By Ben Pensant

Is anything real anymore? Like, really real? So real you can see it, hear it, touch it in Waitrose while its wife reaches for a jar of mung bean and horseradish marmalade? (Sorry, Lady Laura, but perhaps you shouldn’t take Lord Jezza shopping if you don’t want people fingering him in the organic aisle.)

I ask because lately it seems everywhere we look we’re bombarded with fakery. This year alone has seen the Covington kids scandal, reframed by the right-wing media to make it look like Native American Nathan Jones and the Black Homophobic Israelites were at fault and the schoolboys did nothing wrong. They did this in the most underhand way imaginable, by providing video evidence proving conclusively that Native American Nathan Jones and the Black Homophobic Israelites were at fault and the schoolboys did nothing wrong. Contemptible.

Next came the public shaming of gay, black actor Jessie Smollet, the gay, black actor lynched on an LA street for being a gay, black actor. After the two shapeshifting MAGA-bots responsible vanished, gay, black actor Jessie was framed for staging his own assault on the flimsy grounds that two extras from his hit TV show Umpire confessed to helping gay, black actor Jessie stage his own assault. Even worse, the press still refuse to accept the gay, black actor’s innocence, even after he was exonerated because nobody could be arsed to prosecute the gay, black actor as he’d already served his sentence in community service, most of which was spent on a gruelling tour of private schools teaching rich kids about the dangers of being a gay, black actor.

And two weeks ago saw the pathetic attempts to discredit the ‘Revoke Article 51!’ petition on the basis that the twelve million signatures it received don’t count as anyone with an email address can sign it. And sign it again if they have another one. And again. Etc. In a sane world, the fact that people are so impressed by this petition they’ve signed it repeatedly would be a good thing, especially when many of the signatories are too young to vote and don’t live in Britain. But even if this  talk of multiple signatures from all over the planet is true – which it isn’t, Hugh Rifkind said so – it only emphasises how desperately we need to cancel Brexit. It speaks volumes that the establishment thinks 17 million votes from actual individuals are more representative than a meaningless letter signed by toddlers, pets, and goat herders from Outer Mongolia.

But as disturbing as these examples of fake news are, they’re nothing compared to the insidious trend for fake people. Which brings me to Titania MacGrath, the pretend-leftist who melted fascist hearts with her recently published manifesto, Woke: A Guide To Crypto Fascism, the most offensively unfunny book I’ve never read and have no intention of reading. In fact, it was so dreadful I might not read it again just in case I missed something when I didn’t read it the first time.

‘Tits’ is the creation of Andrew Doylem: blue comedian, failed academic, and regular contributor to fascist fanzine Brietbart. A self-hating homosexual, vile Andrew also subscribes to the cult of libertarianism, which basically means he’s a Nazi who doesn’t like crowds. Titania – a cheap caricature of educated progressives who dislike racism, homophobia, and women with fannies – was invented last year, becoming an instant hit with middle-aged gammons upset that they’re not allowed to call people ‘wogs’ anymore.

Doylem is ably assisted by a grubby gaggle of co-conspirators, including foul-mouthed troll Lisa Gravy, a crap graffiti ‘artist’ who thinks because she once had a touch of cancer she has the right to take the piss out of left-wing people who talk rubbish. As trustworthy as a black Tory and twice as hateful, it’s debatable whether Gravy even had the disease at all. Inventing ailments to illicit sympathy is a tried and tested fascist tactic: you think Hitler really only had one knacker? That she’s also the brains behind sad male feminist ‘spoof’ Godfrey Elphick tells you all you need to know about the internalised misogyny of this yo-yo knickered slut.

Both Andrew and Linda are bum-chums with fictional newsreader Jonathan Pile, the red-faced reactionary who spent last year pissing away all the good will he amassed after enthusiastically endorsing Jezza’s successful election campaign. (What is it with Tory bigots pretending to be leftists? Jealous much?) He achieved this by taking the far-right dollar, trashing the Gender Pay Gap, and defending everyone from dog-fiddling Jew-hater Cunt Dickula to Hollywood killer Liam Nielsen.

You’d struggle to find a more gruesome pair of pricks. Indeed, one only has to look at the recent pics of Pile and Gravy having engine trouble outside a swanky restaurant – after a secret Cock Brothers-funded lunch discussing world domination – to see how these two Nazi punks roll when they think no-one’s looking:

No doubt Doylem’s two errand-bitches were also planning a surprise party to toast the success of Woke. (Or perhaps just to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.) Needless to say, the glowing reviews for his shitty tome were as fawning as you’d expect, with ageing agitators like Tony Parsnips weighing in to applaud Andrew’s ‘vision’ by flapping their right-wing tongues all over his dirtbox.

Luckily, some sane voices were brave enough to cut through the brown-nosing. The New Statesmxn‘s Mollie Goodfella took the original step of attacking Doylem for being a white man, reclaiming Titania’s intersectional worldview, throwing it back in her creator’s face, and sticking two fingers up at the trolls who suggested fixating on Andrew’s penis and pigmentation kind of proves his point. Mollie had the last laugh though, hilariously detailing plans to write her own comedy character, “an older white man obsessed with youth views”, who complains about having his voice stifled despite regularly appearing on TV and spends his days “taking supper with Nigel Farage and golfing with Andrew Neil”.

