Tadhg Fleming
Irish TikTok star Tadhg Fleming has opened up about the nasty side of social media.
He revealed in an interview with The Irish Sun over the weekend that he often likes to reply to cruel messages.
Tadhg and his family shot to fame in 2017 after he posted a video of his dad trying to catch a bat in their kitchen.
The video went so viral that Tadhg, his mother Maureen and his father Derry ended up on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
He currently boasts a following of 2.3 million on TikTok and over 500,000 on Instagram.
Nasty messages
Tadhg told The Irish Sun, 'I do [get nasty messages] and I reply to them.'
'I love replying to them because they are judging by what they see.'
He recalled the time a business owner text him something along the lines of, 'Will you cop on to yourself.'
Tadhg revealed, 'I chatted to him. I said, 'Look I love what I do and you love what you do in your business.''
'I started a conversation with him and I said, 'What drew you to say that? You actually went out of your way to message me.''
'We had a conversation for 20 minutes.'
'He turned around to me and said, 'Look Tadhg, I got the totally wrong impression of you.''
'I suppose people judge me roaring at Alepsa and I don't think they realise that I'm actually just a normal human that's just doing stuff.'
'But you do get nasty [messages] and you're always going to get it. 99% of the comments are positive.'
'...you're always going to get one.'
Tadhg added, 'You can't let that get you down.'
'It's initial reaction. That's the way I've always been, I chat to people.'
'With the amount of people looking you're always going to get one.'
Tadhg said his tactic of calling people out on their nasty messages is 100% effective.
'There's so many Irish creators now on TikTok, it's a fantastic place for people but I've seen a nasty side of it and that can get to people.'
'I 100% think that all these comments, no matter how much you're deflecting, you're going to take that on board.'
Tadhg's father, Derry, added, 'I brought him up well, be forgiving.'
'It's the platform, people are allowed to say what they want to say.'
'Sometimes you don't have to say anything to anybody because other people will.'
It's not all negative
But it's not all negative, it appears the majority of messages Tadhg and his family receive are quite positive.
Derry said, 'People are so nice and they're really appreciative of the fun side of all this.'
'People have written to us and we've sent videos and messages privately and it's very rewarding for us in a sense.'
Tadhg recalled one particular message from a fan whose daughter had recently passed away.
He said, 'there was a woman when we did that Blinding Lights dance and she said she did it with her daughter.'
'And then the daughter died by suicide and she messaged me a big message.'
'She said, 'Thank you so much, it was the last memory I had of her and we were all having fun and we were dancing together and we were learning the dance.''
Derry chimed in, 'This was the week after [she died] she actually messaged us.'
'I was actually crying when I read it. Even when I think about it now I get emotional.'
Meanwhile, we've launched the second season of our video series Speak Up On SPIN.
SPIN's Martin Guilfoyle has been chatting to social media influencers about their experiences with online trolling.
Watch the series on Instagram here and Facebook here.
