Matt McDonald, Author at The Spectator

Friday

December 7, 2018

Kevin Hart isn’t funny

Anyone who has blinked in the last week may have missed the tenure of Kevin Hart as 2019 Academy Awards host. Mere hours after the diminutive comic was ruminating over the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ on his Instagram, his waxen wings melted in the scorching heat of the Twittersphere and he crashed to earth. The source of the public’s ire? Some of Hart’s tweets from the earlier days of the website, surfaced by a BuzzFeed reporter. ‘Yo why does @DamienDW profile pic look like a gay bill board for AIDS..........Booom, I’m on fire tonight,’ one says.

Friday

October 26, 2018

Matt McDonald

The trouble with baby boomers and social media

Spending too long online can take its toll, no matter your age. The majority of under 35s grew up squinting at backlit screens with bags below their eyes, poring over forums and AOL Messenger, pornography and Netflix. Yet somehow it’s baby boomers who are the worst victims of the internet: technologically dumb, easily scammed, and often more susceptible to fake news. And it looks as if Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man arrested in connection to the pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and left-wing celebrities, is the latest spectacular example of a silver (or in his case, it seems. hairplugged) surfer going off the deep end.

Saturday

October 13, 2018

Matt McDonald

Gavin McInnes: ‘Personally I think the guy was looking to get beat up for optics’

Much has been made of the so-called ‘mob mentality’ of left-wing protesters in the last few weeks. The GOP has been eager to paint anti-Kavanaugh activists as the kind of hysterical torch-wielders that deeply concerned this country’s founders. It’s intriguing, therefore, to see how quickly many in the media seized the opportunity to show the violent ‘mob’ mindset in action on the right. Last night, VICE founder Gavin McInnes was the talk of Twitter after footage emerged showing a protester being beaten by a group of ‘Proud Boys’ (McInnes’s followers) on a Manhattan pavement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Friday

May 11, 2018

Matt McDonald

Ben Shapiro, the child prodigy gone right

Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s Evangelical Christian finishing school, gathers three times a week for “convocation”, a worship service with guest speakers from all backgrounds. Attendance is mandatory, but students say the man delivering today’s sermon would have filled the 8,000-capacity venue regardless. Because today, the Ben Shapiro show has come to Liberty. A lot of people don’t like Shapiro. His critics on the right dislike him even more than his critics on the left - “the alt-right think I’m a cuck Jew,” he tells his podcast audience. A touch of jealousy there, perhaps – Shapiro may be a bit soft for many of his rivals on the internet. What really hurts, however, is that he’s a bigger deal than all of them now. And his fans worship him.