The good, the bad and the ugly (hurlers on the ditch)

Gerard Smith is back with his column WordSmith ducking a few virtual pucs from hurlers on the ditch.

Hurlers on the ditch. That phrase presented itself to me on three occasions this week. It’s a particularly Irish idiom. For non-Irish readers (I have a few), it describes people who comment, often critically, about things they have no active involvement in.

I suppose it’s opposite would be ‘sitting on the fence'. While in a café over the weekend, a friend who used the term did an impromptu performance of a ‘hurler on the ditch’ that had me cracking up with laughter. Had I filmed it, I’ve no doubt it would’ve gone viral.

Inevitably, it’s an idiom that’s most often used in a sporting context. The combative and passionate nature of sport lends itself to vocal, critical comment. The announcement of Cavan’s new football manager resulted in many hurlers running onto social-media-fields, waving their sticks while hurling comments that ran the gamut of: The good, the bad, and the ugly. The phrase even has its American counterpart ‘Monday morning quarterbacks'.

I prefer our version. Those four words perfectly capture the shaking indignation of the frustrated critic and commentator. It’s a phrase that’s not only applicable to sport, it’s hugely prevalent in politics; and it’s rife across the creative industries.

As a creative working in the pharmaceutical industry, I would often walk into a room full of ‘suited and booted’ executives to present creative ideas and strategies. Creativity is largely subjective, and so it’s subject to: Personal feelings, tastes and opinions. Looking back at those meetings now, I realise they were all about dealing objectively with the hurlers in the boardroom to get the creative work over the line and the coffers in the can.

Like sports people, creative folk have to thicken their skin to criticism. Personally, I’ve become somewhat immune to it. When starting this column I gave myself three rules: no sport, no politics, no religion. And those self-regulations weren’t imposed to protect myself from the high-level opining those subjects generate. No; it was because I’m not best qualified to write on them. That said, I do get comments online and in the real world.

One day while walking down the street I was stopped by a smiling woman, “Are you the man who writes in the Celt?” she asked. Her glowing smile gilded the compliment to come, and I primed my inner peacock, ready for a beaming response. Here smile widened, “The article you wrote last week, I HATED it…!” I swerved to avoid her curveball, but was quick to throw one back, “Thanks for reading it, and I’ll do my best to have you LOVE next week’s.”

I didn’t take offence. In fact, I welcomed her opinion, particularly as it was delivered in person, face to face.

The online hurlers are the hard ones to face, because we can’t. The keyboard seems to tap into the darker recesses of their souls transforming them into uncaring trolls with whom positive engagement is frustratingly futile.

My recent social-media hacking had an unexpected side-effect, I found myself positively wallowing in my removal from the murky-morass of that muddy-online-landscape that can bog the best of us down.

I’ve regained control of my Facebook, but not before the hacker deleted and blocked all my friends and contacts. I approached people in person who I engaged with regularly on Facebook, to let them know that friend requests from me were indeed, me. Interestingly, quite a few told me they had left the platform. I wondered if this was part of a wider trend? A quick Google search confirmed there is a growing exodus away from Facebook, with compromised privacy, no fact checking, and increasing toxicity among the reasons why.

As I write I’ve reached the heady-heights of five Facebook friends; and I’m content to remain ‘Billy face-few mates’ for the foreseeable future. Interestingly, my hacking highlighted a definite shift in social-media usage amongst my peer group, and it’s largely driven by the need to move away from endless scrolling and the negativity of toxic commentary.

In my orbit the digital-detox is definitely a thing. The digital-landscape is full of ditches with people hurling less banter and more bile. But the great thing is, we can switch it off. And when we do, it works wonders for the health of the head – trust me.