Great British Bake Off is back – and I only want to hear nice things said about the bakers-Michael Chakraverty-Entertainment – Metro

If you’ve not got anything nice to tweet, then don’t tweet anything at all (Picture: Channel 4)

The Great British Bake Off’s latest batch of contestants are fresh out of the oven as the competition enters its 13th series.

The show, returning to our screens tonight, is a nationally-beloved comfort and the perfect tonic for the endless torrent of negative news.

Unfortunately, it also brings with it the disquieting desire from some on social media and in articles to tarnish its shine; tearing down the show and its contestants by criticising its cast, or trawling through the bakers’ pasts in the hope of uncovering some skeletons.

It’s something I noticed again this year on the day the new contestants were announced. 

Having been there myself, I know a little of what they will have been through over the last year – staying quiet about one of the biggest things that’s ever happened to them.

They’ve kept their heads down throughout the arduous application process and managed to remain tight-lipped, as they create bakes they’d never even dreamed of beneath the most famous tent peaks in the world.

The weeks and months between filming and transmission are blissful. While I was somewhat relieved to return to my normal life during my season, I also spent many hours travelling the country to visit my newly-made friends – the only people who truly understood what the previous months had felt like.

I delighted in all the ridiculous memes and jokes about my seemingly endless kitchen mishaps (Picture: Channel 4)

We’d bake together (undoing the trauma of pastry that had betrayed us when it was most important), stalk each other online (of course, we weren’t allowed to follow each other lest somebody rumble us) and speculate about how we’d be received by the public. 

As the big day neared, the nights became sleepless with excitement. We’d somehow forgotten many of our fears and instead were yearning for the day where we could finally unzip our mouths.

The announcement was at midnight – and within minutes, we’d all been found by various journalists and keen-eyed twitter users. We watched, wide-eyed, as our follower counts grew and our notifications began to rise.

What we didn’t necessarily know was that there people already beginning to dig into our pasts.

By midday, four of my previous workplaces had been called by journalists asking for comment and if there were any salacious rumours about me that they should know about.

People I barely knew were offering up comments on my character or pestering my friends for dirty little secrets from my past.

It is a fascinating phenomenon that a show so universally positive garners a desire for such negativity. 

I felt intensely uncomfortable – while Bake Off’s team fielded a lot of the media interest, it felt incredibly invasive to have your friends and family targeted.  

For the most part, people are lovely – but the fear that you may be ripped apart in an article or on social media puts a nerve-wracking spin on an otherwise thrilling situation for the year’s bakers. 

Contestants are now advised by Bake Off’s welfare team to steer entirely clear of Twitter if they can avoid it, and I can see why – though it seems a shame to miss out on all its positives, too.

I remember seeing people declaring that they would die for me within minutes of learning my name (!) as well as lovely messages from young LGBTQ+ people who were so thrilled to see somebody like them on their television.

As the show aired, I delighted in all the ridiculous memes and jokes about my seemingly endless kitchen mishaps. Viewers picked up on tiny things that I’d not noticed while filming, and it felt as though I was both reliving the experience as well as discovering new things as we went along.

But others think that your presence on their television screen makes you fair game for their judgement and they offer awful comments and opinions about you, your appearance, your talent and your family. 

While there are many who don’t realise their comments can sting – for instance, those who yell that contestants were ‘robbed’ – others seem to yearn for a toxic sense of inclusion that trolling can provide. 

Recently, when one baker was sent through to the final over another, the baker was the subject of multiple articles and the social media bullying grew so immense that pleas for it to stop were sent out by the judges and presenters. 

To this year’s new bakers: soak it all up! (Picture: Mark Bourdillon / Love Productions)

All this, because the judges preferred one cake over another. It really is as simple as that.

Filming Bake Off is one of the best experiences in the world. It’s an idyllic little bubble where the pressures of the world fade, and you’re caught up in a whirlwind of bliss.

You meet incredible, warm, like-minded people both in front of and behind the camera, and you share some of the most intense experiences with them.

For the most part, these memories remain and as the episodes air, you get to relive and share them with your loved ones as well as – mind-blowingly – with the world. 

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It’s a pity that some people think that the best response to ordinary people doing extraordinary things is to tear them down, but that says a lot more about them than it does us.

So, to this year’s new bakers: soak it all up! You’ve done the hard part, now celebrate all that you’ve achieved. We’ve got you.

To this year’s trolls: if you’ve not got anything nice to tweet, then don’t tweet anything at all.

Michael will be reviewing each episode of the new series of Bake Off on his new podcast, Sticky Bun Boys, along with Bake Off winner David Atherton. Available on all podcast apps.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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