Why I've let The Bloviating Grievance-Toad into my BlueSky house.

And why you don't have to if you don't want to.

Today I started my morning with my new routine—not doomscrolling through the toxic mess that is my Twitter notifications while gulping down calming cups of coffee, but having a leisurely browse through my BlueSky feed. It’s a revelation. I’ve not been called a “filthy commie” once, my DMs aren’t a litany of death threats, and for a few fleeting moments, I even thought, maybe, just maybe, the internet can be a nice place.

And then, I found Nigel Farage.

And then, dear reader, I followed him.

Yes, that Nigel Farage. Odious frog man. The human embodiment of a pint glass and a grievance. And I didn’t just follow him; I reposted one of his posts about his private prosecution related to the Manchester Airport incident¹. You can imagine the cognitive dissonance that followed.

Have I lost my mind? Am I so far gone that I want this absolute toad hopping around my carefully curated utopia? No, not quite. But let me explain why I decided to allow this nonsense into my life when BlueSky could so easily remain a haven of blissful ignorance and cat pictures.

BlueSky: A Civilised Corner of the Internet

Before I do that though, let me get a bit lyrical about BlueSky. It’s fabulous. Truly. It’s what Twitter was before Cissy Spacek decided to run it like a particularly chaotic Sims game where the goal is to bankrupt civilisation. On BlueSky, people are polite. They’re funny. They’re not sending me deranged essays about how I’m single-handedly ruining the West because I’m gay, or because I dare to say maybe everyone deserves healthcare².

For the first time in years, I’m waking up to a social media platform that doesn’t feel like it’s actively trying to murder me. No algorithm shoving rage bait into my feed. No trolls quoting Ayn Rand while calling me a “leftard cuck.” No endless flood of people who think “free speech” means the right to threaten me because my politics are an affront to their fragile egos.

And yet, amidst all this calm, there’s a danger.

BlueSky could very easily become an echo chamber—a place where people like me talk to other people like me about how right we all are. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds nice. But is it useful?

Why Follow Farage?

And that gets us to our question, why follow Nigel Farage? Why let this bloviating wet fart of a petty grudge into my nice, peaceful BlueSky feed? The answer is simple: we can’t afford to ignore these people.

As tempting as it is to hit “block” and move on, ignoring the far-right doesn’t make them go away. Quite the opposite. They thrive on being ignored. They weaponise it. They turn around and wail incessantly about being “silenced” or “cancelled,” despite never, ever, for one second shutting up about it. Farage, like so many of his ilk, has built a career on playing the victim while holding a megaphone the size of a small planet.

The far-right feeds on grievance and outrage, and their narratives are carefully constructed to paint themselves as the martyrs of a supposed cultural war. When they go unchallenged, they manipulate that silence into validation. They claim it as proof that no one can counter their arguments or that they are being unjustly oppressed. Ignoring them allows their misinformation and bigotry to spread unchecked, creating fertile ground for their toxic ideologies to take root. They don't just want to be ignored—they want to operate in the dark, free from scrutiny, where they can radicalise others without challenge.

If we’re serious about challenging the rise of far-right populism—and we should be, because it’s a genuine threat to people like me (see: gay, immigrant, outspoken)—then we can’t afford to tune them out. We have to know what they’re saying. We have to know what they’re doing. Pretending they don’t exist is how they gain momentum, and before you know it, they’re setting the agenda.

The Role of Engagement

Photo by Matt Brown on Unsplash

Something I want to make very clear now is that following Farage doesn’t mean I agree with him³. It doesn’t mean I’m amplifying his nonsense. What it does mean is that I’m paying attention.

Right-wing populists thrive on being unchallenged (and count on it). They spout outrageous claims, flood the zone with disinformation, and count on people either ignoring them or failing to counter their narratives effectively. I refuse to let that happen.

But here’s where I need to clarify a bit that engagement doesn’t mean entertaining sealions—those bad-faith debaters who demand endless “debate” but never actually listen. It doesn’t mean giving trolls the time of day. And it certainly doesn’t mean tolerating threats or harassment. If someone shows up in my mentions to call me a “woke groomer” or whatever the insult du jour for the day is, they’re getting blocked, reported, and sent to the digital void.

What it does mean is being prepared to dissect, debunk, and dismiss their arguments. It means shining a light on their rhetoric, exposing its flaws, and making it clear why it’s dangerous. Ignoring them gives them free rein. Engaging them—on my terms, not theirs—takes that power away. Engagement doesn’t mean indulging nonsense; it means exposing it. It’s not about arguing with trolls—it’s about ensuring their rhetoric never goes unchallenged. That’s how you neutralise the damage.

The Renewed Importance of Independent Media

This is where independent media comes in. One of the biggest failures of traditional media has been its treatment of figures like Farage. They’re not scrutinised nearly enough. Instead, they’re given airtime to spout their views with little pushback, as though “balance” requires treating every claim as equally valid. It doesn’t.

Independent media like Byline Times, Novara Media, and Vox are stepping into the vacuum left by traditional outlets, holding far-right figures accountable where others fail. They dismantle rhetoric and expose the rot beneath, showing that balance doesn’t mean uncritical platforming.

Farage’s ideas—and those of his peers—shouldn’t just be platformed; they should be interrogated. They should be subjected to rigorous, unrelenting questioning, not a nod and a smile from a breakfast TV host. If traditional media won’t do that, then it’s up to people like me, on platforms like this, to pick up the slack. It’s about ensuring that these individuals are held accountable, not given a free pass in the name of “balance”. Independent media is stepping into the gap, providing a crucial counterbalance to the mainstream narrative and making sure that figures like Farage don’t get to operate without scrutiny.

What This Means for BlueSky

All of this said, I don’t expect everyone on BlueSky to follow Farage or his ilk. Far from it. BlueSky is beautiful precisely because it lets you curate your own experience, free from the insidious grip of algorithms designed to stoke division. If you’d rather not see his face or read his words, block him. Muting is your friend. You don’t owe him—or me for that matter—your time or attention⁴.

But be warned: my feed will likely include things you’d rather not see. Not because I agree with them, but because I think it’s essential to know what we’re up against.

This isn’t about amplifying Farage; it’s about dismantling his nonsense. It’s about ensuring that when he inevitably starts his usual spiel about being “silenced,” there’s a record showing he was anything but.

So yes, I followed Nigel Farage today. Not because I want to, but because I have to. The fight against far-right populism is just not going to be won by ignoring it; it’s won by exposing it. And if that means letting the odious frog man into my BlueSky feed, so be it.

The one thing that is exceptionally helpful is that at least I’m doing it on my terms, without an algorithm deciding that what I really need in my life is another Twitter tirade about “woke snowflakes.”

And trust me, if Farage—or anyone else—steps out of line? There’s a block button for that too.

We can’t afford to tune them out. But we also don’t have to let them dominate the conversation. Follow, engage, dismantle—and remember, we’re the ones choosing what kind of discourse we shape, and on BlueSky we can do just that.

1. It’s going to derail the prosecution, and that’s his plan, and he needs to be called out for it.

2. Shock horror, how dare I.

3. There’s a better chance of me falling pregnant.

4. And if anyone tries to convince you otherwise, tell them to get in the bin.