On his run-in with online critics

Adam Buxton has revealed that he stopped engaging with online comments – after one troll he challenged set up a vicious fake blog in his name.

The comic – who reads the YouTube posts attached to music videos as part of his Bug show – said his encounter taught him a valuable lesson never to get embroiled in arguments on the internet.

‘It takes a lot of your time and emotional resources,’ he said. ‘Online, people don’t get where you’re coming from… no matter how many emoticons you use.’

The disproportionate response came about a decade ago when Buxton responded to one man who said he looked old on a online video. Mildly rebuking the uninivited critic, Buxton pointed out that such comments were rude – whereupon the troll went ‘fucking schizoid’.

Buxton said his new nemesis even set a blog in the name of ‘Adam Fuckston’ and posting bitter comments about his supposedly charmed life.

The comic also confessed that he always carries with him one piece of particularly harsh criticism that he attracted on the internet.

The message read: ‘Buxton is a smarmy little greased-up dwarf. He cannot act, he is not a comedian and pays lousy guitar. His only tiny niche is of “commentator” and that’s it.’

‘Technically, that’s all true,’ Buxton joked at the Sky Atlantic launch of Bug. ‘But that slightly ruined my morning.’

However, he added: ‘Sharing it with other people is cathartic.’

His decision to keep the criticism with him echoes that of Eric Morecambe, who always kept in his wallet a cutting of the first, scathing TV review he and Ernie Wise ever received.

Published: 1 Jun 2012