Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Man's Criticism of Actor Stephen Fry Draws the Wrath of Tweeters

by Caleb Johnson on November 2, 2009 at 06:25 PM

These days, more verbal smackdowns take place on Twitter than do at junior high schools. Of course, these might go unnoticed if the people involved weren't, in many cases, celebrities. Some of these "Twitter Wars" are funny, but some feuds get downright nasty. But it's not just celebrity-on-celebrity disputes that are taking place in the Twitterverse. The beauty of the site is the ability for an average Joe to directly communicate with famous folks -- for better or worse.

For example, a man from Birmingham, England named Richard (who tweets as brumplum) recently posted what he thought was an innocuous tweet about Brit writer and actor Stephen Fry, only to see it result in a social-networking firestorm. According to The New York Times, it read, "Much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit ... boring," in reference to Fry's musings. Not only did many of Fry's 934,000 followers respond to Richard's tweet (Celebrity Alan Davies called Richard a "moron."), but Fry even posted a tweet about possibly quitting the micro-blogging service because of the remark. In the end, both men apologized. Fry still tweets, and Richard has more followers than ever.

All is well that ends well, we guess. But what does this spat prove? Twitter isn't a place for the faint of heart. Our advice for sensitive celebs: if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. [From: The New York Times]

Tags: celebrity, socialnetworking, stephenfry, top, twitter, web, writer

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular