To ask why do some people feel they know famous people enough to form an informed opinion about their private lives?

[VIPNanny]

As per my username, I work as a nanny for « VIP families » (UHNW families as we say in the industry) and I was reading some of the threads about Brooklyn Beckham and while it’s not news to me, I am always genuinely stunned to see so many people act as if they, for certain, know what’s going on in the lives of famous people, especially behind closed doors or at least enough to form an opinion about whether or not someone is being genuine about their lived experience to the point of vehemently denying the possibility of it being true and even eagerly name calling the person sharing their story as if they know the truth?

Like it genuinely surprises me, and make me question why and how?

I have seen it with the royals and multiple other threads about celebrities and it always stuns me. Not just that people care (because why?) but that people care enough to take sides and even defend certain parties as if they know the truth and seem (for some) to even develop genuine disdain towards the other party as they defend their position? And even using nicknames for the celebrities as if they are pals (Vicky/Dave).

I am someone who has never cared about famous people, I don’t read media that talk about celebrities, I don’t follow any of them on social media because unless I work for them they are complete strangers to me and I couldn’t care less what Kim Kardashian does or how David Beckham spends his day, I don’t follow influencers of any kind, I am literally discovering the Beckham saga thanks to Mumsnet, as that’s how far removed I am from caring about what celebrities are doing/thinking/feeling.

I do work for them though, so while I have no clue a lot of the time about their public lives I do know quite a lot about their private lives and more specifically the dynamics surrounding their kids, and that’s why I can honestly say it’s impossible to even begin to imagine what goes on behind closed doors in those environments unless you are actively part of those environments. It’s impossible to guess what someone went through in his/her childhood just because certain people appear a certain way in public.

Through my work, I have seen it all, genuinely loving families who care, but also, and dare I say it, mostly, family dynamics that are extremely detrimental to the children & that would make anyone want to go no contact in adulthood. What’s hardest is that there is nothing to do to protect them because they aren’t physically neglected. It’s all emotional neglect.

But to give some (small) examples, it’s genuinely not rare at all for me to have worked for people who only see their kids for 5 minutes a day, and I do mean 5 minutes (and sometimes even then it feels as if those 5 minutes are spent under duress) unless there are guests or a photo op, in this case the attitude completely changes and then sure you could almost give them an award as parent of the year, but the second people leave so do they. In some cases the kids don’t even live with the parents they live in completely different quarters/ or even building to their parents with their assigned staff members. So those kids may have money but there is genuinely often a lot of emotional neglect going on.

Most of those kids live very unstable lives, with no secure attachment figure with most kids usually having to go through an endless stream of ever changing nannies & staff members (either due to parents firing people on a whim or Nannies having to quit due to either working conditions or what we are often made to witness.) Many times I have been nanny number 7 or 8 of kids that weren’t even 2 yet or I have seen parents fire a great nanny or great staff with a great long-standing bond with a kid because the parents felt the kid preferred the nanny/other staff member to them and it’s not rare that they are then not even allowed to say goodbye to the kids.

Those kids go through many things emotionally that they are not able to express because their parents/circle uses money and gift as a bandaid for emotional neglect and negate the impact that have on those kids. Most of the time those kids have to fight HARD for the attention of their parents and they often learn quickly that they only get it when in certain context (if other eyes are watching.)

Don’t get me wrong like I have said there are some great families who do care and who are present for their kids but I will say the key word is some. Most of the kids I have looked after have about 100 reasons to go no contact with their parents and probably will have a 1000 more by the time they reach adulthood, whether they will or won’t I have no idea but I just hope that if they do it that it won’t be needed to be done publicly but if it is that they won’t have to sit through millions of strangers negating their story and lived experiences, based on what they know nothing about.

I have no clue what happened in the Beckham’s household so won’t ever pretend I do, but I do know that most staff who has ever worked in this kind of environment often feel terrible for the children. There are many things money can’t fix or can’t make up for and there are many toxic dynamics that stems from wealth and fame that people who have never lived with or close to absolutely can’t grasp nor understand. Calling someone names because they share a story about their lives that you are not privy to, as if they have personally offended you acting as if the other party (you also don’t know) needs defending is bizarre.

So AIBU to question why people do that? Like why do they feel so involved in a strangers life that some genuinely feel entitled (or informed enough, and if so on what basis?) to deny people’s lived experiences or even worse, come up with their own alternative version of events (even though they have never met either party) to the point of feeling entitled to insult (or worse, remotely diagnose) those people in order to defend their stance?

The whole thing is just so bizarre to me because at the end of the day those people aren’t just entertainment, they are real people and there are real kids/young adults who genuinely suffer and suffered from the dynamics fame and money brought to their lives and what it took from them (in terms of childhood and in terms of relationship with their parents.)

it’s human nature

100% this
You just think your UHNW gossip is highbrow and insider and the plebs who get their from the tabloids havnt even see a real rolls Royce up close! 😂😂😂
People must find you insufferable with that essay...

