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Garron Noone has returned to social media after facing a backlash. Noone had previously taken a hiatus following reaction to a video he made in response to Conor McGregor’s controversial recent White House visit.
On St. Patrick's Day, McGregor paid a visit to Trump in the White House and made headlines with his anti-immigration rant during a press conference.
Noone, an Irish creator from Mayo, typically posts comedic and musical content (not forgetting his catchphrase "Follow me, I’m delicious") but on Thursday (March 20) posted a response to the UFC fighters' controversial comments, which saw him face controversy himself.
What prompted all the backlash for Noone?
In the video which remains on his account, and has 1.2 million views, Noone shared his thoughts on what McGregor had said.
"The systems that we have in place are being taken advantage of, and that is plain to see, and the government continually does not allow people to express their concerns about that”, he told followers, adding that he could see why people might agree with McGregor.
He continued: "Along with this, Ireland continues to become one of the richest countries in the world, while most people's quality of life is going down.
"Our towns and especially our cities are becoming much less safe. Now that's not just because of immigration, there's a lot of factors to that, but if you can't see that that's happening, then you have not left your house."
Amid all the backlash he received, Noone deactivated his account as when people tried to search for his profile it was no where to be found.
What did Noone say on his return to social media?
After taking a five-day hiatus from social media, Noone returned where he addressed the backlash in a nine-minute video which now has over 2.4 million views.
"I stand by what I said in my first video, this video will clarify any points I seen that were taken up differently to how I meant them, and this will be my last word on it," he posted in the caption.
He reiterated this point at the start of the video, as he wants to get back to “having the craic”.
"I needed to take a few days away,” Noone said, explaining that he disappeared off social media to clear his head.
"There was a lot of stuff happening online, as I'm sure many of you know, and I just couldn't stop myself looking at it, and engaging with it, and it wasn't productive for me."
The content creator noted how any immediate response would've been "purely based on emotion and just not productive".
Noone then gave a “massive thank you” to those who sent him supportive messages in the wake of the backlash, as well as those who disagreed with him “in good faith”.
He then went on to say: “I do want to take some accountability here. While I think that most people, seemingly to me, did understand what I was trying to get across in the video, I do think some of my points were too vague, I think they were too open to interpretation."
“Enough people did misinterpret it that it's clear to me that I definitely could have communicated it better, and that is 100 per cent on me. I absolutely should be held accountable for that."
Noone continued: “I have a very large platform and the things I say get out to a lot of people and if they’re poorly communicated, people absolutely should criticise now, then, and they should criticise me in the future, that’s absolutely tremendously important.”
The musician and comedian then acknowledged the “personal attacks” he received and mentioned how he was called a racist, a fascist, and anti-immigration in response to his initial video, things he says "are not true at all".
Noone called out the "far-right people who were misappropriating what I was saying and using it to try to bolster their own agenda," calling it "absolutely horrifying," as his initial video received support from the likes of Andrew Tate’s brother Tristan and Katie Hopkins.
He also spoke about the "very large backlash" which got "very personal" and was "very upsetting" to see.
"I never said that I was anti-immigration, I honestly don’t know where people even got that. I never aligned myself with Conor McGregor and said that I agreed with everything he said or anything even close to that. In fact, I said the opposite,” Noone said.
"What I was saying in the video, is that denying the reality that people have these concerns is leaving a massive vacuum open for people like Conor McGregor to come in and occupy and spread messages that I know you don't want him to spread, that was the entire point of the video and I stand by that."
But Noone added that he needs to be "very careful" when talking about immigration and safety in the same sentence and doesn't think he was "specific enough" in his original video.
Noone concluded: “I’m going to go back to doing what I normally do and encourage ye to all chat about whatever ye wanna chat about.”
Elsewhere, Conor McGregor goes on immigration rant during Trump White House visit, and Donald Trump and Conor McGregor's White House meeting explained.
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