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When a TV host you admire gets mad at you

I've had him on mute for years, but for Webworm I unmute him... briefly.

David Farrier

25 Nov 2020 — 6 min read

Hi there.

I wanted to share a fun story with you today — a brief reprieve from tales of conspiracies, Trump and people doing bad stuff. The story has nothing to do with this photo of me at Trump’s border wall — but I wanted to share it anyway, dear reader:

What a good wall.

Anyway, today’s story.

I have this weird thing that happens, that whenever British TV show host Dom Joly tweets about someone stealing something, I get tagged in. Case and point, from last year:

Why? Well, let’s rewind.

Inside the mind of Dom Joly

When it comes to Twitter, I’ve had British TV celebrity Dom Joly on mute for years, ever since he told me to “get my own fucking ideas”.

It all started on June 25, 2018, when my Netflix show Dark Tourist came out. Here’s a breakdown.

June 25, 2018:

I assume Dom Joly sees something in the press about my show Dark Tourist coming out. Dom Joly tweets:

Dom Joly tweets again: “Not really a @NetflixUK @netflix “original” TBH #OriginalDarkTourist”

Dom Joly tweets again, saying things like “blatant stealing” and “theft”:

It’s all a bit puzzling, until Dom Joly finds my twitter handle and @’s me an image of his book he’d published in 2010, called The Dark Tourist.

This seems to be the source of his anger. Dom Joly says “they nicked it”.

Dom Joly directs what I assume is heavy sarcasm at me:

Dom Joly rants at me some more, indicating I am a “plagiarist” directly:

Dom Joly pivots to getting angry at the name being similar: “It’s not my show - they nicked it - the name and concept”.

Dom Joly rants some more at me, throwing in a “fuck” for good measure:

Dom Joly accusing me of “wholesale theft of concept and title”:

Dom Joly rants on and on and I can’t be bothered doing more screen-grabs from June 25. But don’t worry, he’s back the next day.

June 26:

After some other Twitter users explain to him that he didn’t coin the term “Dark Tourism” or “Dark Tourist” (that happened 22 years ago), he says the problem is people getting my Netflix show confused with his book:

The Hollywood Reporter notices Dom’s rantings, and seeks comment. In an uncharacteristic move, Dom Joly says he has nothing more to say.

That is, until about a month later.

July 23:

Dom Joly begins again, now appearing to go more down the angle of “people being confused”: “I’m the only one who has had a best selling book on the subject, that’s why people all think this is my project, which is my issue.”

Then Joly says he would do a better job, which look — he may well have! I am not here to judge a hypothetical situation.

Dom Joly calls me a rip off again: “What’s even more of a shame is that the series is a bit shit. Should have asked me instead of just ripping off the book”.

Dom Joly now says the execution is different, but the title and concept the same:

Now Dom Joly’s problem seems to have pivoted to, “everyone thinks I have something to do with it!”

“But once someone has put their stamp on a concept it becomes known as “passing off” when you make something do [SIC] similar. My problem is that everyone thinks I have something to do with it (and that’s a bit shit). They are covered legally but it’s a blatant steal”.

Dom Joly posits idea my silence means guilt of some kind: “No - silence says it all”.

Dom Joly now appears only unhappy with the title of the show again: “Change the title and you are good to go”.

Now some big news! Very big news!

Dom says he was developing a TV show!

July 25

Dom Joly says that TV show he was developing was also for… Netflix! And he pitched it to them two years ago!

And again:

15 August.

No more about that Netflix pitch, but Dom Joly is back to saying I stole it: “Nope, direct steal”.

Dom Joly is angry I am silent about it: “And not a peep out of him since this started… which says a lot…”

Dom Joly indicates I will steal his new book: “@davidfarrier my new travel book is out soon - presume you’ll want an early copy?”

What is my response, now I took him off mute for a day? Well, I am not going to go to war on Twitter, so thought I should write it out here.

I am partly doing this because accusations of plagiarism and blatant theft are sort of a bummer, plus thanks to Dom Joly’s rantings, I get his fans in my Twitter timeline calling me a plagiarist and a thief.

Also, it was sort of fun lining up all of Dom Joly’s rants in a row. It makes for some good reading.

First up, I’m sorry Dom feels so angry. I haven’t read his book so can’t tell you what’s in it, but I’m sure it’s informative and funny (he’s a funny guy).

How did my show Dark Tourist come to be?

Well, New Zealand producer and director called Mark approached me back in 2016, after watching the movie I directed with Dylan Reeve called Tickled.

Mark had this show idea for a travel show about Dark Tourism that he’s called Dark Tourist back in 2006, predating Dom Joly’s book by four years.

Anyway, I liked Mark’s idea - we sketched out some possible locations (some Mark had had in mind all this time, and some new ones we came to after lots of research) and I took the idea to Netflix, who’d agreed to meet me after watching Tickled.

And Netflix said yes! From there we assembled a team in New Zealand, did a shit-tonne more research, finding characters, locations and stories that would make a (hopefully) compelling, informative show. We decided each episode would have one really visual story, one morally challenging story and one that was just fucking out there.

From what I can tell, the term “dark tourism” and “dark tourist” were coined back in 1996 according to Wikipedia, 14 years before Dom Joly published his book The Dark Tourist:

“Academic attention to the subject originated in Glasgow, Scotland: The term ‘dark tourism’ was coined in 1996 by Lennon and Foley, two faculty members of the Department of Hospitality, Tourism & Leisure Management at Glasgow Caledonian University”.

There are other bits of media out there called Dark Tourist - including a hit movie released in 2012. Two out of four of Google Image search results are for this movie (which I am yet to see, but plan to).

Finally, Dr Philip Stone, a prominent academic on dark tourism (who has written a number of books and papers on the topic of dark tourism), left this comment on July 25: