It was in the cold December of 2003 that our plans to create The Twaddle arose. Greg and I, who sat next to each other in RS lessons that year, decided that a website was in order to display our design skills and opinions, respectively. It was founded on anti-establishment views, the establishment being Hartlepool Sixth Form College, and our pained reaction to their college paper, “I Was Once A Tree”, or “I.W.O.T.”, which was run by the English Department. We set about planning it on Tuesday, 16 December 2003, the day after I.W.O.T.'s first issue (known affectionately at El Twad HQ as “I.W.O.T.A.L.O.A.D.O.F.C.R.A.P.”) was published.
The following evening, on the third day of I.W.O.T.'s first publication, “This Wasn't A Tree” was online (we used the acronym, too). You see, I.W.O.T.'s name was a “rib-tickling”, “side-splitting” remark about the production of paper. Of course, T.W.A.T. wasn't printed on paper, hence the name; the acronym was just a lucky coincidence. Honest. We didn't even realise what it spelled until someone mentioned it to us. Boy, were our faces red.
I wouldn't be surprised if the name “I.W.O.T.” was complaining about the lack of equal rights for trees, as the rest of the paper seemed to complain about unequal rights in a series of poorly argued debates, particularly displayed on the issue of homosexuality.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with homosexuals. As is the general justification for my view, they have as much right to live their life as I have right to live mine in the way that I choose. Except, of course, in the article that attacked those who “narrow-mindedly” viewed homosexuality, it also attacked my, and other people's, phrasing on this matter.
“People say ‘you're not a homosexual to me, you're a person’. Does that mean that homosexuals aren't people???”
Erm, no. It means that your homosexuality doesn't have an effect on the way the person thinks of you. Unless, of course, you keep prattling on about being gay, which would get on my tits as much as it would the next guy's.
All in all, not a good day for a paper which, in trying to promote equal rights, inadvertently made themselves more equal than those they criticised.
T.W.A.T. was born, as I've said, out of a brief but brilliant moment of satire – quick thinking on Greg's part. The basis for me was to attack their views on homosexuality – it was this that was going to be the subject for my original article. That article never got written, replaced instead by something much more to my tastes, “i h8 teenage poetry”, something also found among I.W.O.T.'s pages. The basis for Greg was to promote and develop his already credible web design skills – something that The Twaddle still prides itself upon today.Our success was immediate – many of our friends visited the site the night it went up – Wednesday, 17 December 2003 – and the following day, by word of mouth, our site had gained dozens of hits from the Sixth Form College server. Word caught on to members of the I.W.O.T. team, and in a matter of hours, our guestbook had gone offline. Not by choice, you must understand; as the Sixth Form computer terminals all shared the same IP addresses, the guestbook interpreted the repeat IP posts as spamming, and wouldn't accept any more posts from that address. It was a shame, given that I'd been hammering a certain member of the I.W.O.T. team who'd ridiculed our online counter-reporting. How I wish I still had the link.
Within two more days, the address – www.twat.tk – had been barred by the College firewall. It seemed our short run of great success had been stopped early; however, there was more. The request itself had been put in by a couple of the senior members of staff, as well as the teacher in charge of I.W.O.T. We were in trouble; our names had been published on the site from day one.
Christmas passed and on rolled Friday the 9th of January, 2004. At the end of an RS lesson in which we'd cottoned on to there being a bad atmosphere in the room, we were held back by a very diplomatic Geoff and asked to speak with the English teacher in charge of I.W.O.T. We were verbally attacked for being mysogynistic – for using the acronym “T.W.A.T.”, no less. Not the case at all, we'd've probably looked for one that spelled “C.O.C.K.” if our satirical spark was working that way. Furthermore, I was attacked for my very blunt poetry article which derided the genre of poetry that was included in I.W.O.T.
She was also slightly angry at the fact we'd been putting up unsolicited advertising for T.W.A.T. and, in one particular instance, the time I'd taken their posters down or covered them up with our own. I guess we messed with the wrong feminist, but I for one regret not standing up for myself and my views, as I had as much right to believe what I did as she did believing whatever she wanted to. I did find it quite funny, however, that she'd printed off our whole website and highlighted what she didn't like. Which was everything. A waste of flourescent yellow ink, I felt, as well as a needless contradiction of our name.
After “apologising”, we shuffled out of the room; Greg went home to work on the site and I was half an hour late for my next, and last, lesson of the day. I walked into History only to be greeted by several members of the class asking if I'd been told off for our site – something I admitted to straight away, with the whole class replying in uproar.
Turns out we had a bigger following than I'd thought. Even the teacher had read it and admitted to liking it – something that made me realise that this was something good. I wanted to hang onto it as much as possible – this feeling was echoed recently, in resurrecting the site after a year's disregard due to our University commitments.
The site was taken down temporarily and some explanatory text posted in its place while we thought about what to do next. People, including my other History teachers, expressed their unhappiness at the fact they'd missed what everyone had been talking about.
The first step was to rename, as agreed. “The Twaddle” was our final choice, partially because
we couldn't think of anything else that wasn't lame. Accordingly, the tree was removed from our logo, leaving just the inane grin. One passing reference to I.W.O.T. was removed, but other than that the site remained the same. After only a few hours, we were back.We relaunched and carried on regardless of the English teacher's emails questioning Greg's phrasing in “Don't Like Smoking? Don't Smoke” concerning “passive abortions”, blatantly trying to get another one over us.
I.W.O.T.'s “Second Issue Coming Soon!” posters, strewn about the college for several months, amounted to nothing. Shame – we were quite looking forward to a second issue (to be affectionately referred to as “I.W.O.T.N.O.T.A.N.O.T.H.E.R.O
Since then, we've had more guest writers, media added, themes designed and a brief spell of forum popularity. We've also had hits from all over the world.
Our plan now is to take over the world, using our trademark brand of daftness. And to drink Twad Brew. Oh, and look after Timothy.
