I do love Twitter and the world of social media, for one it allows us to get a bit closer to our favourite authors and find out the who the person behind the novel is. We follow quite a few authors over on our Twitter page, and one of these is Scottish crime writer, Val McDermid, who shut down a sexist Twitter troll this week and became an instant hero!
There’s a lot of anti-feminist trolling on Twitter and more recently, many authors have been leading the way in combating the trend. Our much loved Jo Rowling regularly shut down Twitter trolls, and Neil Gaiman often proves that feminism isn’t only a female trait!
Now it’s Val McDermid who has been attacked by an anti-feminist troll, whom she quickly shut down as the Internet jumped to her aid. Twitter user @ThreeNSixPlease tweeted McDermid two days ago…
And she didn’t mess around when replying either!
Your loss. You probably struggled with them anyway https://t.co/QgFuqWWY9n
— Val McDermid (@valmcdermid) August 16, 2016
Pretty soon, J. K Rowling jumped to her defence
@valmcdermid @ThreeNSixPlease Not to worry, Val, I’ll order two of every copy from now on ?
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 16, 2016
and things took a more amusing turn
@jk_rowling @valmcdermid @ThreeNSixPlease To be fair Val’s kept that feminist stuff pretty quiet. Apart from campaigning/writing/inspiring..
— Muriel Gray (@ArtyBagger) August 16, 2016
you really have to watch out for those stealth feminists!
@ArtyBagger @valmcdermid @ThreeNSixPlease Yeah, she’s one of those stealth feminists who lure you in by writing books you enjoy. #dangerous
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 16, 2016
Rowling wasn’t the only author to get involved either, as Harlan Coben dived into the spat
@valmcdermid @ThreeNSixPlease Gonna be hard to find an author to read. Every decent one I know is a feminist. Bye.
— Harlan Coben (@HarlanCoben) August 16, 2016
So did a lot of ordinary people
Renowned author seeks better type of reader. https://t.co/b9sV2rnTd3
— Sneezy (@happyandbashful) August 16, 2016
to amusing effect
@valmcdermid pic.twitter.com/bPIFAaVS7n
— Jill Valentine (@milfgaardian) August 16, 2016
some people were surprised he even had the nerve
@atticusfinch104 @valmcdermid I love the idea he thought he could tweet that bollocks and not get burned by Val
— Sarah Hilary (@sarah_hilary) August 16, 2016
and many came out in support of the author
@valmcdermid I’m looking for some decent holiday reading. I’ll add you to my list. Swings & roundabouts, eh.
— Rachel B. (@notRachelBrown) August 16, 2016
So there you go, shock horror, Val McDermid is a feminist, which I actually thought was fairly clear anyway. Maybe unsurprisingly @ThreeNSixPlease has deleted the original tweet, and it looks like many many now be adding McDermid as an author to check out.
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