A positive and non-bashing thread about Meghan and Harry

[MrsMaxDeWinter]

I have rejoined Mumsnet after leaving a few times. The first time I left was because I was concerned about the coverage and uncomfortable undertone of the commentary on Meghan Markle after the engagement was announced, before she had said a word, and before she had married into the Royal Family.

I came back around the time she and Harry left the UK, to be stunned by the pages and pages upon pages of virulent threads. At that time Mumsnet actually banned all threads about Meghan, it had become so toxic.

They have now made their lives in Montecito, but still the virulence continues. Yes, she speaks in a mix of therapy plus corporate gobbledegook, yes, she is occasionally vapid and irritating.

But who is she actually harming that she deserves all this virulence?

Yesterday, when the new UK Prime Minister was elected, the coverage in the Super Tory Daily Mail was all about a seven minute speech to a bunch of young people. Article after article after article. Body language experts. Counting the number of times she said "I" in a speech in which she sought to inspire young people by attempting to relate to them. Before that, 18 articles were devoted to the first podcast by the Daily Mail alone. 18!

Same with her podcasts. The series is about HER and HER take on labels, and she discusses HER take with HER guests.

It's all very anodyne, even vanilla. It does not deserve any of the vitriol sent her way.

SO:

As the next twelve weeks are going to be wall to wall Meghan, and the Meghan haters and detractors have several threads here that fill up rapidly with bile, scorn and mockery, I have started this thread, reminiscent of previous " positive" threads, to talk about what some of us like, enjoy, find amusing and even (gasp) admire, in the next few Meghan rich weeks.

If you don't have anything positive to say, that's okay, you can keep to the existing threads.

Looking forward to a bile-free discussion of everything Meghan!

I actually agree with you OP. I think the level of vitriol aimed at Harry and Meghan is extremely toxic. Not just to them but to the entire Royal family. It takes over every Royal event, and coming from a dysfunctional family myself I see the parallels examined by the worlds press with the subtlety, intelligence and nuance of a sledge hammer.

I used to read Royal pieces when I was young and believe what I wrote. Now I just read them and think.... Well, that was another subjective piece of crap (Now I realise it was always that way). Where is the balance? I don't particularly like Meghan Markle (Although I wanted to at the beginning, I actually thought she was potentially a great addition to the family). But I am so tired of people just looking to see the negative. It is really, really toxic and boring to just constantly bring someone down. I avoid anything Royal related now because it always comes into it somewhere....

@Luredbyapomegranate

That's really interesting thanks. But could it not be said that the Queen is not the RF? That Meghan criticised The Firm, the institution, not the Queen, the person? Isn't it the same sort of criticism Diana made, of the institution as an entity? Am interested in your thoughts.

I don't think they're any worse than the rest of the RF, who are all mostly hypocrites anyway. W&K with their 3 or 4 homes, helicopter trips,etc whilst preaching about the environment. Charlie with his alleged financial dodgy behaviour.
Plenty more too.

I don't understand the hate for M&H tbh.

@JimJamJollyWolly

I agree with you that the constant barrage is what is harmful to the Royal Family, not anything she or Harry could say.

To give this much prominence to two non-working RF members who don't actually live here is to actually invite questions about the relevance of all the others.

It genuinely makes no sense that those who comment negatively talk about how they are irrelevant and should go away, but devote page after page of commentary on every little thing they do, even when they play or watch polo in their new home!!

Another one here who wouldn’t go out of my way to consume royal stories (in fact, couldn’t give a rats arse). But also don’t understand the vitriol. Why isn’t the focus of ire on the sex offender? Misogynoir

I thought she looked drop dead gorgeous yesterday. Her beautiful smile, the way she holds her own when giving a speech. I like her confidence too which I know must take a lot when in a country where the media wants to make pple think she is not liked.

What interests me is that while the media dies its best to destroy her, she seems to just thrive and glow even more. Must be very irritating to her haters. She is the epitome of Maya's poem - "Still I rise".

MN never banned all threads, btw.

Just the ones where people repeated what the bottom-feeders of the internet post elsewhere (usually in a wide-eyed false-naive attempt to deplore)

Plenty of threads survive, and comment (within talk guidelines) both positive and negative is - as it always has been - permitted.

I remember MNHQ admitting that there were persistent posters who used to come on with aim of inflaming to get threads deleted. I think it all calmed down when they had been identified and banned.

Sorry Piers Morgan, you posted on the wrong thread.

The problem with selling your soul to the corporate devil is that you have to keep creating new noise to justify the payout. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

If they'd both just shut the fuck up and get on with living a low key private life then I wouldn't feel as hostile.

They sold out and therefore it's open season. They get treated to exactly the same level of virulence as any other c-list celebrity of no merit who won't shut up and retreat to under the stone from whence they came.

Couldn't give a shit about the monarchy but I feel under no obligation at all to be positive about the ecohypocrite sellouts and will continue to treat them with the derision they deserve.

