February 7, 2009

There was a time when Janet Street Porter, while consistently horrifying to listen to and appalling to watch, was nevertheless a genuine driving force in what was once dismissed by the likes of the Daily Mail as "yoof culture" - so-called because of how she spoke.

She was one of the brains behind Network 7, which when I was a kid was reportage for the disaffected or funky (or hope to be) 14-24-year-olds.

In the 80s, it shocked people by talking about drugs, and sex, and sexuality. It went live to a man on death row, had swearing, and filmed nose job surgery and gangster rap and all its rude words - all commonplace today, all incredibly subversive and "street" at the time.

And all of this on a Sunday afternoon, vicar.

But Janet's grown up now and the world, whether she likes it not, has moved on without her. As the world tends to do to all of us.

Now in fairness, these two sentences from a piece she's written today genuinely made me laugh - and indeed out loud:

"Most blogs," she writes, "are a litany of the humdrum, with bulletins about new tricks the cat can do, or how many times a day the baby has pooed. For every riveting blog from a war zone, there are hundreds from suburbia - tidal waves of the utterly commonplace."

I think we can all take that criticism on the chin, even if her context is all shot to shit.

But it's where she writes them that makes me laugh loudest.

Because yes, of course, you just know what's coming.

Janet, the former yoof culture warrior, the one-time self-appointed arbiter of all things cool, is slagging off Facebook (a target for paedophiles, and evil corporate - even CIA! - spies, no less), blogging (dull) and social networking in general (what's the point?) in precisely where, exactly?

Well, the very organ of cool she spent so long being slagged off in herself, of course: the Daily Sodding Mail.

I'm sure they paid you well, Janet.

NB: Note how people who write this stuff, like Janet, assume that the millions who use these facilities are completely blind to the Big Bad Wolves in the world up until the moment Janet and her friends point them out? You'd think they'd research a little harder than just accepting the Mail's pound and then writing any old bollocks...