling a bit nostalgic for the Julie moult treatment. but no more than thrice a year.
edit : I'm going to give you a click even if I only agree with part of you, because its the bloody minded part thats the best.

because I knew what was being published in her name.

I realise that this is entirely subjective, but I have managed never to read any Littlejohn columns, or even hear many specifics about what's in them. Some places I work have shitty newspapers lying around, I choose not to read them.

Bringing the odious cunt a significant amount of free publicity for the sake of ridiculing what other people tell me his opinions are is fair enough, but I don't want to be a part of it.

I'm not criticising anyone else for taking the piss out of Littlejohn, but I'd be a hypocrite if I did, and I suspect that an unfortunately high percentage of image challenge entries in the forthcoming week will sit squarely in that category.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Voltaire stole it off a Greek, and it doesn't quite fit because I agree with you

If someone's spreading prejudice and hatred to a receptive / idiotic audience it's potentially dangerous.

Oh, and the fact that you're not getting shouted down for having your doubts should be of comfort to you on the 'peer pressure' front.

I do not expect anyone to do anything they don't want to do.

Now climb out of this trench and walk slowly toward the enemy private, or there'll be trouble.

I get the distinct impression that his fan base do not get past a headline. He usually contradicts himself in the first sentence.

I think he deserves everything he gets.

but that's not the point I'm making.

I blame you, Hedgehog. You bastard.

or you'd have been blaming the paki immigrants.

But lets face it, if the turban-wearing poofs must come over here and take our jobs, then it's only reasonable to expect them to make their women take their burquas off. I mean, fair's fair, at the end of the day, we've got to level the playing field.

They pay their taxes like everyone else.

Except the ones who don't.

Yeah.

So now that I've contradicted myself from sentence to sentence, then written a few very.

Short.

Paragraphs.

I'll use an egregiously long word where it doesn't really fit, just to show how clever I am, and you're unlikely to understand me because you're reading the Daily Mail and you've probably been distracted by a "TV's so-and-so gets photographed shopping!!!!" headline anyway, and then I'll sign off with a smug, self-satistied chuckle.

because you're a woman, and your opinions are therefore unimportant. Now get back into the kitchen and make my midnight fry-up.

I'm going to boot you in the balls with my Doc Marten before shaving my head, gettign married to Chris Huhne's girlfriend, and demanding a bikini wax on the NHS.

nah, he's trollin'.

Don't look at me, I'm never serious.

The sad thing is, as tabloid jounalism goes, I've read worse.

Usually, "shit" image challenges turn up the most ingenious entries. I'm sure this one will end up with some extremely good pictures/animations on the popular page.

As I said up there, though, that's not the point I'm trying to make. It's the slavish adherence to the b3ta hive mind that bothers me, and it's irrelevant if (in this instance) I happen to agree with it.

I forgot to slavishly adhere. Is it in the FAQ?

:(

in a hundred minuets they will all be like pah gay shift.
and the ridicule with the magenta sticks. pick a side and get ready to change my ol granpa used to say.

You assume a lot, but you have a right to your views, and I'm not going to shun you for them. Once you start distorting things, and making shit up (while saying "you couldn't make it up"), we'll have an issue, but until then...

Entering image competitions is not compulsory, and the tradition of alt comps is well-established if there ARE people who don't know who he is and/or don't care to educate themselves. Me, I expect there to be some dross and cock (which will be the stuff Littlejohn highlights if he mentions this at all) but I also expect there to be many 'shops that provide a small amount of education and encourage people to educate themselves. Case in point:
www.b3ta.com/board/10101052

he's a vile journalist and I can see that this challenge is not simply about attacking him for his opinions, but for his general sensationalist fraud etc. I don't know what to think about this challenge, I dislike the guy intensely, but as I said below this is on the back of only a couple of articles. I'm still foaming at the mouth about Janet Street-Porter's depression article, so I'm having a self-imposed ban from the daily mail for a while, as I think my rants alienated my apathethic friends.

There is also a part of me which says that, be his opinions abhorrent or not, the onus is on the public to be able to tell fact from fiction and educate themselves beyond shitty newspapers. Such action would neutralise him. I am fully aware of the utopian nature of this fantasy.

I'll happily laugh at pictures that take the piss out of Littlejohn if they're funny and/or meaningful, and (as I already said last night) BLD's one is fantastic.

I don't think I "assume a lot", though. My point is that I'm not just going to assume what Littlejohn is like based on what you tell me, and I see no point in going to the trouble of finding out for myself. He is utterly unimportant to me, and to the vast majority of non Daily Mail-reading people in this country. All this is doing is drawing attention to him.

he'll only highlight the baseless attacks if he references this at all. There's no avoiding that IMO. Also, in terms of scale his platform gives him access to a far greater audience and we are not at risk of feeding the big monster to any serious degree... but we can potentially plant seeds that outgrow his lies.

As for 'cloaca', well, I am going somewhere with that. The 'shop that calls him a 'cunt', for example, is the kind of thing that's really started to bother me lately. Why reward a woman hater with a word that implies hatred of women? Why not use a far more suitable word in these and other similar cases?

and I wish you the best of luck with it. I'm just concerned that encouraging people to lambast someone they have no personal experience of (beyond being told that they should find them offensive) is exactly the kind of tactic the Daily Mail itself would use.

Even if it achieves whatever aims you want it to, doing so by making everyone lower themselves to that level strikes me as a rather hollow victory.

/opinions on the internet lol

that whether "cunt" or "cloaca" is employed, the personal attacks are utterly pointless. Personal attacks, as dissenting voices, are self-defeating. Surely the wisest option would be to provide intellectual opposition to his viewpoints, with persuasive evidence of why he is wrong, rather than calling him a cloaca.

