Old Media v New Media. John Smeaton shows the power of both

So John "The Smeatonator" Smeaton is likely to get some sort of gong says Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6281036.stm

Is this down to the power of web 2.0, social networking and the rise of the blog? Or is it simply down to the power of the old fashioned press?

I might end up with a spike up my a*se here, as it sounds like I'm about to sit on the fence - but the answer is both. Like almost everyone else, I first came across the Smeatonator when a link to his site started zooming round the world via email.

When it got to my office and went round everybody within 10 minutes it was clear it was a net phenomenon. However, when, a couple of hours later, I got the link from my (virtually web illitereate) missus I knew this was going to be a big story with crossover into the mainstream media.

I don't pretend to know what lies in store for the printed press, magazines, TV news etc. There doesn't seem to be any argument that they are haemorrhaging readers and viewers. And the main reason is the alternative options, particularly for the young, available on the web.

But let me get off the fence. In style. There is no way Smeats would have been in line for a gong or any other parliamentary award on the strength of the johnsmeaton.com website alone. Not a chance.

Whaterver it has become now, let's not for an instant pretend this site was anything other than a tool set up to ridicule Smeats. Little wonder. He came over in the early TV footage as a complete poltroon. Some sort of over-animated halfwit spouting electrified Weedgie patois. The original site wasn't doing the rounds (certainly among anybody I know) to celebrate his "heroics".

It was being passed on at the point with one clear message. Look and listen to this Weedgie ar*ehole talking the kind of patter normally reserved for TV comedy neds. The same sort of chat you hear from Scottish street alkies, who get cash out of passers-by using a veneer of comedy to mask an underlying menace - so allowing both parties pretend it's not really a mugging.

Smeaton's antics got hijacked by the people who set up the website to have a right good laugh at his expense. Part of the comedy value since then is that the site has now been hijacked seveal times over. The tongue in cheek congratulations offered to Smeato quickly turned into a wave of genuine bravos.

In short, the irony was entirely overshadowed. A wildly gesticulating figure with a rapid-fire line in gibberish and a happy propensity for swedgin' was suddenly elevated to an altogether different status. He's been imbued with the credentials of a folk hero, from selfless bravery through all the romantic qualities that might define Scottishness and nationhood. Aye, a real paragon of virtue, right enough.

Then the site also attracted the usual bilious racists, xenophobes, warmongers and curmudgeons, each with their own invective to impart. Unpleasant, yes. But in cyberspace this is as it should be - the smeaton website is really just one big pub chat turned into html. Every man, woman and their dug is represented, regardless of their views. True, web-based freedom of expression.

It doesn't disguise that the site set out to be cruelly-mocking, albeit in a humorous way. However, it was smart-alecky to a point too far as it relentlessly poked fun at its victim and what it perceived as the qualities and values (or lack thereof) that Smeatster represented. Now the site creators have been forced to pretend there was no irony intended and it has become a straight-faced champion for everything it originally set out to ridicule (now THAT'S an irony).

The people behind the site have performed this remarkable volte face without even a grudging admission of how or why they've been turned. Which makes them crafty, slippery, graceless and cowardly.

Back to my original point. Salmond and co aren't daft. That Smeats touched a nerve in the Scottish psyche is inarguable. But to grant him some sort of official public honour at the behest of a website founded on mockery and ridicule, overtaken by natonalist schmaltz and anti-terror hokum, all liberally sprinkled with ill-informed, quasi-racist sentiment? Nae chance.

The web gave us the perfect vehicle to enjoy, celebrate - and yes, ridicule - his antics. To endlessly replay the Smeatmeister's inexplicable, incomprehensible, insane retort to an event where we'd expect just about any other possible reaction than what he (joyfully) gave us. But The johnsmeaton.com website - like the man himself, I suspect - is distinctly dark and vaguely unpleasant beneath its veneer of humour and matey likeability.

So thank God for the good, old-fashioned mainstream media!

TV news gave us Smeats in all his windmilling, waving, waffling glory. without his appearance on teatime news bulletins we'd never have had anything to talk about in the first place.

And make no mistake. It will be thanks to tabloids and BBC online if Smeats gets official recognition. They have done what they do best - tapped the zeitgeist and reflected Scotland back at itself in a manageable, palatable format. Celebrated the jaw-dropping wackiness of Smeaton's TV appearance, recognised the timeless appeal of eccentricity, and given a knowing wink to the fact that Smeats has fuelled every pub, club, watercooler and bedroom conversation across the country.

All without having to mock the man, then pretend that wasn't the intention; or without giving a platform to every odious xenophobe or do-gooding antiwar protestor with a spleen to vent. It might have been TV that gave us John Smeaton and the web that turned him into an unlikely icon. But it will be the old fashioned tabloids who ensure he gets a gong of some sort.

A genuine moment in The Sun.