While scouring the spiky undergrowth of Twitter the other day, I noticed a vicious, but unheralded fight going on between two of its rising young stars from the UK. This wasn't a battle between Piers Morgan and Bradley Wiggins, RTing its way through Twitter's adult mainstream, this was a fight watched only by the youngest British tweeters. It was the online equivalent of punch up in a playground.@rileyy_69 shhhh batty boy, you wear primark belts, what girl would want you?
— Oll (@_OllyRiley) August 13, 2012
Followers: 142,000+

His aggressive misogyny is the strange counterpoint to his claim of being the Don Juan of NW9. He seems to be constantly angry with women, accusing them of being sluts and then telling them how much he loves them. Looking through his tweets, it's easy to conclude that Olly Riley is troubled by the very existence of an opposite sex. Obviously at his young age (I'm not entirely sure what it is, but pre-20s) nobody has a particularly mature relationship with the people they want to have sex with, but Olly's attitude is a little bit more Andrew Dice Clay than Adrian Mole.Slutty girls deserve to be baited up
— Oll (@_OllyRiley) August 12, 2012
But he also feels the need to announce things that people already know. Poor Olly, he's torn between his need to be controversial enough to get the hits and his desire to be an objective news source. It's what we in journalism call "the Sky News conundrum."To be honest, there's a whole sociological thesis to be written on the phenomenon of Olly Riley, but what's just as interesting are those copycats and hangers-on that he has spawned.Name: Jamie Smith (@J4MIESMITH)After all that time the Olympic flame has just gone out, bye bye London Olympics
— Oll (@_OllyRiley) August 12, 2012
Followers: 24,000+

To self-serving internet philanthropy:NANDOS IS THE BEST PLACE EVER!
— JAMIE SMITH ✌ (@J4MIESMITH) August 11, 2012
And an endless succession of hater management:Jamie Smith retweets me.. gains 50 followers
— JUST JAKE (@oJ4KE) August 8, 2012
See, Jamie loves to play the victim, he constantly talks about how his entire city (Derby, in case you were wondering) is out to get him, and that the internet is his only refuge from this region-wide bullying. Yet, he also tweets about what cinema he's going to be at. It's a worrying delusion of our times, a man who isn't famous at all pretending to be hounded like the late Diana. The constant retweeting of praise and 24/7 availability suggest that Jamie is a young man who isn't doing much with his life, I suppose in its own, twisted way Twitter is his sanctuary, but it's not a sanctuary from unwanted attention, it's a sanctuary from anonymity and normality."@jamietuckerrr @j4miesmith Aww that's so attention seeking of you" OH FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING CUNT
— JAMIE SMITH ✌ (@J4MIESMITH) August 12, 2012
Followers: 39,000+

River's a Twitter comedian of sorts, but not the kind of comedian who actually tells jokes. More like the kind who tells blatantly falsified masturbation anecdotes. You probably aren't going to see him on Live at the Apollo any time soon. But maybe he's an anti-comedy genius with a Meta streak? Let's look through his pictures to get a better idea of the man behind the wank stories.I Was on a school trip and my mate bought some porn mags and i had a wank into a spar bag and but cum on his nose while he was asleep.
— Cunt (@RiverCrowson) August 13, 2012

River Crowson, ladies and gentlemen. A man who clearly has no time for the Gallagher brothers.Name: Willow (@_WillowProwse)If you have big slug eyebrows ill think you're a massive bellend and ill shave them off while you sleep.
— Cunt (@RiverCrowson) August 13, 2012
Followers: 24,000+

But of course, Willow's preferred medium is Twitter, and the sheer inanity of his work in the field makes Olly Riley look like Chomsky. He's a man who speaks purely in the most basic terms, yet his fans seem to find a profundity in the things he says:there's so many things to smile about, but there's a lot to be sad about
— Willow(@_WillowProwse) August 13, 2012
Whereas Olly Riley and Jamie Smith trade on aggression and pubescent laddiness, Willow Prowse is a more delicate proposition, but one whose endgame is basically the same. He's still self-obsessed and demands attention, he just uses emoticons rather than pictures of his dick to get it. He's Aaron Carter to their Marky Mark.There's a wealth of guys like this out there, from the world famous to the ones with 12 followers. But the reason I focused on these four, is that Twitter is not just the means to an end for them, it's their only medium. You see, most people who try to get favorited tweets on trends are aspiring Huffington Post small-timers or mixtape rappers, but these four are just themselves. They are the small-town disco dancers of Twitter, having to come to terms with the idea that the rest of their life will have very little relevance to their passion. Which is being dicks on the internet.I understand that essentially these are just teenagers who've been given access to a lot of sympathizers and admirers at an age most of us should be dropping bottles off bridges, but there's something actually quite troubling at work here. Without wanting to get all Freakonomics on you, I think guys like this represent the natural conclusion of the internet-bound isolationism so many children are brought up with these days. They're the hazardous by-product of a generation that was told it was better off staying in and taking photos of itself rather than going out to eat mud-pies.@_willowprowse beautiful willow.
— Hannah Steadman (@hannz21) August 13, 2012