I fear that this plays into his hands somewhat, as he can easily reject these "criticisms" by putting it down to childish name-calling. I think he would be much more uncomfortable with reasoned arguments against him. This just gives him the opportunity to play the victim, if anything comes of it.

in instructing b3tans in how to do anything. I'd sonner attempt the herding of cats.

and you know I'm a fan of bloggerheads and your work in general. I'm just concerned about the efficacy of the current tactic.

on the back of the ecotricity challenge, I think rob is testing out some paradigms for world domination and mass mind control.

I too couldn't give a fuck about littlejohn or any fucking Mail journo. I read one of his articles, it made me angry, but it also caused me to exercise discretion next time I felt like reading an newspaper article. As I result of exercising discretion in this case, I have read no further littlejohn articles.

Testing this autocomplete thing

I try not to comment if I don't know the subject at all, this round is very far from my world.

I understand the frustration in making b3tards start to resemble /b/tards and the itching suspicion that you're all bunched up and dubbed e-tards in the end.

I'd be happily ignorant of this columnist but for this compo but he seems a worthy cause - if degrading oneself in the process is OK.

EDIT Oh fuck my bad engRish but the point is made I hope.

it's pathetic, b3ta has gone down hill fast over the past few challenges.

lets make hate filled pictures about someone who writes hate filled articles...all because someone else has an agenda against them.


baaaaaaaa! bunch of fuckin' sheep

must. generate. press. attention. for. b3ta.

It should be able kittens and silliness here, not "edgy political comment".

i agree, the ecocity challenge was bad enough and this challenge is just complete shit, i dont care about Littlejohn or griffin, 'oooh look' its cool to be anti right wing, well i have news for you fucktards this is exactly what the government would like you to think because they control both sides they win either way.

i really just wish people would wake up to the game the mainstream media plays, constantly using the Left right agenda to keep peoples minds in a narrow band of thinking and ultimately controlled.

if you want to do political, how about a challenge on what really bought down WT7 or maybe explain in pictures what happened to barry jennings? or a picture challenge of what hit the pentagon since no CCTV exist of the most secure building in the US? do something that actually matters for fuck sake.

I don't know about the challenges going downhill, but this one seems a bit off target in my opinion.

First of all, no one outside the UK has a clue who he is. This makes the challenge very narrowly British, for better or for worse. Even if you live in the UK you should read the Daily Mail to have an informed opinion. He doesn't seem like a very important person outside the realm of the Daily Mail.

Secondly, he does not seem very flamboyant. No crazy tics, odd dressing up og weird hairdo. I liked the Amy Winehouse and the Boris Johnson challenges because they were flaboyant characters. But in this case there is not much to work with in the visual department.

So a small fish, and a boring one.

I'm sure the challenge will be more interesting next week.

I agree with you to an extent

however If you took a ocuple of mins to read one of his articles or If you really fancy some fun one of his books and then you'll see this comp is quite justified

I'm well aware that he's scum, and reading his output would make me angry. It would serve no other purpose (apart from getting his hit rate up). I don't see the point.

maybe because its funny taking the piss out of cunts like Littlejohn?
but you're right... If he saw this it'd probably just cause him to right some more vitriolic cack about how a 'self serving media elite are forcing our kids to become black disabled lesbians'.......... or something like that anyway

I mean I don't see the point in me going out of my way to read something I wouldn't normally touch with a barge pole, with the sole aim of getting myself all worked up. I don't see that as being a healthy approach to news-gathering. I know enough about his output to know that I'd just get angry about it, so I choose not to read it.

There are probably very few people who make images for b3ta and also read the Daily Mail. My main point is that encouraging people to take the piss out of something they probably have no personal experience of is precisely the kind of stunt the Daily Mail pulls all the time - prime example being the Ross/Brand/Sachs affair, which passed unnoticed by most people until the Mail stirred up their readership to complain en masse about something none of them had even listened to in the first place. I just think that this image challenge is uncomfortably similar to that.

There have been many image challenges about celebrities when they've been in the news (Gillian McKeith springs to mind) or were relevant to /board's interests at the time (David Icke). I agree completely that Richard Littlejohn deserves a kicking, but I'm uncomfortable with this week's challenge.

There seems to be no specific reason for it. Much like the "one energy company wants you to slander a rival energy company" challenge a couple of weeks ago, this seems like an exhortation to join one side of a two-way battle. Now I would pretty much always naturally side with anyone against Richard Littlejohn, but to be honest this is the second time such a challenge been officially sanctioned on b3ta in the last couple of weeks, and it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm surprised that this image is currently winning. To be honest, it wasn't my intention to hijack the compo in such a way. I like and respect Manic and his work, and I don't enjoy being on the other side of the argument.

And all my kids actually are disabled black lesbians. You couldn't make it up.

edit: I have compo'd this post as well because it's a more coherent explanation of the reasons I'm deeply uneasy about the whole thing than the other post. I'm not spamming for clicks, I'm just wanted to clarify what I was getting at in the first place.

edit edit: Uncompo'd again. I don't think I really need to draw any more attention to myself on this matter, I've said my piece and I'm now going to stop yapping on about it.

Oh.

I don't understand this indignant stance. Nobody complained about previous challenges taking a pop at the likes of Nick Griffin, why do it for Littlejohn?

I don't read the Mail column either, but like many others I have to put up with people I work with reciting opinions from it, so Littlejohn is fair game in the same way that Simon Cowell is fair game to those who don't watch his annoying TV shows.

If we had a Hitler challenge, would we have people saying "Well, hold on a minute - a good few people agreed with him. Who are we to criticise?"

Not that Littlejohn can be compared to Hitler...but you get my point.

(Have I proved Godwin's Law yet?)

Thank you, I will do what you tell me.