I think you just want to talk about your VIP nanny proximity to celebs

That you Vicky? 👀

I change diapers for a living I don’t really think it’s glamorous or worth talking about at length irrelevant of whose kids I change the diapers of. if I wanted to talk about that, I would talk about that. I am just a lot more interested to talk about how comfortable as a society we have become to get over involved in other people’s lives taking part in what’s sometimes akin to online bullying, based on just drops of information be it one Mumsnet post, one 20 seconds reel, or a couple media’s articles or instagram posts with no care for the consequences.

@translated is a pretty good example of that, making assumptions about me based on one Mumsnet thread and stating them as facts and as if she knows me personally and what I think or what people must think of me and being purposely “mean” just for the thrill of it.

and my question remains: why do people do that?

Not that you deserve an answer but I find it fascinating that you came to that conclusion when my beliefs couldn’t be further from your statements (but that’s what my thread is about so thank you).

I am a nanny and whose butt I wipe doesn’t change that fact and will never change my status in society (not that I think there is ever a superior status nor a superior being) so there is no such thing as “plebs” in my world but if there was I would 100% consider myself part of said group, and what you call gossip is just my shared work experience. It’s not better than the media, it doesn’t make me superior, there is nothing “high brow” about it, it’s just that: an insight into what I witness in my work field, and it’s in no way a belief that I have cooler information, and It’s not me looking down on people, it’s me stating a simple truth, behind the public image there is a lot going on and very often dynamics that genuinely do damage the kids, and inviting people to question whether the public snipets of life of people who are trained to appear a certain way in public are enough to make some of the bold statements some of them eagerly make including denying someone’s trauma/experiences about their upbringing, and if so why/how?

If that makes me insufferable or hard to like, I guess that’s fine.

It is human nature to form opinions based on the information provided.

What has been brewing since the 1990’s, and has absolutely exploded since the advent of social media, is parasocial relationships. Feeling a deeper sense of connection, even ownership, over total strangers simply because they are in the public eye used to be the remit of weirdo stalkers. It is now alarmingly commonplace.

Many celebrities, the Beckhams and the Kardashian’s for example, are in part to blame for this. Every aspect of their life shared and monetised, by their own hand.

Oooft I think you've touched a nerve with some posters on here OP 😁
YANBU.
It baffles me on those type of threads on here how incredibly fixated and venomous some get, about people they've never met but act like they know everything about them, and what they're like as people just because of what they've read in magazines/newspapers/insta stories or whatever.
You don't know them.. You've never met them.
I think you raise some interesting points OP

Thank you!

That’s absolutely my point and also my observation, I am often shocked at how often the “looks like he is on the spectrum” is thrown around over here for example, often as an answer to a very vague post about a one off situation, like people would rather diagnose first (despite most likely not even being qualified to) before asking for more context.

And yes I do notice that the more money someone has, be it someone random on Musmnet or someone famous, the more the empathy seems to get out of the window and the harsher the answers tend to be. It’s as if someone having money means their trauma or emotional hardships are automatically lesser or should be treated as such. And it’s often as if some people almost resent them daring to complain or expressing any kind of hardship/trauma, but not feeling bonded to your family to the point of needing to go no contact is heartbreaking irrelevant of money in the bank account or losing your mom in the public eye at a young age must be beyond traumatic for example.

So I completely agree with you and thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter.

Gosh those are long posts, could only read the first paragraph.

Im curious as to why you are so ignorant of why people have an opinion on “people in the public eye” - isn’t it just blindingly obvious that some people like gossip/feel a sense of knowing them as they’ve grown up in the public eye/are bored and want to chat or post on SM about something? The reasons behind this are not rocket science - It’s human nature.

Are you honestly saying you have never had an opinion in your life about someone you don’t know?

I couldn’t give a stuff about the Beckhams and don’t understand the fascination with them however I can still be of the opinion that they were wrong to bring their kids up
in the public eye.

Maybe you are just very unique in that you don’t think about anything that doesn’t directly involve you OP?

I keep up with the basics of news with celebrities and there are some I have a slight more interest on than others but I think it is for some people an addiction like alcohol or gambling and for others they cling on to them due to either a lack or emotional or intellectual intelligence or a want of a social life but it does not happen so they focus what they can on, same with the intensity people give to the cliched ''school mum'' thing

They lack something so focus on something else

Why are you doing this here? Making it like you have some exclusive insights into the lives of the UHNW lol

Your handful of essays show your hand. look at me more knowledgeable than you lot reading the mail. iI'm UHNW adjacent!

I mean the fact that you've named yourself here as VIPNanny I find fascinating

Who even uses the term VIP? I can’t think of anyone I would class as more important than any other regular Joe. It’s very tacky.

