"20 years ago, if you saw something on TV that offended you and you wanted to let someone know, you would’ve had to get a pen and paper and write, 'Dear BBC, I’m bothered.'"

"But you didn’t do it because it was too much trouble. Now with Twitter, you can just go, 'Fuck you!' to a comedian who’s offended you. Then a journalist will see that and say, 'So-and-so said a thing and people are furious.' No. The rest of us don’t give a fuck and wouldn’t have heard about it if it hadn’t been made a headline. Everything is exaggerated. But everything’s also an illusion. No one would talk to you in the street like they do on Twitter. They’d never come up and say, 'Your articles stink.' They’d never do that because they’re normal, but they’re not normal on Twitter because there’s no nuance, no irony, no conversation there."

Said Ricky Gervais, interviewed in "Ricky Gervais on Provocation, Picking Targets and Outrage Culture" (NYT). I uncensored the "[expletive deleted]"s.

I like the quote because I have tags for nuance, irony, and conversation.

ADDED: I forgot my "normal" tag.