What Annoyed the Internet This Week?

Greta Thunberg is without a doubt one of the most incredible teenagers to exist today. She has the backing of other well known environmental activists and conservationists including David Attenborough, as well as thousands of schoolchildren who took part in her strikeforclimate and seemingly most of the internet. Oh and she’s been nominated for a Nobel prize.

This week, journalist Toby Young once again made himself the centre of an Internet debate as he tried to discredit Thunberg and her cause by accusing of being a privileged teen.

If you don’t know who Toby Young is or how he started out, now is probably a good time to mention that he didn’t get the grades required to get into Oxford University so his very well connected father, Baron Young of Dartington, called a contact at the university who allowed his son admission. Toby even wrote all about it here. Strange that he wants to open up a debate about privilege..

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Toby Young or @toadmesiter wrote “Greta Thunberg is privileged daughter of Sweden’s Eurovision star” along with the link to a Guido Fawkes post in which the author writes 3 sentences about Thunberg’s ancestry. It also includes a video of Thunberg’s mother, Malena Ernman, performing at Eurovision.

As soon as the tweet was sent, the backlash began.

The main source of ammunition people have against Young is his own glaringly obvious and plentiful privilege.

I’m sure most people can’t even name ten Eurovision singers, so how much of a privilege is it really to have a mother who performed in the competition?

Now that we know this shocking and extremely relevant fact about Thunberg, it’s time we all take all of our plastic and dump it in the nearest lake. Oh and make sure you take your car and give it some extra rev on the way.

Journalist and food critic Jay Rayner delivered the most scathing blow to Young out of everybody. You could almost hear Toby’s jaw smack off the floor.

The journalists attacking Thunberg should remember first and foremost that she is a 16-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome who’s just trying to save the planet. She meets and is unphased by world leaders, some of whom are over three times her ages, and urges them to act on climate change. She does all of this in her second language and the fact that her mother was in Eurovision really just makes her extra cool.