Sentebale #4

[glitterturd]

Harry

The shareholders cannot out vote him and he can just sack the board them if he wants. So I have no idea what the board's powers are apart from to rubber stamp what Harry wants.

You can see how he might have got "confused" over his role and reach at Sentebale ...

So she’s keeping her prices reasonable. Probably a good move. I’m not going on or buying but she's more likely to do well with affordable prices for the masses rather than silly prices for the elite.

And her husband as ‘this one’ or H if he’s lucky. Whether you like her or not (not) there is definitely something amiss about a person never referring to people properly.

I've been working and appreciate that the conversation here's moved on a lot...but can I take a moment with my fellow PR women on this thread to share a schadenfreude-laden cringe at the sheer DISASTER of that Alex Rayner interview with Alison Boshoff?

Rayner is described as a PR man; I've never heard of his agency but I can only assume it's one of those agencies set up to provide cosy fake jobs to posh boys not overburdened with brain, because...wow. My man got onto the phone to Alison (after a few sherbets, I'm betting), went 'hold my beer' and proceeded to break every single basic PR rule in the book.

Agreeing with a premise that should be strongly challenged (that Harry is a 'pariah')? CHECK!

Allowing the journo to lead him into murky personal insult waters? CHECK!

Reveal the identity of the guy paying you for this shite ('H is happy for me to talk to you..')? CHECK!

Lurch almost immediately into outright racism and misogyny? CHECK!

Ascribe feelings to people he does not know and speculate rampantly? I'VE GOT YA, FELLA!

Terrible, terrible, terrible; I did actually wonder if we've all wandered into a 'Thick of It' style satire and there's a studio audience out there in some glitch in the matrix watching the bloated pink faced buffoon effortlessly MAKING EVERYTHING WORSE and roaring with laughter.

Honestly that is one of the most disastrous 'defence' interviews I've ever read. Amazing. Bravo Alex!

If the NYT article was Meghan's famed honey lemon cake, it would be eulogy icing on the surface, snide semi-hatchet job when you dig into it and really examine the crumb.

The board of a company have legal responsibilities eg financial auditing/reporting, and to employees and customers. But basically they are there to do what Harry, as the majority shareholder, wants. So, yes, rather different from being a patron of Sentebale!

Reasonable? I don't see the masses paying $9 dollars for a jar of factory-made fruit spread.

Their whole approach from the get go has been ‘mass market’ and celebrity. The ‘elite’ market would have required a high level of discretion from the start, and careful avoidance of any controversy. There is nothing about their brand that says ‘elite’.

The masses don’t want this shite.

I love your posts @GiveMeSpanakopita but especially this one!

We are in a simulation, surely?!

Quite a lot do though. Some genuinely (and puzzlingly) do admire them, but there is also a big soap opera following who don’t particularly have any feelings for them as individuals but follow their story and might buy a product to be part of that story. I am not sure how sustainable appealing to the latter group will be though. Unless the products are good.

There's a sensible leader in today's Times urging the Charity Commission to get a move on with its investigation into Sentebale, concerned that people will lose faith in the charity sector. Prompted by its comment about profligate spending on consultants, I've had a look at Lebec, the US-based consultancy that worked on the new, post-colonial strategy.

A couple of things have caught my eye. First, it's a team of well-groomed youngish women of different racial heritage - not perhaps a group the longer-in-the tooth, all-white, mainly male former trustees may have felt comfortable with. Secondly, this write-up of a panel event they ran in Johannesburg for Sentebale clearly spells out the new strategic direction (environmental resilience and health care for young people). Prince Harry, along with SC, was on the panel. This suggests he was familiar with the new strategy to the extent that he was prepared to publicly endorse it. His shrieking and shouting now seem all the more like a tantrum in the light of this. sentebale.org/sentebale-convenes-innovative-funders-business-leaders-and-corporations-in-southern-africa-to-accelerate-prosperity-for-youth-in-the-region/

@ViolasandVioletsThat particular article was talking about the wood kitchen in Meghan’s house, not the white one in the cooking show.

Agree 100% @GiveMeSpanakopita.

Several of us thought that SC's initial response with thé thinly veiled accusations was unwise, but dear Lord, the interview with Rayner was absolutely unbelievable. It demonstrates all thé poisonous attitudes SC had outlined.

Sussex brand torpedoed. From thé moûth of their own spokesman. Théy havé out -Ratnered Ratner.