I liked the trousers she wore to get the train yesterday but I'm sure they were another facet of influencer chic - that's the problem with integrity - once it's gone, everything has a price.

Misogynoir is exactly what it looks like.

I think there is also a profit angle for the tabloids. These articles in the tabloid press clearly invite a lot of clicks etc. Not to mention the various talking heads who are invited to the morning shows to add to the pile of hate.

It's a truly ghastly spectacle - hate for profit.

I recently had a look at the more extreme Twitter and YouTube posts and the scurrilous rumours and speculation. Oh my word. It's genuinely unhinged. Very, very disturbing.

The Queen is very poorly, I think it would be a good time for Harry to call time on their attacks on her and the rest of the family, and let the Queen enjoy the time she has left, in peace.

There are separate threads about him, so perhaps you can take comments there? Where the threads also run to several parts long, and get very active whenever something happens (and occasionally between times)

It's not misogyny, it's just keeping threads vaguely on-topic.

OP, the Meghan haters are so hateful, so nasty and so selfish that they don't think like decent people. If I saw someone wanted a positive thread on a person or couple I didn't like, I would have the decency to respect that wish and not read or post on that thread. Meghan haters take great delight in being as vicious and hate-filled as possible and deliberately spreading their bitterness and bile. They have no respect for anyone. The decent thing for them to do would be to exit the thread and not comment. But they are not decent people. They are far, far, far worse than Meghan. That's the great irony.

@Swedesareneeps

You say:

If they'd both just shut the fuck up and get on with living a low key private life then I wouldn't feel as hostile.

This is what I mean. They have nothing at all to do with you. You don't pay for them or their lives. You don't have to listen to them. Why do you want to censor them? They are as free to talk as you are to ignore them. You can exist in a Meghan and Harry free zone by simply avoidING them. So why read about them and expose yourself to this "hostility" they inspire in you. Just WHY??

I fear you may be right.

Not only do they dislike her with a passion, they want the whole world to dislike her with the same passion😀and any person who says even the mildest thing in support is piled on, as is the case here.

This may be at the core of the virulent anger: as someone up there said, she refuses to "shut the fuck up". She refuses to "go away", and that alone is enough to justify the hate in their minds.

Meghan cannot win. Just been cackling at a headline in the "Express" that says she SNUBBED the Royal Family by NOT MENTIONING them in her speech.

I mean, honestly!

Just not interested in either of the snowflakes

a pay-off for criminal sexual behaviour of a member of the family in the line of succession. Who was that then?

I avoid them in as much as I don't go looking for them but I am subject to the same news curation as everyone else in this online world and therefore am fed information about them - they're unfortunately unavoidable!

Certain pieces of my work require me to be informed of current affairs and therefore I can't just switch off from it all (blessed though that would be).

Their business model is to be noticed and publicised - they're part of the attention economy. Do I listen to their podcasts or their speeches? No. Do I hear about them anyway? Yes. Am I allowed to have an opinion about what I hear/see/read? Obviously, yes.

That's exactly my point - they don't just cross the radar of the interested, they also touch the lives of the disinterested (otherwise what would be the point of all the noise? Follow the money!)

I clicked on your thread because I didn't realise there was a whole thing about people being negative about them on here (I don't do the RF so don't hang out wherever on the site they are) but having read it thought I'd explain WHY they boil my piss so much.

She's just irrelevant to the UK, and is a liar.

well, she certainly looks really good!

red is a great colour on her!

@Swedesareneeps

They boil your piss because of things you read about them. And you have to read about hem for work? I hope your employer provides you counselling because it is not normal to have such a reaction to people you just read about!

@LoveHamble

She is "irrelevant to the UK" you say. Yet the big story on the day the new UK Prime Minister was announced was Meghan's seven minute speech, what she said and what she wore! What do you make of that?

@derxa I know your obsession with the Royals enough to know that you are feigning ignorance. You know that I am talking about Prince Andrew's pay-off in a matter in which he was accused of criminal sexual behaviour. Sex with a woman considered under the age of consent is considered rape. Had Ms Giuffre been over the age of consent when she had sex with Prince Andrew, there would have been no civil liability.

I think it would help both Harry and Meghan and the British public if the news channels simply stopped reporting their vacuous speeches and gave them the 'privacy' they have asked for. Ditto the papers. No one is interested here especially, so the best thing to do would be to turn off the oxygen/coverage and then they would be left with a handful of compliant supporters - and a country left in peace.

Win win for everyone.

If you don't have anything positive to say, that's okay, you can keep to the existing threads

or you can comment on this thread, if you want.
thats the way MN works.

Here we go again.

And yet the media, especially the right wing tabloid press, continue reporting on them. Even, as I said above, when Harry plays polo in far off Santa Barbara and Aspen, and Meghan watches him.

Why do you think they keep reporting them? They are as many say here, "irrelevant" to the UK. So why the wall to wall coverage? Genuinely interested in your views.