I am sorry for being an idiot.

I am not a smart man. This week I may have tweeted the dumbest thing yet. At the height of last year’s US election, the extremely good @randygdubs sent a tweet claiming that he worked at a postal office in Columbus, Ohio and was tearing up ballots that voted for Trump.

i love working at the post office in Columbus, Ohio and ripping up absentee ballots that vote for trump — raandy (@randygdub) October 16, 2016

And a few days ago I got sent a reddit post by a friend, showing someone shining a torch into an envelope, indicating that someone had voted No in the Marriage Equality postal survey. I immediately (and stupidly) decided to steal Randy’s gag and post the photo saying that I was working for Australia Post and was throwing out all No ballots.

Despite the fact that I have a verified twitter account which shows I don’t work for Australia Post and also the fact that you would have to have some kind of brain parasite to tweet openly that you were committing a crime, people genuinely believed my tweet.

I work at the australia post in chatswood and I'm using a torch to check all ballots and throw out ALL no votes pic.twitter.com/B0SNPXS5Yg — dan (@dannolan) September 13, 2017

A stunning number of people took the tweet at face value. It’s an understatement to say that it absolutely blew up, but I had no idea the degree to which it would cross-pollinate and be shared on every single platform. In the past few days I’ve been castigated by federal MP George Christensen and shockjock Ray Hadley, and an astounding number of people have sent me threats over Facebook Messenger.

does not work for Australia Post. Please remember tampering with mail is a federal offence. — Australia Post (@auspost) September 13, 2017

I know I thought the joke was obvious, but I never accounted for the stupidity of people who would gleefully threaten to kill you while attaching both their full name and places of employment. The School of Hard Knocks really needs to look into the recidivism rate of its alumni.

With all this feedback, I can finally test out which sides of the equality debate are more bullying, hectoring and “fascist”. It’s no secret that I’ve pissed off people on both sides of the spectrum. The post was screen shotted and shared to an insane degree over email (which is how Ray Hadley found out about it) and Facebook.

Groups like “Reclaim Australia”, “Stop the Bendigo Mosque” and “Fans of Skyrim for a White Australia” lost their fucking minds at my extremely obvious and deeply stupid joke. It was also shared on pages supporting marriage equality by people who were equally horrified that someone would try to upset the apple cart of this process.

Here’s What The Backlash To My Tweet Has Taught Me About Both Sides Of The Campaign

From The Evil ‘Gaystapo’ Yes Side I’ve Received The Following Abuse:

* You are a FOOL, you are RUINING THIS

* You are going to undermine ALL our hard work

* You are extraordinarily stupid

* Why are you so stupid? Why are you doing this?

* You aren’t helping. You really aren’t helping.

* You odious troll.

* I hope you lose your job

Here’s A Toned Down Snapshot Of What I’ve Gotten From No Voters

* You f*ggot cunt you love sucking dicks i hope you choke and die

* u have aids

* i kno where you liv idiot ha ha hah a

* U LOVE SUCKING COCK!?! CUNT

* HOPE U GET BASHED POOFTER

* ill be waiting for you at chatswood idiot

I see where the culture warriors who say that the “Intolerant Yes” campaign is driving them to vote No are coming from. This is just a vague sample of the bone-chilling abuse I’ve received from the yes campaigners and those apparently pushing the Caroline Marcuses and Janet Albrechtsens of the world to pick up a pen and vote No out of spite.

The abuse from the yes campaign is pretty mild and frustrating, whereas the abuse from No campaigners is much more likely to make me want to visit my local bikie bar and buy a sawn-off shotgun. It’s at a whole new level.

The Whole Process Is A Farce

I’m no stranger to being abused on the internet by deranged strangers (I love Twitter), but I am truly stunned by the sheer quantity of responses sent to me.

On a personal note, I’m happy for the torrents of homophobic abuse that this campaign has unleashed to be directed me, rather than a Yes campaigner or vulnerable queer kid. I do think people should be held responsible for the abuse, but I feel the entire process of a fly-by-night postal survey run by organisations that have no broad public faith was never going to end any other way.

That people were so ready to believe my tweet shows how fraudulent the whole process is.

People working for the Yes campaign have received death threats, threats of rape, homophobic abuse and more. The whole postal survey farce is just a validation of the concepts of Audience Democracy — faith in political process and the government itself to achieve positive outcomes for the citizens of this country is at record lows.

A fraud of a ‘survey’ run by a coward of a Prime Minister that’s enabled some of the most hideous people in society to prey on some of the most vulnerable. What a legacy to leave. What a time to be alive.

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Dan Nolan is a Sydney-based app developer and notorious Twitter shitposter. You can follow him here: @dannolan. He has kindly donated his fee for this piece to Minus18, Australia’s largest network for LGBTQI+ youth. You can donate to them here.