Hee Hee

Neil Gaiman Laughs Off Minnesota Politician’s ‘Weasel’ Slam

When reports started popping up in the news and on Twitter that a Minnesota politician had called Neil Gaiman a “pencil-necked little weasel,” all the best-selling author could do was laugh.

“I woke up this morning and people sent me links to the story and someone quoted it on Twitter and I thought, ‘That’s mad, a real politician can’t have actually said that,’ and then I went to the article and read it,” Gaiman told Wired.com, still snickering at the thought. “I expected him to carry on [in] the article saying that I was a stupid stupidface and that he would be meeting with his friends behind the lockers.”

What the politician failed to realise is that Neil Gaiman is immensely popular on Twitter, with over 1.5 million followers (including me). So many were heading to the link that was tweeted (the politician had posted Neil Gaiman's blog on his website AND apparently claimed copyright on it), that the post crashed for most of the day. I wasn't part of that mass action, but I have to admit, I am amused by it. I don't think it was an intentional move like a denial of service attack, but rather it suffered from not being able to handle its sudden 'popularity'.