It feels like a controversial opinion these days to suggest social media has upsides as well as downsides.
Of course there’s the addictiveness, the loudmouths distorting public discourse and the clickbait ads. (Here’s some Christmas advice: never buy anything advertised on Instagram. Yes I saw a picture of an advent calendar and clicked buy. Yes I received one small toy that would fit behind the smallest door.)
But a well-curated feed on social media is a healthy and valuable thing. It can expose you to a variety of opinions, challenge any cosy thinking, offer direct access to expertise and just occasionally throw up a juxtaposition that brings you up short.
My feed recently served me up a treat that demonstrated one of the great dividing lines in politics and society. But also offered a clear vision of hope.
One post featured a video of shock jock radio host Julia Hartley-Brewer discussing with a colleague the BBC decision to ditch Christmas staple Fairytale of New York from the Radio One playlist. It was quite the clip as the middle aged people at whom Radio One is not pitched struggled to compute that station’s decision. They bleated something about freedom of speech. Tossed in the obligatory reference to the snowflake generation and flickered like broken light switches between being patronising and confused, with nothing in between.
Directly beneath this post was a clip of Barack Obama’s recent BBC interview with historian David Olusoga. It linked to the full half hour of considered, grown up chat. Neither man was acting up for the mic.
Interestingly that discussion touched on the issue of broadcasters who spout strong and wrong opinions to get attention. Right wing radio hosts spreading the lie that Obama was not born in the US and therefore ineligible to be president were a constant background hum during his term in office. Failing to counter their nonsense strongly enough created an atmosphere in which facts were no longer sacred and peddlers of fake news accusing others of the same could win the White House.
The juxtaposition was stark. Here were UK radio names engaged in a discussion based on at best a misunderstanding and at worst a lie. Neither the BBC nor Radio One more specifically have banned Fairytale of New York. Radio One will play a cleaned up version with one word bleeped and another swapped out for something less offensive.
Other BBC stations can choose whether to play the original or the edited version.
Out of touch
Mike Graham, the other radio buffoon in the discussion with Julia Hartley-Brewer, asked: who doesn’t like Fairytale of New York? The answer of course is no-one. The question he should have asked is who likes needlessly offending minorities? And the answer to that one is: not young people.
Fairytale of New York contains a couple of words that some find offensive. Removing or replacing them does not change the melody or the sentiment but it renders it inoffensive. What the Brexit generation seem unable to grasp is a point that Barack Obama drove home in his interview. Young people of Radio One listening age have been raised in an atmosphere of tolerance. They’ve imbibed the concept of equality. They would no sooner discriminate against someone on the basis of gender, race, creed or sexuality than they would request Radio One plays a Perry Como record.
And while the shock jock generation use established technology like radio to peddle incendiary opinions and cleave false divides, the young are all doing the same dance on TikTok. It is another of the positive aspects of social media that kids from Beijing to Bannockburn are forging a common identity through memes and gifs and TikTok crazes instead of focussing on their differences.
It takes as wise a head as Barack Obama’s to illuminate the audacity of hope. He summed it all up in a pithy turn of phrase (obviously, he’s Barack Obama, it’s what he does). He said, “Change can happen but you’ve got to be a part of it.”
We can despair at the divisions caused by Covid or culture wars. Or we can have faith that the next generation are already on it.
Christmas is time for faith and hope. Fairytale of New York endures because it is a song shot through with sweetness and cheer against a backdrop of despair. It’s not been banned. But those who seek to prosecute the culture war through misinformation on the unlikely battlefield of pop songs are the ones that need to change the record.
James Millar is a political commentator and author and a former Westminster correspondent for The Sunday Post