Iain Rawlinson was also in the photos.

https://publicity.gettyimages.com/event/sentebale-return-to-southern-africa

Quite. She could pretty much say "I rest my case" at this point! I bet she's tempted. I also do hope she's ok, it can't be easy being in her position.

Prince Harry, along with SC, was on the panel. This suggests he was familiar with the new strategy to the extent that he was prepared to publicly endorse it.

You might be happy with a strategy but not with the cost of the consultants. You might feel you could have reached that point by board discussion alone or consultation with your own workers. But having reached that point you may feel you have to support it. Though more likely for Harry, I suspect he is not a ‘details person’ and events will feel exciting and like you are ‘doing stuff’ and arguments between trustees about mundane things like cost matter less until all ‘his’ trustees resigned.

So the quantum physicists tell us.

I was very interested to see The Sun front page leading off on the bullying of SC by the 'Sussex Squad', as it was, afaik the first time that the existence of the Squad as an organised/semi-organised operation has been acknowledged by the legacy media.

I didn't use to believe in the existence of the Squad as a coordinated body, partly because I have some professional knowledge of social media standoms and understand that although they look coordinated from the outside, it's mostly superfans with personality disorders in online Discords with a self-appointed queen bee whose talking points they parrot. They have loads of accounts so there are often far fewer 'true obsessives' than it may appear from the outside.

After the bullying of Kate I spoke to someone in the industry who had more of a front seat to the Sussex Squad antics and now I do believe they are semi-coordinated - enough to be able to fan out across sites with agreed talking points which are adapted to the style of the site, and enough to buy up Meghan's products quickly.

I don't believe H&M are the 'organising' mind behind the Squad and I don't think either of them disseminate the talking points. I think they are probably aware of the key individuals but have no control over what they do.

It's difficult to try to change your superstans' online behaviour because in order to do so, you have to acknowledge that the behaviour is happening in the first place. Beyonce and a couple of K-pop stars have spoken out in the past and urged their fans to behave better - and all credit to them for doing so.

The people who join these standoms tend to be unemployed or have unstable employment and a fantasy parasocial relationship with the celebrity in question. They tend to overly identify with the celeb and see it as their role to 'protect' the celeb; they are very proud of their role in the standom and it's often a major part of their self-image.

It can get dangerous when standom activity bleeds into the real world. I've posted before about the toxic standom of Nicki Minaj - they harrassed and doxxed a woman who was the victim of a paedophilic rape by Minaj's husband, years prior (he had pled guilty and as a result is a lifelong registered sex offender, but the stans nevertheless believed the victim had lied) and they vandalised the grave of the mother of Megan Thee Stallion, a talented rapper whom Minaj strongly dislikes. Megan had lost her mother to a brain tumour, suddenly and at a young age.

I'm aware of a YouTuber who claims to have evidence that members of the Sussex Squad has stalked her IRL; and I think there's another who claimed that her property had been vandalised, though I don't know the veracity/details.

@GiveMeSpanakopita I agree with @TheSecondMrsCampbellBlack a great post. As one of the PR women on this thread, I would add:

Fail to take a step back from your proposed action before implementing it to ask the question: What will this look like and will it communicate any negative messages?

What it looks like is 'We posh boys stick together'. What negative messages does this communicate? 'We're used to things going our way because it's our birthright to decide how things should be done and I'd We don't get what we want, it's unfair.'

The photo of Alex Rayner doesn't help - very pale, a bit chubby. You can hear him braying as you read the article.

Her prices are not reasonable. I can buy a pound of authentic local honey for less money. I can buy gourmet cookie mix for 1/4 the price.

@GiveMeSpanakopita is that the lady who's husband died and the SS called the police on him?

But given they were all over the press a few months ago launching a campaign against online bullying it is a really bad look that they don't disassociate themselves from it.

I too suspect Harry is not a details person. Him showing up and probably not quite understanding what he was doing is just another example of him being useless without the infrastructure of The Firm to support him. I do think it highly unlikely, having read what Lebec do, that they would spend money without knowing there was board approval for it, or that SC would agree such a level of spend unilaterally.

I doubt Harry had the business acumen to understand anything that goes on within the charity.

Quite. I think Harry may be enthusiastic about the charity’s aims, and definitely the odd fundraising activity if it suits him - eg a polo match, but sifting through board papers? Attending yawnsome meetings about financial matters? Nah.

I think the disaster is two-pronged - the actual running of the charity and the argy-bargy between the players, and the polo match. This is where Harry sticks his oar in - first of all shoehorning Netflix in for his own commercial purposes, and then taking umbrage about Meghan and sending “imperious” messages to SC.