Australia’s “sh*ttest town” accuses popular Facebook page of bullying
The hugely popular Facebook page known as “Sh** Towns of Australia” has ruffled a few feathers with their latest judgement of saying that the industrial South Australian town of Port Pirie is the “sh****t town in Australia”.
The owners of the page, Geoff Rissole and Rick Furphy, stand by their harsh judgement of the town.
“I wouldn’t feel safe going back to Port Pirie,” Rissole told news.com.au.
“And that’s only partly because of the anger towards us.”
The industrial town was reviewed by the page in the beginning and the town was not happy at all with the judgement.
“They reacted quite badly,” Rissole said. “They were very, very angry. It was one of our early reviews and we thought it’d be funny to keep winding them up. It’s only gotten funnier.
“They keep getting angry about it and so it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The Facebook page now has 165,000 followers who are eagerly awaiting to see if their town makes the list.
Every week, a new “power ranking” is published of the 10 worst towns in the last week. No matter what’s happened during the week though, Port Pirie always makes the list with the justification that it’s “still sh*t”.
Independent MP Geoff Brock who represents the town in State Parliament says that it’s “bullying on social media”.
However, Rissole says that those who are offended “don’t pick up on the context” of the page.
“It’s written very tongue-in-cheek. It’s meant to be over the top and a bit cartoonish. Some people just don’t pick up on that context,” Rissole said.
“Particularly with older people, there’s a belief that if something is written down then it has some credibility or authority, rather than just being two people on the internet having a laugh. We often get Boomers messaging us saying: ‘Why does Facebook let you do this?’”
Mount Gambier is another town who’s not pleased with their judgement of having a “sh*t town”.
“I spoke to someone in Mount Gambier recently who said they had three days of talkback radio segments with Boomers just p*ssed off,” Rissole said.
“But that week, the biggest headline in the paper was about the Baker’s Delight moving shops down the road. There’s not a lot going on in Mount Gambier.”