Anyone starting to feel sorry for them?

[Aspargar]

https://archive.ph/vV0f9

No matter how preeningly narcissistic the couple may seem, surely even they must now have realised what the source of their woes is? The fact is: people were only interested in hearing what Harry and Meghan had to say when they were dishing the dirt on the royal family.Hence, in January last year, the record-breakingly vast sales of Harrys memoir Spare. with all its eye-popping claims about his brother, father and stepmother. But every time he, and Meghan, start talking about any other topic – be it sport, jam or social justice – the world turns off. No one cares. Now that the Sussexes have finished flogging all the family secrets, they’ve got nothing that anyone wants.

There is part of me that does feelsorry for them too. I mean 2024 has been a disaster, off the back of 2023 which was another disaster. It’s not going to get any better. Reap what you sow, so we knew it was coming their way but it’s all a bit sad and pathetic now. The faux tours, cards from ‘the office of’, as time goes on, the more pathetic that will look because they have lost all connection to the Royals

This must be their year of reckoning. He won’t win his cases, they will lose Netflix, the brand will face further set backs, they realise that their kids will never have a royal Christmas at Sandringham or summer at Balmoral, ever. In fact they are unlikely to ever meet the King again.

Its all came off the rails. We all knew it would happen. Many could even see the disaster impending from the engagement announcement. But it’s still hard to watch and that’s what makes me feel a bit sorry for them.

Prepared to be flamed! 😬

Like all of the royal family except Andrew 🤢 and Megan and Harry

Slight tangent, but one thing I've found fascinating about the recent revelations about Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, is that it's now an established PR strategy in Hollywood to plant commentators across social media sites to try and influence the narrative, amplify desired messaging and distract attention away from negative messaging.

Whilst I think it's been generally accepted for a long time that H&M collaborate with the SS, it's the first time I've seen it hit mainstream news that this sort of tactic is happening in a coordinated and well funded way.

Whilst I'm sure they do have plenty of bona fide supporters, there does seem to be a particular type you see sometimes who are utterly single minded in defence of them, beyond any sort of rational level - and it does make one wonder how much of this is part of an ongoing paid PR strategy. At some point if there was an exposé on all the different celebrities using this strategy it would be absolutely fascinating.

@elessar thats an interesting observation as PH in his interview with Andrew Ross-Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook summit spoke about 'the trolls' and how he felt sorry for them being disappointed about is 12th house move / 10th divorce and went into a convoluted discussion about whether he reads the trolls or not.....but he seemed quite intense about this rather than indifferent - seems that he may have gone down another rabbit hole beyond the MSM.

Speaking as an immigrant who loves Britain, I can tell you that the "British State" is infinitely more benign and honest than a good 80% of the rest of the countries in the world. People who complain, and ceaselessly allege sinister goings-on, really don't know how good they've got it imho.

@NewspaperTaxis Similar accusations made against Wills and Kate - that she revealed she had cancer silenced all that for good, but then... what was the deal about releasing a picture that had been photoshopped so many times? It's not like she'd lost her hair through chemo or looked any different, it's easy enough to pose for a picture, I'd have thought.

It wasn't photoshopped "so many times". The experts that did analyse it said there were a few areas of Photoshopping, mainly around the children's clothes, and nothing involving Catherine's face or body. She basically did what the Google Pixel Pro does with the 'best shot' option. Combined the best of a few photos so everyone is looking into camera, smiling and not blinking.

They did just sit down and pose for a photo and vicious trolls had a field day.

Taxi for……

I think at times here it's definitely possible to see a coordinated agenda being put forward. Not just on this board. Part of social media these days seems to be accepting that the most vocal opinion online is not necessarily one that reflects what people in real life think.

What it did to the postmaster generals? What are you on about? The postmaster general was a ministerial role which no longer exists.

Yes, SEO & SM agencies have been very effective in the past in driving certain agendas and making it look as though their confected opinions are actually what lots of ordinary people think. It's worked very well for certain celebrities and certain social movements. What happens then of course is that REAL people decide they'd better toe the line and espouse those same bien pensant opinions, as humans are evolutionarily hardwired to want to fit in with the pack. Back in caveman days, fitting in with the pack ensured your physical survival. Now it ensures that you won't get cancelled or called a bigot (and possibly lose your livelihood, so again, physical survival).

What's happened since, I'm gonna say, 2022 is that the Overton Window of public discourse has shifted back to the long term norm for Western Europe and the US, where the vast majority of people are centrist, small c conservative, conflict averse, benign and non-bigoted but veering into protectionism if they feel their way of life is threatened. Ballot box results show this clearly. At the same time, the average joe is now much more aware of how social media can be manipulated to make it seem as though everyone thinks, for example, that Eddie Izzard's a lady, when in actual fact no one at all thinks that. Or that Meghan Markle is a deeply sensitive, insightful and unfairly victimised global philanthropist, when in fact ordinary people can see that she's a B List actress who was handed a fabulous set of cards and, not being overburdened with brains, overplayed them ridiculously, which lost her the game.

