Guy in the weekly commentary chat box?

[madmarchhare]

I sense I may be digging up something bigger than I expect here but I’m curious

I’m a viewer of the weekly Red Dwarf commentary zoom calls that Rob Grant and co. are hosting, and there’s a user on there I’ve seen comment a few times by the name of Alex Slingsby (sorry if you’re not meant to name names but I can’t find any other usernames attached to this person)

Anyway after I commented something, they randomly @ted me on the chat and asked how I was doing because “we haven’t spoken in awhile”. I’ve never spoken to this guy before so I politely replied and quickly got told by Jo Sharples (who is a mod I think? I’m not really up to date on the who’s who of the important fandom people. Anyway they’re one of the behind the scenes people on the call) told me not to interact with them. I sensed there was some drama there so quickly stopped and won’t be talking with them again.

Anyway this person mentioned they’d been banned from the Tumblr fandom (unsure how that happens) and also this forum, so I thought I might ask who the hell this person is, so I can draw a line under them randomly messaging me out of the blue (and in case it ever happens again)

If this is like A Thing that I shouldn’t talk about then please let me know. I’m just curious and kind of nervous I’ve stirred dirt here by interacting with them without knowing it.

[Pete Part Three]

How woke can Red Dwarf go?

/thread

[Ian Symes]

Hiya, sorry to have intervened on the chat (Jo and I live together, so share a Zoom login, we’re not involved in the commentaries in any official capacity but we help out with tech and logistics occasionally). You did nothing wrong by replying to him and being polite, but wanted to just warn you for your own sake not to get drawn in. I don’t know how best to describe Alex, but his thing is to ask awkward questions and make himself the centre of attention, and he can be very persistent when he latches on to someone who he’s decided to befriend. He’s especially odd around women and I can’t imagine it’s a very nice thing to be on the receiving end of. It’s a real shame that Red Dwarf fandom, which is generally speaking full of lovely, creative, enthusiastic people, has to deal with the handful of difficult people that attach themselves to it.

Locking this thread, as I don’t want to dredge too much up from the past. Like he says he got banned from here, and that’s an incredibly rare and difficult thing to achieve, so you can probably infer from that what sort of person he is.

[Author]

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