Confessions of a Female Flounder part 2

[foreverblowingbubbless]

I've embarrassed for Meghan saying that her arranging takeaway food on a plate is the same thing as what Figs Heather Hasson has done 😬

I believe that Meghan lives under a huge amount of pressure and a great deal of it comes from WITHIN herself. She believes she is special as was drummed into her when young. I think this is why we see so many differing presentations of her physically - the no make up look, the giggly girl look, the business woman look , the glam red carpet look. She cannot make up her mind which one is the most successful to her aims. I think she does seem to show weight loss very quickly under stress as many people do. She does seem to have aged quickly and this stress is reflected in her face. I fear it's too late for her but her mindfulness should tell her it's not others she needs to tell to fuck off , it's her inner demons.

But what deals are there in existance to be struck by this new team of 11 that havent already been scoured by the revolving door of multiple agents, lawyers, PRs, WME etc over the last 5 years that have all achieved ZERO since the first round of NF, Spotify and PRH deals?

Hollywood is not a big place - surely every single networking opportunity, collaboration etc has been explored.

Agree its also not something that any credible business operation would publicise - they would just be working the deals and announce once signed sealed and delivered. Also every brand knows who and where H&M are - so they would approach them if interested in working with them - someone with their exposure shouldnt need to go cold calling.

I suspect the weight loss is deliberate not due to stress. She wants to be thinner than Kate I suspect but it doesn’t suit her at all. Why she’s started wearing all the awful beige shapeless clothes is a mystery.

I was wondering that too! Also thinking that I bet the staff have plenty to say to each other behind closed doors.

I doubt many people can be thinner than Kate. She is very very svelte and tall. I saw that pic of her in green and Meghan in black and white at Wimbledon and Meghan looked twice her size and she's also very fit and slim by any standard!

A large part of what Meghan does is a mystery 😁

Meghan had recently had Archie though, but I agree, Kate is extremely slim.

And we don't know the hiring process and who applied what if not one person of colour applied? Hwo can you then accuse them of not hiring a diverse team if the applications were only from white people?

How do you know if a poc did apply but didn't have the right experience or skills? Or if they did they did poorly in the interview. Or do you think they should of been hired over and above someone who did have experience and skills or did perform well in the interview because there is a need to ensure there is a diverse team cos you know people will complain there arent any poc hired.

Having been a hiring manager myself it's the candidates who do well in the interview and demonstrate their expectations and skills and what they will bring to the job that get the job. Not becuas oh this poc scored low but we need to ensure we have a diverse team.

And whilst companies should be promoting diversity you have to look at the underlying reasons why they aren't getting positions etc and fix those then just fulfil a quota.

I doubt anyone here would say you know what I got the job cos they needed a poc to fulfil a quote and I feel good about it....cos it just another thing white people have a privilege about..they know if they get the job cos of their skills and experience it will never ever be cos they got it to fulfil a quota

Lets just say that H&M are quick and ready to criticise others but don't look at their own practices and procedures.

Really? You think not one person of colour, in a country of 340m people, applied to work for 2 celebrated (in liberal circles, anyway) anti-racism advocates. For one of the most famous WOC on the planet who has made her colour the reason she says she had to leave the most famous family on the planet. Not one BLM supporting, DEI demanding, highly educated member of the liberal, middle class, sophisticated, intellectual elite who happens to also be a person of colour. Pull the other one.

Can you read? I said I don't agree with DEI. So no, I don't think that a sub standard candidate should get a job based on their skin colour. But DEI is basically one of the key tenets of liberal left in America, who hold up Meghan and Harry as central players (just ask the Robert F Kennedy Centre, or Gavin Newsom, or Oprah). Meghan and Harry have positioned themselves as anti racism advocates fighting institutional racism. So why don't they put their money where their mouths are? If nobody is applying, surely they would be out searching and head-hunting, to ensure they have a diverse work place, so they don't look like massive hypocrites.

Gosh you really do go to extreme lengths to defend Meghan and Harry! So all those affirmative actions in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s were wrong 😳

💯

Definitely - what a lost opportunity to practise what they preach. But then that's virtue-signallers for you - words are cheap, aren't they?