The media and social media agencies/platform owners can see that the Overton Window has shifted back to the norm, so they're following their customers - they want to make a profit after all. As a result, ordinary joes now feel free to say on social media what they once might only have whispered in the privacy of their rooms: that Izzard is a dodgy bloke on the make, the RF are just a bunch of people doing their best, and the 'British State' wasn't the slightest bit racist to Meghan Markle at all.

Personally I love to see it. The Ordinary Joe (and Josephine) are back and civic life's about to get a lot more honest and better because of it.

has William spoken out about Fayed??

its amazing that people were posting on this thread on christmas day.

Derail alert!

Samcro

its amazing that people were posting on this thread on christmas day.

I know what you mean, but not everybody has a continuously busy Christmas Day. We'd had our family Christmas on Christmas Eve so Christmas Day was DH and me.
It was really lovely but, while the meat was resting and the roast potatoes crisping and DH was engrossed in a new book, I had a quick scroll of MN and even made a post. If I'd started reading or watching television, I might have let the potatoes burn whereas MN doesn't need much concentration.
And there'll be some people who are alone on Christmas Day or don't celebrate Christmas; SM has, for better or worse, become a way of chatting and having company.

SidekickSylvia

Derail alert!

Ah. X-posted.

On topic:

has William spoken out about Fayed??

I don't know.
I think he tends to talk much less about his mother's death and the events and circumstances around it than Harry does, so I wouldn't expect him to.

GiveMeSpanakopita - Totally agree with your post. We're now also witnessing the lies and cover up involved in the Biden presidency, it's all coming to light that MSM were completely aware of his cognitive decline. We could see he was struggling, but were told to ignore the evidence as he's 'sharp as a tack'. Legacy media were completely shameless about it, too.

Pretending to be one thing (a philanthropist), whilst very obviously being another (greedy, self serving), is a strange business model and has hopefully now had it's day as people become more aware of PR tactics.

It was pretty clear from the KateGate threads that a lot of posters had never previously heard of SEO.

They had a naive belief that when MSM reported something that repeated a SM rumour or published a rumour-adjacent article/picture, it must be because they "knew something". That they were exploiting SM rumour for clicks to their site didn't occur. But I think (hope?) it would now.

My Xmas day isn't til 7 Jan and I worked on 25 lol. Sure all the local owned shops in my area were open.

It's a tad anglo-centric to assume that everyone in the world observes the same religious festival on the same day. I didn't think many people still thought like that? I also didn't realise that western Christianity forbade the use of the internet on Xmas day. Is it like observant Jews and Shabbat, then?

@SidekickSylvia couldn't agree more. The extremes of the woke progressive movement as a whole has notably been a phenomenon of people saying they are one thing whilst being another. And social media enables this behaviour in a way which real life interactions never could - in your real life, it's much easier to compare someone's words with their actions and see if they really live the values they espouse or whether they are full of the proverbial.

Social media users are starting to cotton on too tho.

Please bear in mind that this poster thinks the Prime Minister is our Head of State.

Hates the British State but doesn't know very much about it.

I'm not sure why William would say anything about Fayed.

I can't remember if I posted on Christmas Day or not but I definitely read a few threads. I found it comforting to see that Christmas wasn't social media perfect for other people as well (not a comment on the royals).

Oh no, there’s a still a lot of twitter-users who like to believe that the fact that all the media call the Princess of Wales “Kate Middleton” in their tweets and articles means they know something about the state of the Wales’ marriage that they can’t currently publish, but soon will do.

Search Engine Optimisation? No, its because they are secretly divorced and she has reverted to her maiden name you, see, but it’s a secret… 🙄

yet I have read people asking if Harry has said anything,

If they went the boring but controlled route like the Wales', (or a bit more private but with less drama like Eugenie and Beatrice and Zara etc) then all this crazy 'kids are not real' nonsense would die down
A couple of curated but regular photos once or twice a year. You get to control the image and when it's released

Once again you're trying to bring common sense into it, @wordler
Unfortunately, a "controlled", calm and well thought out approach really doesn't stand much chance when there's a victimhood narrative to be written ... especially if there's $$$$ to be got out of it

Because Harry has said a lot of things about a lot of issues and people of the last 4 years-or-so. He is a very opinionated person.

So it is fitting that we might ask why he hasn't opined on certain issues.

William does not have that reputation, so we wouldn't expect him to express an opinion on a private personage he once spent a holiday with.

But you know all this.

Whats the difference between MSM and Legacy Media?

What MSM and/or Legacy Media actively covered up Bidens decline and what was their commercial rationale for this activity?

A couple of curated but regular photos once or twice a year.

With a cheque for their trouble.

The idea that Harry needs to say anything is weird. I can see why you asked the question now though.