Ha! Like all good liberals, Molly showed how in touch with The Kids she is by misrepresenting Doylem and his fans as ageing conservatives, cleverly ignoring the fact that most of his fans are fairly young and left-leaning. But she saved her deepest cut for last, highlighting the crucial difference between a hypothetical character she hasn’t invented yet and one with a hugely popular book enjoyed by sane people yet to be seduced by the kind of intersectional horseshit only people who pen joyless columns in left-wing media give two fucks about: “Unlike Titania, he will be funny”. Ouch!

Alex Clarke of Guardian towers took a different approach, quoting French fashion designer Jean Paul Sartre and referencing Dorothy Barker to make the same point as Molly: the book isn’t funny, the only people who like it are middle-aged racists, and the fact that bad baddies such as Michael Grove’s wife are fans proves it. In fact, Alex’s piece was so elegantly crushing it reminded me of the classic Fraser episode where our hero trades blows with a pair of telephone pranksters who keep calling his TV show and cracking jokes about his huge arse. Ever the intellectual, Fraser decides to dispense with his aggressors by drafting a pompous speech full of Oscar Wild and Mike Twain quotes which he plans to read out on air and shame his tormentors into submission.

Unfortunately for Fraser his bent cop dad talks him out of it: “Y’know, if you read that out on air you’re setting yourself up for a year of abuse. This kind of stuff is probably why those guys started picking on you in the first place”. As maddening as it was seeing Fraser bullied into backing down by a cowardly cripple with a talking dog, at least we now know there aren’t any Marvin Cranes dishing out terrible right-wing advice on Kathy Viner’s watch.

But I must confess a personal beef. Since starting this blog three years ago I’ve often been accused of being a made-up person, mainly by dumb Tories but occasionally well-meaning leftists shocked that anyone could be as consistently right about everything as me. Luckily, these suspicions are regularly batted away by my loyal army of 17 fans. But the fact that not-real-Titania is cleverer, prettier and way more popular than definitely-real-me just shows how lucrative bigotry is.

This is comedy in 2019: right-wing hatemongers pretending to be nice people for clicks and bigoted funnymen believing they can say whatever they like in the name of ‘bants’. It’s this squalid situation that has emboldened the likes of Doylem to air their filth nationwide as if they lived in some kind of free country.

Luckily, there is a small but burgeoning group of decent British joke tellers – ie left-wing ones – who point-blank refuse to be marginalised. And make no mistake, marginalised is exactly what lefty comedians are: feeding off scraps and struggling to get their voices heard when the only available platform is every single panel show on television.

But what separates these titans from goons like Andrew Doylem is their deference to social media, especially in 2019 where staying on the right side of the mob can be the difference between headlining ten nights at the London Palladiadrome and cleaning the shitters in The Frog & Nightgown. Twitter is a sacred arena to be cherished, respected, and terrified of. It’s not a space for fun, and it’s certainly not one for mockery. (Unless the people being mocked are Leave voters. Or Jews.) It’s a place for real people with real aspirations to have real discussions with real followers. The growing legions of fascist fakes must be stopped. Now.

And if you still aren’t convinced of their sinister intentions, take a look at Doylem at the Stormfront Christmas party, entertaining the troops with his latest offensive creation, dim-witted BLM activist Tyrone ‘Shorty’ Wallace:

Sickening.

So next time you’re about to engage with or threaten a suspicious Twitter account, ask yourself: do I need to do this? Obviously I’m not suggesting you stop insulting people you disagree with altogether – I might as well ask you to give up sitting down. But every now and then why not forego that spat and go looking for someone with progressive values who you can do something nice for? Y’know, like what kind, gentle people do.

Should that happen, you could do a lot worse than follow pro-Corbyn activist Rachael Swinton. Her Twitter page is a goldmine of leftist talking points and she’s always on the lookout for followers willing to donate money to pay for her daughter’s new EXbox.

Or why not take a look at the Harry Lewis Smith account, lovingly maintained by Harry’s son since his father’s death at the age of 125, and contribute a few quid to help the trailblazing veteran transmit his message of hope from beyond the grave?

Better still, check out professional dinner lady/antiquarian/Antifa PR guru Mike Stookberry and pledge some cash so his beautiful family can eat this month. Mike has been collecting donations from kind, gullible strangers for some time now, most of which have gone towards feeding his children, buying fresh bike locks, and funding his vital work doing dead important history stuff. Indeed, only last summer a desperate Stook was left with no option but to ask for financial help to save his wife and kids from starvation.

Cut to four months later and Mike was jetting around Austria visiting all manner of old buildings and fancy cake shops, his impending penury forgotten thanks to kind-hearted leftists off the internet who’ll gladly give readies to any old John, Mike or Harry just as long as they love Jezza and hate the Tories. Here’s hoping Swinton, Smith and The Stook team up for an extensive tour of Europe’s historical sites. I’d recommend the ancient Greek ruins as a good place to start, as all three are clearly huge fans of the Golden Fleece.

That these three lions have carved out lucrative careers grifting in the name of social justice just shows what can be achieved when actual people discuss actual problems instead of debating fascist fakes.

The game’s up, Tits McGhee. Time to get real or get FUCKED.