Savaged by Simon Jordan – and thanks to the algorithm I want to be savaged again | Barney Ronay

Yet again the mainstream wokealorium is preachifying from its pulpitrex. It’s egregious. It’s sanctiforial. It’s a wangitude of complete retardifaction.

This has not been an easy column to write. It has been difficult, gruelling in parts, but also warm, exhilarating and at times deeply erotic. Yes. I was SAVAGED by Simon Jordan. And I’ve never felt so alive.

You know who Simon Jordan is. Used to own Crystal Palace. Now a very good and listenable pundit on TalkSport, where he does the grown-up topics. Simon Jordan has strong opinions. This is his thing. His worldview says: the world is bad. The world is in need of correction. And he’s right about that, as he often is about things.

That’s what makes this all a bit surprising because I like Simon Jordan! I listen to his morning show with Jim White and it’s often really good. I respect the fact he has industry knowledge because he ran a football club. And yes that involved lots of dealings with Steve Bruce, Iain Dowie or similar, but it’s still basically the same thing.

I like the way he pops up in clips looking like an exquisitely powdered 17th-century Umbrian count, some gorgeous little angry blond glove-puppet I want to sit on my knee and pet and cosset and whisper in his ear about granditudinous hypocralism, in a way that’s just warm and fond and not, for me, in any way sexual, but which definitely is for him.

I like the way he talks. It reminds me of Jackie Chiles, the lawyer in Seinfeld, saying it’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous. Sometimes this can have a Mrs Malaprop edge. But that’s also fun and even then you get his point, which is usually good, even if you didn’t expect to agree, or can only agree secretly. When you’re right you’re right. When you’re veritudinously superfactual you’re veritudinously superfactual.

By now you’re probably wondering what happened. Well, I was definitely savaged. No one can take that away from me. And yes this was a week ago, but other stuff happened in between and I forgot about it for a while. I also haven’t fully listened to the savaging. It’s two minutes long and life is short.

In fact I only know about it because my friend and colleague Barry Glendenning is very reliable in this respect. If you’re ever cancelled, owned, or significantly beasted on the internet then Barry will let you know, as an act of love and kindness, and not, repeat not, because he enjoys it and is killing time in the pub on his phone. It’s like having a faithful and attentive online Lassie. What’s that? Slow down boy. Wait, you’re saying Michaela Strachan has called me a nonce? On LinkedIn? Good boy. Easy. There you go. Here’s a lovely bowl of vape oil and Guinness.

I have to admit I am also amplifying this, promoting myself as genuinely savage-worthy. In reality I was savaged in a minor, offhand way that I still don’t really get. I was at Croatia versus England in Rijeka. The game was meant to be played without fans as punishment for some Croatia-related disorder in Paris last year, which included accusations of people making Nazi salutes.

In the event the Croatian FA filled the ground with children, which is allowed under a loophole in the rules. It felt a bit weird in the moment. At the very least it didn’t seem to fit the spirit of the offence. Nazism, yes, bad. But also: a lovely day out for Year 8.

I still don’t really get why anyone would strongly disagree with this. It seems obvious enough. Yeah, everyone likes happy jolly children. Personally I believe the children are our future. I’ve always said that. But they’re not some kind of smart bomb that disintegrates the capacity for logic.

The counter-argument seems to be that this is joyless liberal Guardian stuff. It’s the woke mind-virus. It’s being too interested in not promoting nazism, when you should simply enjoy the laughter of little boys.

And yes Simon Jordan is right. It is annoying to be preached at. But we’re not talking libtard snowflake stuff here. We’re talking actual Nazis, people who just like and enjoy swastikas, who talk fondly about the Ustase, arguably the most vicious sect of the Third Reich war machine. I don’t know, man. The more I hear about the Nazis, the less I like the sound of them.

Plus we now have the sight of Hajduk Split fans this week walking behind an actual coffin and chanting “Auschwitz”. Does this seem like the message is being hammered home? At the very least we’re going to need more children. How many is this one going to take? Ten thousand? Maybe if we can get children to carry a coffin through Amsterdam then it’s fine and just a heartwarming event that shows lessons are being learned.

This is how it goes you see. You are supposed to LASH BACK in these situations. But it’s all a bit weird. Suddenly Simon Jordan is attacking me with children. He’s barging me out of the way in Starbucks with his mega-buggy, one hand clutched to his pearl-draped throat, saying, what about the children, the children, the children?

You see? I’m being sucked in. Because this is what the internet will do to you. I wasn’t even the main savaging that day. I was a side-beef, an afterthought. By now the algorithm is already filling my feed with fresh SJ face-offs, the latest a “heated exchange” with Dale Vince about Robbie Savage, in itself a mouthwatering trio, perpetual savaging motion in action.

In the end this is the only real point of interest here. This stuff is utterly addictive. And with good reason: it’s designed to be. Vast amounts of expertise and resources have been poured into this irresistible machinery. David Squires did a brilliant cartoon this week about the rise of the celebrity football chat-cast, the industrial-scale, seed-funded waffle that must now justify its space by shouting above the noise, and which will always tend towards beef-culture and a narrative of opposition.

I’ve tried really hard to stay out of this. I don’t do radio or TV stuff, because, well, what’s the point, but more because nobody’s clean, nobody escapes, suddenly you’re having a charity boxing grudge-match with Stephen Warnock.

But it is worth logging for the record that we are at fever pitch. The level of rage around football right now is genuinely astonishing. The story of the Manchester City verdict is, in part, a regulatory ruling over a breach of financial rules. But really it’s the astonishing post-truth online response, the urge to assail and objectify and dehumanise over a tribunal’s interpretation of accountancy practices.

Just going to report on a game at the Etihad this week involved BRAVELY DEFYING assorted threats of violence in response to articles written in these pages. And yes, these are clearly the work of a 77-year-old hunchback in Jakarta, or a drunk and bored corporate lawyer taking a break from surfing porn on the family computer.

But it is all part of the design too. This is meant to happen. A new book called Our Minds Under Siege by Bruno Giussani, a former global curator of TED, describes the way algorithm life is actively changing human behaviour. This is not a secret. Marketing has wanted to do this since the early 20th century.

Walter Dill Scott’s Theory of Suggestion. The Drive Theory of Motivation. The deliberate creation of want and anxiety into the way we sell things. And now we have a new and commercially irresistible language. Dopamine craving. Variable social validation. The feedback loop.

The way even random scrolling is controlled and metered, designed to create a craving that’s always there inside your head, and controlled by tech platforms that openly define humans as eyeballs, want, need, hunger.

In the end, this is why Simon Jordan seems to care so violently about someone else’s opinions on the children-washing of Uefa sanctions. It’s why I’m just incredibly excited by this as an outcome, why I want more not less. Savage me again. Make me feel something. Let me exist inside the machine with you, egregious, preposterous, vibramoniously alive.