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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

judging AND the Daily Mail

30 replies

putonyourredshoes · 13/09/2013 14:18

So every day I treat myself to a half hour lunch and whilst munching I read the Daily Mail showbiz/gossip thing because a) I love the gossip and b) I love even more the comments by DM punters.

Over the time I've been doing this it's become apparent that DM readers particularly hate, with a total loathing, Victoria Beckham and Kate Middleton/Duchess of Cambridge. The things that really seem to wind them are up: VB because she doesn't smile and KM because she has long flicky hair.

Is it because DM readers would like to be married to Prince William or David Beckham themselves do you think? It's all I can think of. And it seems really unreasonable. Or am I missing something?

OP posts:
Housewife2010 · 13/09/2013 14:24

The DM doesn't hate Kate. There is a lot of positive Kate coverage in there. The comments on the DM board aren't necessarily by DM newspaper readers, but readers of the website. A lot of people claim to despise the DM, but still read the website. What's the difference?

zatyaballerina · 13/09/2013 14:29

Daily Mail readers hate unemployed people and love to look down upon them, Kate spent most of her life unemployed and it galls them that she's had a better lifestyle than their hardworking, taxpaying arses.

Tbh, I even feel judgy toward her, what the fuck did she do for the best part of a decade? With her opportunities and connections she could have least found something to do, even if it was just to answer the question 'what do you do?'Hmm

Victoria Beckham looks like she's going to snap, she's painful to look at. Incredibly charming and funny in interviews but if you were to judge her by photos alone, you'd assume she was a bitch. And she can't sing..... Don't get the hate though...

I only read Daily Mail for the commentsGrin

livinginwonderland · 13/09/2013 14:39

I only read their website for the comments!

weirdthing · 13/09/2013 15:03

The DM readers do seem to hate Gove and the Bullingdon boys quite a lot though - which I find quite strange. They also hate all the minor royals and frequently refer to them as parasites.

Original poster
putonyourredshoes · 13/09/2013 15:07

Apart from Zara - they love her.

OP posts:
PomBearArmy · 13/09/2013 15:10

The majority of DM readers hate all women. There are a few exceptions, but generally any story featuring a woman has the commenters running along with their virtual rotten tomatoes.

Housewife2010 · 13/09/2013 16:01

As I wrote earlier, I don't think the people leaving comments on the DM website are necessarily the DM newspaper readers. They are from all over the world and I'm sure that only a fraction actually read the paper. There are a lot of trolls and bored people at work who post inflammatory posts just for the hell of it.
I don't believe the "majority of DM readers hate all women". I bet the DM's readership has a female majority.

PaulSmenis · 13/09/2013 16:05

The comments on the Mail site are the only bit worth reading.

SeaSickSal · 13/09/2013 16:34

I read it, like you, and I like both VB and Kate Middleton.

mayorquimby · 13/09/2013 17:19

The dm hates David beckham as well so I don't think it's a case of wanting to be married to him

PomBearArmy · 13/09/2013 17:25

OK, maybe 'majority' is a bit much. But there is definitely a hardcore of women haters. I read an article about a schoolgirl who died during a PE lesson, and someone had commented underneath 'That's what they get for leaving the kitchen.'

Actually it's the Daily Mail itself which is women hating, so it's more a birds of a feather thing. They love running photo stories of female celebs without makeup and looking tired, and calling them natural beauties, or a woman whose put on weight and saying she looks healthy, then they just stand back and watch the 'beached whale' and 'Natural beauty? She looks like Gollum!' comments roll in.

TiggyD · 13/09/2013 17:45

Posh never smiles=they never publish picture of Posh smiling.

. A very happy lady.
Pixel · 13/09/2013 17:51

I've never seen a picture of Harper smiling either, has anyone else noticed that?

FlapJackFlossie · 13/09/2013 18:05

what the fuck did she do for the best part of a decade?

Does it REALLY matter to you, or does it impinge on your lifestyle? There are hundreds of students/graduates who do 'fuck all' - they're rich enough not to have to (or want to).

