Mark was so toxic in today’s Coffee Moaning that I need to vent!
At around 21 mins he starts talking about the possible suicide of Mick Norcross. After not very long he starts turning it into something about himself.
Starting with him implying it seems worse when masculine men commit suicide compared to others. You can tell he’s thinking that but then spirals off into toxic feminism, toxic attitudes to feminism, toxic masculinity and toxic attitudes to masculinity and it all gets confused. I think he’s simply trying to say we forget the pressures men are under. Fair enough but no need to frame it as men vs. women or masculine vs. feminine.
Anyway not a big deal but step 1 of making it about him.
And then to “trolling” which has no known link to Mick Norcross’s death.
He goes into full school teacher mode expressing something as an absolute truth that is actually completely wrong and harmful.
“Never stand in judgement of other people.”
What? Society hangs together because we make judgements of others and ourselves all the time. We have to question, investigate and challenge each other or there’d be nothing but corruption. What he means is “you lot should never criticise us while we try to make money from you.”
This of course comes from someone who is incredibly judgemental, including of himself.
But here’s the bit I find truly disgusting:
“If you slag someone off, in public, and it leads to them taking terrible action against themselves you have blood on your hands for a fact.”
Where to start!
1. Ok so he stressed the ‘in public’ bit which makes no sense at all. So doing it in private and pushing them to suicide, that’s fine? He’s not bothered about that detail because he wants to talk about himself.
2. Does he really not realise that he slags people off - celebrities and his own viewers, including insults and name calling in the comments (which then get deleted).
3. It is absolutely NOT TRUE that anyone who slags someone off is then responsible for their suicide. This is equivalent to saying that if someone slags someone off and then someone else murders that person because they’re perceived as an embarrassment, it’s the commenter that is responsible for their death not the murderer.
4. Mental health is a personal responsibility and just like we have to protect ourselves from starving or freezing to death, we have to protect our own mental health (and that of our children) not just hope the world is kind which it isn’t. It is completely within Mark’s power to avoid online criticism. He could pay someone to deal with YouTube comments, get off Twitter and make his Instagram private, but he freely chooses to expose himself to it. That is on him.
5. It does an injustice to anyone who has made the huge and brave decision to commit suicide to suggest they’ve done it because someone has slagged them off online. They often bring up Caroline Flack as an example when talking about this. The evidence suggests she had severe mental health and substance abuse problems, whether in her right mind or not was caught abusing her boyfriend, lost her job and was facing criminal prosecution and a media back lash. Suggesting that someone she didn’t know writing an unkind comment about her online played a significant part in her decision is ridiculous and insulting to her.
6. Systematic, inescapable bullying or harassment, particularly of children, is an entirely different matter. Slagging off is not automatically bullying or harassment. By definition it’s criticising in an unkind manner. We know that Mark perceives all criticism as unkind and misuses the word troll. Therefore, again, all he’s saying here is “don’t criticise us or you’ll be sorry.”
7. Free speech? Has he forgotten that’s a thing?
8. How will this kind of comment affect people like Josh or other well-meaning people that provided honest criticism and then got jumped on by him or other subs and called trolls. Are they now supposed to feel responsible for his mental health and if he ever does anything to harm himself, blood will be on their hands?
If he believes what he’s saying, he needs therapy.
So to anyone who listened to Coffee Moaning this morning and might have been affected by what he said - he is wrong and do not let this stop you judging and commenting on his/their behaviour and holding them accountable!
while stood in the kitchen. 