Exactly, I do think the Beckhams, and maybe even more so the Kardashian (with the TV reality show about them) kickstarted this by giving this impression that people have a good insight on their day to day lives just by watching the show and so probably led to people feeling they know them more than they do.

And I do now feel like the influencer movement where people over share now mean people don’t just feel like simple observers and more like active participants or genuine witness to those people’s lives?

I completely agree though that there is a degree of comfort and involvement that goes beyond just having an opinion that would have historically been frown upon.

You realize that people name change right for different posts as not to mix personal and work issues etc…? I have many other usernames I have been on Mumsnet since 2014 I believe. This username is used for this specific post because it goes with the theme of my thread. The rest of time I post under my usual username. Didn’t think I would have to explain that.

TLDR but yes, yabu based on your ridiculously long essay and the fact that the majority of famous people who choose to stay out of the limelight do exactly that and none of us are any the wiser about them

I agree with you. You have a unique insight to one layer of society where parents ruthlessly ransack, compromise, control, blight and exploit their own DCs to line their own pockets without consent. But as you say this also goes on at all levels of society despite the often chronic and sometimes catastrophic impact on their emotional development and their longterm MH.

I would like to see laws / bans classing this as Childhood Emotional Abuse - with safeguarding laws and crimes along the lines of revenge porn which has the same characteristics of exploitation of someone in a vulnerable non consenting situation.

Aye ei, these are long posts from the OP!

.

That’s very interesting, I am just curious what sentencing would come with such laws though?

Because fines would be irrelevant to someone wealthy, Jail time would seem a bit overboard as would removing the kids, since for example in the case of Mumsfluencer I guess it’s mainly people who do love and care about their kids and are likely just too excited about being mothers they don’t really grasps the implications of over exposing their kids to the world? Because in the end you also want to look for the well being of the children, right? So an heavy fine to mothers who overshare online but are barely making ends meet would be devastating for their children as would any jail time or being removed from an otherwise loving environment.

So I am genuinely curious how you would see that play out because I tend to agree with you but struggle to think of a measured solution that might protect kids from being exposed online and the dangers that come with it that wouldn’t also harm them and yet something effective enough to work? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Could be same as smacking laws - doesn’t matter if YOU believe it’s fine for your family - if society has deemed it abuse / neglect then it’s up to the parents to live within the law of the land? I have no legal insights but there are charities for children and MH who could advocate.

For instance there is a new law where if a victim of DA takes their own life due to proven abuse then the abuser is liable for murder / manslaughter. I think I read that 50% of women of a particular age cohort who had taken their own life were victims of DA in their own homes.

If we are waking up to SM triggering sui@ide indirectly it isn’t a leap of imagination that IRL proximity DA is relevant.

Same for childhood emotional / financial exploitation online and in the home. Maybe it could be classed as DA of children?

I didn’t know about this new law (I am not from the UK) but that’s brilliant glad such thing exist!

I guess I am a bit soft because I think I would at least give a proper warning, and maybe have them attend a course regarding the impact of social media on children, etc… but I think mainly because the first generation of «social media grown children » are only now just becoming teens/adults and so it’s a bit of a new phenomenon and I think only now and in the next decade(s) will we be able to fully grasp the impact of fades such as «Mumsfluencers » or family YouTube channels or TV shows about the whole family on children and young adults. I can definitely see the legislation changing soon though.

I definitely think social media platforms should ban people sharing images of minors of any kind, be it their own (10 yo sharing their own TikTok videos for example) or their kids/relatives/a stranger online but I doubt platforms like TikTok which pretty much live off of minors and their content would, so my hope is that the legislation changes internationally so that platforms are forced to change and protect minors. Especially as there is a way to « influence » (inspire?) other mothers without sharing the actual children.

I definitely do think we still have a couple more years to go before we see some genuine changes in this area though. And I am very curious how most parents will react if and when their kids speak up against having been over exposed online since pre-birth and whether things like Mumsfluencing will naturally die out or if people will still keep at it and act as if the stories of abuse are «anecdotal » and not systemic.

I dont know what you think you've explained here?

Yanbu at all. People think they know them because they watched their documentary and follow them online, but dont seem to be aware its all curated content which is quite alarming!

Think about the ordinary people you actually know irl, is their social media an active reflection of their lives? For most people it isnt. My bff tags herself out everywhere to show her ex how happy she is without him. People think shes living her best life but only those close to her know about her suicide attempts for example. Online and irl are wildly different, in my office yesterday peole were having a deep debate with people stating if they were team parents or team brooklyn, and the 'authority' people spoke with took me aback, as though they know them.personally. in the meantine the trump/greenland situation is escalating and most people dont seem to be alarmed - wtf is wrong with people?! 🤷‍♀️