Blissx · 13/09/2013 18:06

What I hate is the hypocrisy of the DM. Time after time, there will be articles condemning mothers who work, use childcare and are not a stay at home mothers. But when it comes to their beloved Kate and Wills ( there was an article stating how they were bowing to the inevitable and hiring Wills' old Nanny who was his 'rock') the tables are turned and the same rules don't apply to them and they are praised for it. That annoys me, rather than the celebrities themselves.

picnicbasketcase · 13/09/2013 18:07

There were some absolutely vile comments about Kerry Katona the other day, the majority because her children have different fathers.

PomBearArmy · 13/09/2013 18:49

I don't know what people expected Kate Middleton to do. It was pretty clear she was going to marry William, there was little point her training to become a doctor or lawyer, and if she'd had any kind of public job her employers would have been besieged by paps and gawkers. So she worked for her parents business, nothing wrong with that.

josephinebruce · 13/09/2013 21:53

But KM did work hard for many many years at getting her man and that ring on her finger and the title that her mother wanted her to do. So much more difficult that getting a job and the self respect that would have come from making something of her incredibly expensive education. But then, I guess, what else is an Art History graduate to do!!

What I find most disturbing is that both VB and KM are held up as role models for young girls...ok, VB's worked a bit, I suppose, but at self promotion and her business is very much her marriage.

It just seems to be telling girls that it's ok not to work, they too can marry rich men!! Hmm, but then, what happens when the rich man leaves them....

nennypops · 13/09/2013 22:04

Daily Mail commenters tend to be an incredibly miserable lot, and it's a rare report where they can't find something to grumble about. What really bemuses me, however, is that most of it is moderated and yet some really vile comments get through - for instance people rejoicing at people dying (including children) because they were potential asylum seekers, I kid you not.

On the other hand, there is a core of people prepared to tell the Mail and its commenters in no uncertain terms when they're being w*nkers, plus some who I suspect have a lot of fun just winding up the Mailtards and seeing how many red arrows (the Mail's mark of disapproval/disagreement) they can accumulate. It's always fun when they get the regulars frothing at the mouth.

HopeClearwater · 13/09/2013 22:29

The majority of DM readers are women. And they are the women-haters. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

PomBearArmy · 13/09/2013 22:44

Ah, I have knowledge to impart Hope!

Recently the DM had some glitch which meant when I signed in I was looking at someone else's profile, this happened with everyone. I saw five profiles, and two of them had a female username but a male name and email in the private details. I don't know why some men would pretend to be women, but some definitely are.

I like the user Minnietheminx, she's brilliant, very funny and expert at popping egos!

thebody · 13/09/2013 22:48

I love my mom.

my mom loves the DM and reads it avidly every day.

it's difficult as she's nice at bottom but spouts racist sexist crap all the time. but she loves her next door neighbours ' 'even though they are Muslims'???? loves her doctor whose black, but not very black'!!!!???

she loves the Beckhams but thinks the royals are free loaders.

she's nearly 80 so leaving her to it. think she is a typical DM reader.

Tabby1963 · 13/09/2013 22:49

Reading the DM online is my daily guilty pleasure :D

Even though it is full of articles of lots of women in bikinis who either have 'bikini bodies' or are fat; fabulously expensive houses for sale (which are usually actually hideous); articles about 'celebrities' that I've never heard of e.g. the Kardashians; loads of articles taken from newspapers in the USA which are not interesting or relevant.

I really do need to get some therapy....

PomBearWithAnOFRS · 13/09/2013 22:52

The Daily Mail hates everyone, depending on the phase of the moon and which side of the bed they got out of that day. They have been known to print completely opposing views in articles on the same day, and even outright lies - like when their front page went with the wrong verdict in the original Meredith Kercher trial Confused
Years ago when I was young sighhhhh they were very much a Labour supporting paper, and now they are almost completely the opposite and hate Labour and all it stands for, but will still bitch about people who aren't "flavour of the month" at any given time.

nennypops · 14/09/2013 10:36

I get totally bemused at the Mail's ever-lengthening list of irrational hate-objects. Facebook, Apple, the BBC, Channel 4, Twitter (though they get many of their gossip stories from it), Jeremy Clarkson, climate change, the Meteorological Office, Jonathan Ross, Cherie Blair, cyclists, Gregg Wallace, travellers, foreigners, David Cameron, teachers, British Airways, schoolchildren, the London Olympics, people with tattoos, public sector workers, Jack Whitehall, the disabled, single parents, social workers, the police, firemen, Google, you name it. I wish I could sit Dacre down to explain it all.