Tripe + Drisheen: A Q+A with @MallowNews
The premier news outlet talks Trump, podcasting, Elon Musk, toilets, Twitter, his 'golden rule' and Buttevant
Mallow News is inarguably the best thing to come out of Mallow since the bypass. If you’re on Twitter, you’ll surely know @MallowNews: it’s witty, irreverent, sarcastic, jaded, angry, like-able, unflappable, unstoppable and eminently re-tweetable. If you’re not on Twitter. Stay there, In Real Life. You are missing nothing. Except, well…Mallow News.
The following Q+A with Mallow News has not been edited for clarity or sensibilities. Thanks again Mallow News, and keep on keeping on.
JJ: Have Twitter been on to you yet to become one of their super spreaders, or super followers?
No, but I look forward to charging people for my content and going back to zero followers again.
JJ: I imagine that, like most people you started out with a baseline of no followers, but that has grown over time and now you have more followers than Mallow has people. What number are you aiming for?
Whatever the magic number for filling the void that drives my need to seek approval from strangers is.
JJ: Can we talk about Trump? I am hoping you say ‘OK’, otherwise the next few questions will all be followed by answers that are blank.
Were you surprised/shocked/neither when Facebook and Twitter finally dumped him? Should they have done this earlier?
Twitter and Facebook dumping Trump in the dying months of his campaign was much like a Vichy collaborator frantically searching for his Union Jack flag as the Allies poured into Paris in 1945. In terms of doing it earlier, all I’ll say is if you expect a corporation to act ethically and responsibly, I have some magic beans to sell you. From my 5G conspiracy page on Facebook.
Do you miss him, as a content creator?
Trump is a cancer. The world will be better off when he’s dead. Even his children will not mourn him. I hope he dies soon, in fact.
Is Twitter a worse or better place without him?
Is a blocked-up toilet any better just because one person stops shitting in it?
JJ: You brought out your first book last Christmas - which is in all good bookshops, which are all currently closed. Will there be another book this Christmas, or something bigger?
I think it’s important as an artist to find new ways to express yourself, repetition is, after all, creative death. Also, I haven’t been asked to do another book. But don’t worry. Given I joined Twitter after it’s heyday you can expect the Mallow News podcast in 2024.
JJ: I know artists and great writers get this all the time, but looking back on your back catalogue, do you have a few favourites in there. Beauties, best-ofs, if you will. Can you share some?
Most of the tweets I think are hilarious get as much purchase as a two-legged mountain goat on a hill of grease. I am too modest to list the tweets I am most proud of so let’s just say I’m a genius and they’re all great.
JJ: Was Twitter’s increase in the character limit in a single tweet a game changer? What change or addition would you like the Twitter overlords to introduce?
As someone who is terrible at editing, the character limit increase was a boon. In terms of change or an addition, an edit button for Christ’s sake, Jack Twitter, an edit button.
JJ: Have you ever been asked to endorse anything? What was it? What did you say?
No, and I have to say I am very much for sale and will lend my name to anything, regardless of quality, in return for cold hard cash
JJ: Do you worry about causing offense, or do you think, ‘well fuck that’?
I have one golden rule: ‘Try not to be a cunt’. I have definitely said things in the past that have broken that rule but I see that as evidence of my humanity and as we are all created in God’s image, evidence of my divinity as well.
JJ: We have ministers for many things - housing, islands, mental heath - do you think we should have one for humour? Who would be a good fit - any funny politicians out there who could handle the brief?
The government should leave humour to the professionals: angry loners on social media. There is no such thing as a ‘funny’ politician. There are politicians who elicit humour, for sure. But by and large you don’t get into the job so that you can crack the Ceann Comharile up with your on-point observations about leaving the fucking immersion on.
JJ: You’ve been at the Twitter game a while, and you’re good. I sometimes even read your tweets out loud to other people for LOLz. What’s the knack for writing a genuinely funny tweet?
I don’t know. If I knew that, every tweet I write would be a hit instead of a fucking struggle
JJ: One of the occupational hazards of your job/role is that you have to be up on social media a lot, which raises two questions. How do you stand it? And what do you when you want to relax and not want to be that guy with 32,000 followers?
I do get sick of it, but what the hell else am I going to do? Work on myself as a person? Spend more time with my family? Be serious. I relax by drinking and telling the interns that their parents are coming to pick them up ‘soon’. You should see their little faces light up.
JJ: Do people @ you and contact you a lot as a result of your tweets? What kind of things come up?
Occasionally people send me DMs with ideas for tweets, links to conspiracy theories and asking for money. So it’s a lot like my family WhatsApp group.
JJ: Would you still do Mallow News if Twitter stripped Twitter of its anonymity?
No. Never. I don’t want to spend my days being stopped in the streets, plagued for selfies, signing autographs and dodging bottles filled with urine
JJ: What books are on your bedside reading stand? Which is another way of saying are you reading any books at the moment even if you don’t have a bedside reading stand?
I’ve just finished A Very Modern Taoiseach for the tenth time. It’s a satirical classic.
JJ: When we finally get covid-19 under control, and I mean for real this time, not another interval before another lockdown, what are you looking forward to doing?
Going for a 6km walk like a mad bastard.
JJ: If Elon Musk were to visit Mallow, where would you bring him?
On a road trip to Buttevant so the locals could eat him
JJ: Can we expect to see you at book festivals going forward, and if you could twin Mallow with another town, city, thing, fruit or animal, what would it be?
MN: Public appearances are pretty much off the cards given my anonymity, unless I wear a bag on my head and that market’s already been cornered. The only thing you could twin Mallow with would be Chernobyl – we’re both surprisingly resistant to dangerous levels of radiation.
JJ: And finally, tripe or drisheen?
Drisheen, because it really gives your kitchen that fresh abattoir smell.
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