Thinking of the actress who made the daft comment that the Buck House balcony was 'still very white' at H & M's wedding....I like her and I'm sure she cringed afterwards because it was a totally illogical remark - it's only the royal family who appear on the balcony - not their staff - and they could hardly be expected to change ethnicity. But that was back when we all felt optimistic about Meghan's entry into the RF and there seemed potential for modernising and a more inclusive look in line with 21st century Britain. What a shame that opportunity was thrown away.

But I just cannot believe that H & M, with their mission to oppose racism, could have managed to appoint an all-white team in the US - it's not a good look.

In other news

This morning on Instagram Meghan plus child, not sure which I'm not good at judging ages from heights, walk towards a beehive.

"words are cheap"
Too true, @CoffeeCantata . That person being critical of the family on the balcony as being "too white"? Yet H&M, for all their posturing, lecturing and criticism of others are even worse. They are so quick to demonise others, yet do not reflect on their own actions.
Do as we say, not as we do.

It's a great headline grabber, though, isn't it? An opportunity to show Princess Lilibet in a cute mini beekeeper outfit.

I'm sure it will get in The Mail but to have actual substance sheet needed to be shown actually doing something with the hive. I want her to succeed but she needs to choose authenticity over artifice and time is running out.

She's not going to choose authenticity over artifice, she's going to choose image over substance.

That's not the same beehive from her show is it? Never watched, only saw the clips. But the bit I saw there were about 3 hives, and they were plain wood.

So, is this hive not hers? Or were the ones on her show not hers?

Again, it all just feels a bit fake, and not consistent.

I can't remember what the show one looked like!

But your last sentence sums up her output for As Ever.

I think the ones on the show were not in her garden, didn't she comment she would never go there alone, so only with the beekeeper, and that she hadn't been there for months. Maybe she installed a bee hive hut in her garden no bees to care for though

Agencies aren't miracle workers. WME is a top agency and Sunshine Sachs are a global leader in PR. But agencies can't achieve anything without a good client, that is:

1. A client who heeds and acts on the agency's advice
2. A client who behaves professionally
3. A client who is in demand, or, if not in demand by the media companies the client wants to work with, a client who at least has enough humility and a sufficient enough work ethic to take the work that is offered, even if they think it's 'below them', and work up from there.

All of the above is doubly relevant if the client's going through a reputational crisis (as H&M have been, on and off, for the last 2 years at least, ever since the Spotify exec said 'bigger this for a game of soldiers' and started throwing some truth bombs into the mix).

I get it: it's really, really hard, as a celebrity, to see media brickbats being thrown your way, especially if you think they're false, unfair and undeserved. The temptation to lash out or try to set the record straight is strong. But there's (usually) no point - if you're gonna play the media game, you need to roll with the punches as well as benefit from the good times. Sometimes you're the hero of the hour, sometimes you're the villain. The more proactively and aggressively you put yourself out there, the more the media will be alive to points of hypocrisy or bad behaviour which they can then store up to hit you with when you're down.

That's why building strong relationships of trust and honesty with individual journalists is so vital. If you've put time and effort into building a relationship with the editor of the Mirror, then he'll be more likely to cut you some slack when you're found to have taken several private jets the week after preaching about climate change. But if you've treated him high-handedly, suggested he's racist scum and made angry phone calls to his publisher demanding his head, then he's going to look for opportunities to do a hatchet job on you. Because he edits an independent newspaper, not Pravda.

Media relations is a long game which has to be played strategically. Good chess players can think about 4 to 5 moves ahead. World class grandmasters can think 15, 17, 18 moves ahead. Meghan and Harry can think about 2 moves ahead but can't see (or refuse to see) that if they move there, their queen'll be taken in 4 moves' time. This is a problem.

ETA - to be clear, in my chess analogy, Meghan can think 2 moves ahead. Harry can't manage anything more taxing than Connect Four and even then he's got a tendency to sweep the frame off the table and stamp on it when his opponent gets a four line.

Very true!

Thanks for the detail, with the press I'm always reminded of that saying about never picking a quarrel with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Thinking about WME and Sunshine Sachs, I wonder if UK based companies would have been so keen to work with Harry and Meghan. There must have been people in the know about what he was really like before he left the protection of the Royal family.