Benefit programmes

[DigestiveMuncher]

Anyone else find these a good watch? I cringe like mad and find myself shouting quite horrible things at them, but still can't help but sit and laugh half of the time. It makes people on benefits like myself look like lazy lay about twats.

Just in case anyone has an opinion I am only on benefits because I am my DD carer, if I wasn't her carer I would definitely be out working!!! In fact I can't wait till she's 5 and will be in full time education so I can try and find a job!!

Tonight's is about a 30 stone fat person should be interesting..

[IcedVanillaLatte]

Ah, so you're not like those benefits people.

Enjoy laughing at me, an overweight person with a tip of a house who's never worked a day in her life.

You don't know why people are where they are and you don't know them because you've seen a crappy programme about them.

[DigestiveMuncher]

No I am not.

I'm not trying to say I know why people are where they are because I have watched a programme half of them you can sympathise with but there is always the odd few that speak out loud that they are on benefits because "they can't be arsed" that then becomes not an opinion of mine but a fact that the person has stated!!
Those are the people I find myself shouting at..

But I forget nobody is actually allowed to mention own opinions

[HateMrTumble]

have you used the term 'career' as she has a disability, because you then say you can work when she turns five and is in full time education? In which case you are one of them..

[HateMrTumble]

Carer, not career

[IcedVanillaLatte]

No, what you've done is try to defend yourself from criticism by saying you're on benefits too, then immediately made it very clear that you are only on them for good reasons and that you would definitely be working otherwise.

There's no good reason to watch these programmes. Every person who watches these programmes justifies their being made in the first place. Public attitudes towards disabled and unemployed people are changed by these programmes. My life is made ever-so-slightly shittier by each of those programmes.

And thank you for coming out with that old canard about criticism of your views being the same thing as not being allowed to hold those views. You have the right to state your views, and I have the right to state my views about those views.

[DigestiveMuncher]

Well no whilst she isn't in nursery and at home I am therefore meant to be there to take care of her medical needs, when she starts full time education she will have a nurse to step in when she isn't with me which will then mean that I will have the chance to get a job and or go to college.
She will always need me and I will always be on stand by for if there's a major problem that the nurse taking over can not handle.
If your opinion is that I am one of those people then I will take that on the chin.. doesn't make a difference to me.

[BishopBrennansArse]

Well let's just hope the government use the propaganda backlash to cut YOUR benefits and not disabled people's then, OP.

[IcedVanillaLatte]

Don't you think those people are specially selected, that they have to actively search for those people who are willing to say that they "can't be arsed"? Don't you think some of those people who say they "can't be arsed" might be mentally protecting themselves, just like the kid who claims they "didn't really try anyway" when they failed the exam (or who genuinely didn't try, because they think I'd they tried they'd fail anyway)? Don't you think they select those vulnerable to being manipulated into saying these things? Don't you think they carefully edit it so that someone making a wry joke about their situation (perhaps, "yeah, lol, I just can't be arsed! seriously, though, there just aren't any jobs round here") can be quoted out of context?

Can't you see how damaging these programmes are?

I have never worked. I am overweight. I don't always wear clean clothes. I swear sometimes. My diet isn't perfect. I don't have any qualifications above GCSE. I have type two diabetes. My house is that one with the peeling windowpanes. I have been on IB/ESA and DLA for a decade and a half.

The consequences of the demonization of benefits claimants directly hurts me. I might have to learn to live with less money when I'm assessed for PIP. PIP is very harsh, because the politicians say the public now demands benefits claimants face these unfair tests. I have to go through humiliating assessments every so often. I see people like me in the media and I know I am hated.

[DigestiveMuncher]

People can criticise me, at the end of the day whether it is a justifying reason or not to be on benefits I am still receiving benefits obviously people out there are gonna still sit and say it doesn't give me a reason to not have a job...

And yeah maybe peoples views of people on benefits are changed by these programmes, true to say I have never really had an opinion on people on benefits until I watched the programme so yeah agree.

