I Get the Message — But It Still Doesn't Make It True.

I get it. I really do.

I've listened to the Mouse gang. I've read the comments, absorbed the insults and watched the continued attempts to portray me as some uniquely terrible human being who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a keyboard, a camera or the internet.

I'm a terrible person. I don't deserve to live, let alone go online. I'm evil beyond words.

Every waking thought is devoted to hurting other people and driving them to despair.

I'm the servant of the Devil, a man with nothing worthwhile to contribute to the world.

I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm useless. And the world would apparently be a better place if I simply disappeared from it.

Okay, I get it. I've heard you. I've understood the accusation. I've understood the hatred.

I've even understood the obsession with telling me, repeatedly and in increasingly imaginative ways, what you think I am.

But here's the inconvenient bit: It doesn't make it true.

That's the part that seems to get lost.

You can repeat something a thousand times. You can put it in videos. You can surround it with laughing emojis, memes, insults, dramatic music and an audience cheering from the sidelines.

You can create an entire mythology around another human being. But repetition isn't evidence. Volume isn't evidence.

A gang of people agreeing with one another isn't evidence. And hatred certainly isn't evidence.

If ten people stand in a room and announce that I'm the Devil, I don't suddenly grow horns.

If twenty people tell me I'm worthless, I don't magically become worthless.

And if somebody tells me that I should end my life because my existence supposedly causes suffering to others, that doesn't transform their opinion into objective truth.

It simply tells me something about the person making the statement.

There is an important distinction between "this is what you think about me" and "this is what I actually am."

The first may be entirely accurate. The second requires evidence. And perhaps that's what really irritates people.

I don't accept the identity they've constructed for me. I don't accept their verdict. I don't accept their description of me as fact merely because they've repeated it often enough.

Most importantly, I don't accept the idea that somebody else's hatred gives them authority over my existence.

I am perfectly capable of recognising that I have faults. I'm not claiming to be perfect.

I've made mistakes. I've said things I probably shouldn't have said. I've annoyed people. I've pissed people off. I've been confrontational. I've been stubborn. I've probably been an absolute pain in the arse on occasions.

But there's a gigantic difference between being flawed and being evil. There's a difference between being irritating and being worthless. There's a difference between being disliked and being undeserving of life.

And there's an enormous difference between criticism and telling someone that their existence is a problem that should be eliminated.

So, Mouse gang, I get your message. But I reject your conclusion.

You don't get to define me simply because you've decided you dislike me. You don't get to determine my worth. You don't get to decide whether my voice has value. And you certainly don't get to convince me that I should hate myself because you've spent an enormous amount of time telling me that I should.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that people who claim to despise me so much seem to spend an extraordinary amount of their own time talking about me.

If I'm supposedly irrelevant, why the obsession? If I'm supposedly worthless, why the continued attention? If I'm supposedly incapable of achieving anything, why does what I say continue to matter enough to provoke such an enthusiastic response?

That's the paradox.

The more they tell me I don't matter, the more time they spend demonstrating that I matter to them. And that's something I find rather amusing.

So yes, Mouse gang. Message received. I've listened. I've understood. I know exactly what you think of me.

You can keep your insults. You can keep your caricature of Matt Taylor. You can keep your fictional version of the man you've constructed inside your collective imagination.

But I'll keep something else. My own judgement. Because ultimately, you are entitled to your opinion of me.

You're entitled to dislike me. You're entitled to criticise me. You're even entitled to think I'm the biggest dickhead ever to walk the streets of Brighton.

Fine. But you're not entitled to turn your opinion into reality merely by repeating it. And you're certainly not entitled to decide whether I deserve to exist.

So I'll leave you with the simplest response possible: I get it. I get your message. I've listened. I've understood. But still… It doesn't make it true.