Like I have said, I don't put every single person in the same boat, all I said was there are a few people who are on this programme that make it quite obvious that they are on benefits because they think it is easier then getting a job. and can't be bothered getting a job because they have said they are lazy and if it's gonna be given to them on a plate they will take it...

Sometimes benefits can't be helped, someone may have a reason, they may be ill and not able to work or sometimes there just isn't any jobs about which then anyone would understand.

[DeleteOrDecay]

No I don't find these shows a good watch at all. I actually think they are pretty horrific.

But have fun laughing at the misfortune of others.

[IcedVanillaLatte]

(sorry for the typos and grammar mistakes; I'm typing while quite annoyed, and my hands are freezing because my windows are draughty and gas is expensive)

[DigestiveMuncher]

Icedvanilla fair play I'm obviously really ignorant as I have never for a second sat and thought about this programme in that way and for that I have obviously judged a lot of people when the true story maybe hasn't been portrayed.

[IcedVanillaLatte]

Fair enough Digestive. Obviously, I've watched these too, in the past, otherwise I wouldn't feel qualified to comment - I saw a couple of them when they first started to become popular, before I realised how horrible they were. I don't think having watched them makes you a bad person. It's not always easy to see the damage they do.

[DigestiveMuncher]

I'm not sitting here saying that my life is perfect and that I don't have things going on that would probably suit the criteria for the show itself.

I wasn't trying to be the stuck up person that hates that people get benefits. I was simply saying something that I obviously know absolutely nothing about as someone else has said they may not be portraying the full issue in some bodies life. That's my own problem for being an ignorant cow.
So for that I apologise for the whole post

[DigestiveMuncher]

I'm not sitting here saying that my life is perfect and that I don't have things going on that would probably suit the criteria for the show itself.

I wasn't trying to be the stuck up person that hates that people get benefits. I was simply saying something that I obviously know absolutely nothing about as someone else has said they may not be portraying the full issue in some bodies life. That's my own problem for being an ignorant cow.
So for that I apologise for the whole post

[DigestiveMuncher]

I have only also only watched a few of them and have obviously sat and judged a lot of them through what's been shown, but n

[DigestiveMuncher]

sorry posted too soon

*but now know to take it with a pinch of salt or better yet not watch it at all! I know life on benefits isn't easy at all and I didn't realise what a shit post I had written out until you pointed out the facts which I thank you for, safe to say you have opened my eyes to it all!

[legotits]

They wouldn't make them unless they did the intended job.

People want to watch because it makes them feel better about their own lives.
It's escapism.

IMO it's also the ideal vehicle to reinforce the stereotypes that suit.
Clear agenda is to put on display the extreme end scrounger.

[IcedVanillaLatte]

Wow that's a really reasonable post you've written. More people should be like you (including me - I'm not great at changing my mind )

Have you seen the BBC Victorian Slum programme? It's really good, and fascinating in relation to modern poverty too. There's a bit in one of the episodes about Victorian slum tourism, where guides would take well-to-do people to go and look at slum-dwellers to see what awful lives these people lived. Very similar kind of thing!

[DigestiveMuncher]

Imo? Sorry I don't know what that means??

And I see that now I have had it put straight in my face but I honestly just thought that the people I have watched are like the way they were shown which is obviously not the case. It's shit really that someone can get away with doing it

[IcedVanillaLatte]

IMO = in my opinion

[DigestiveMuncher]

I'm not a dickhead idiot even if I have come across as one. If I am in the wrong about something then I'll say and well I was well off the mark on this one 🙈
I'm just obviously one of the gullible idiots they make these prog

And no I haven't I'll have to have a look, what channel is it on? I can see if it's on catchup then lol

[DigestiveMuncher]

posted too early again !!

*gullible idiots they make these programmes for!!

Sorry about all the posting too early I'm using the app on my phone and it doesn't seem to be playing nicely tonight

[DigestiveMuncher]

HateMrtumble - I have held my hands up on this post and said that I started it off of pure ignorance and will take any shit for that but I won't sit there and be told that I am using my child's disability as an excuse to sit on my "fat arse" to get more money. That I am and would never do!