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 😬

The failure of the podcast is down to three things, her personality, her poor reputation and the content.

The premise of 'Female Founder' turned out to be little more than the issues faced by any working mom, the same issues a nurse, teacher, checkout assistant has, and then she blatantly used it as a platform to aggrandise, promote and explain herself.. It had little or nothing to do with being a female founder.

The content landed like a lead balloon, the guests are all unknown outside their LA circle, and they all seemed to be of similar personalities and character to Meghan and each other, a little cult of fabulously wealthy women (with possibly the exception of the hairdresser) fawning over each other.

Now we find out that some, or all, were carried out over Zoom, which was not noted at the outset of the interview., another testimony to why Meghan is seen as a fraud.

Would you not say that her audience is her fan base, those who slavishly follow and lap up any and everything she does? those who are willing to pay £20 for pancake mix? it must be quite a size? she must know that what she's doling out is crap (does she?) but who cares if people buy it!

Well, yes, but I think you might be misunderstanding the nature of Meghan's fanbase.

They're not old school fans like, eg, younger me was with, say, The Smiths - reliably buying all their albums and singles, going to gigs, buying the merch, subscribing to the fanzine (the Smiths fanzine was a laugh a minute as I'm sure you can imagine). That is to say, I had a positive attitude towards The Smiths whereby I parted with my money to consume their content and turned up as a warm body at the gigs. This is positive, 'normal' fandom.

What Meghan has is stans. Stans are very different from fans, as the poetic genius and astute social commentator (come on, he IS) Eminem realised back in 2001. Their love is based not so much on a positive attitude towards the star, but on a parasitic relationship which easily spills into resentment. It also increasingly spills into rabid online hatred of people whom they perceive as hostile to their object of adoration.

In current year 2025, Meghan's standom (IMHO, from what I see online) is a Very Online (and therefore probably much, much smaller in actual real human terms than it appears) group of people who express their support of Meghan principally by harassing, downvoting, spreading malicious gossip about, and threatening those people whom they perceive as Meghan's enemies. This long list includes but is not limited to William, Kate, Charles, Camilla, British journalists, British YouTubers, and Royal fans.

Their time is spent therefore not on purchasing Meghan's merch and streaming her content, but on harassing the above mentioned people on the internet, and posting content about how great Meghan is by comparison. This keeps them very busy, but notably does not translate into great audience figures for Meghan, and does not, I suspect, put much coin in her pocket. It keeps her prominent online, but it's not a viable real world revenue stream. Nothing like it.

There's not yet been many proper rigorous academic studies of fandom vs standom but the bits and bobs I've seen on parasocial relationships backs up what I've said above. Stans are rabid, but there's not as many of them as there appears, and they tend not to spend actual money supporting their idol, because for a number of social/psychological reasons, they don't have much money to part with.

This sounds bang on. Very good description.

And I wish I had bought The Smiths fanzine. Do you have any old copies left?

I think a lot of people who stan Meghan are only about fifty percent of her 'engagers/followers'. The rest are people who stan the Royals or just think she's a bell end, so doing it purely to take the piss. Kind of hate-watching.

So between those two groups none would actually be putting money into her pocket as they don't really have any or just dislike her too much to want to fund her life.

My personal favourite Parkie interview is with Billy Connolly. He did several actually. Two legends.

post @GiveMeSpanakopita thank you.

Also totally agree re Eminem (genius) and the content of the Smiths fanzine, my younger brother was a fan. Not the cheeriest of reads!

Standom seems to me much more about hate than love, attacking perceived "opponents" rather than appreciating the admired one. It is a mob mentality and mobs as we know can turn 180 in a heartbeat.

Hard agree, I mean I know that Andrew Motion and a bunch of other prominent poets have analysed and praised his lyrics from a literary perspective (complex rhyming schemes, compound metaphors, extended punning similes etc) but I also think he deserves recognition as an unusually sharp social commentator. He anticipated and described toxic standom, the right wing manosphere and the deleterious effects of social media on mental health a good 10 - 15 years before academics did.

He's certainly more on the pulse than what pass for public intellectuals in Britain, who are reliably two years too late to any emerging social trend and insufferably smug to boot. Let's put it this way, if I had to choose between an hour long lecture on social issues by Eminem or Owen Sodding Jones, I'd pick the High School Dropout from Detroit every single time.

The word founder is so grandiose. It implies that something solid and long lasting has been established with strong foundations . All Meghan has done is shouted at some lawyers and designers and bought and resold some cheap food mixes.

But she did that fancy cursive writing. And ran though a meadow with Lili. And had a sleepless night over packing peanuts. I don't think you understand how much that takes from a person.

In ye olden days H would sail to the continent to gather an army (although having comprehensively lost the Battle of the Dog Bowl, I don't think foot soldiers would be inspired). Today, H&M aggressively deploy a vast bot army to dramatically amplify messaging from themselves, and also from their few real Sussex Squad fans.

IMHO, the disconnect between H&M's vociferous online support and the low ratings of their projects can be explained by their extensive use of bots. Accounts with no followers or any activity can obsessively praise H&M while tearing down KC3, QC, W & C...but to date, bots can neither buy spread nor drive ratings by watching Netflix / listening to podcasts.

Yes, The Bots Really Are Taking Over The Internet

Her podcast has failed because she has no talent + huge self-belief. She is the embodiment of style over substance which, in context, is a reasonable MO for those in her world who lack talent (hence the outsize emphasis on presentation uber alles of herself and her output). You only need one rich chump to fall for it and you've made it.

If she remains content with what she currently has, and content that her peak is behind her - well, all's fair in love and war. She played the game and won. If not, she will only hasten her downfall and it's possible she'll end up exactly where she began, or worse.

As I tell my DC repeatedly, there's no substitute for clever and hard work. MM doesn't seem to know what that is, let alone be capable of it. She's too busy with the packaging.

She is hands down the most inauthentic person I have come across. Others may be worse but don’t keep shoving it in our faces. She is interested in and engaged with only the very surface of anything. She isn’t really engaged with other human beings at all - only with the self-aggrandising narrative that’s going on in her head. She is basically like a child pretending, except that she really needs/feeds off the feeling of ‘being’ a ‘female founder’ - or whatever idea of herself she is selling at the time.

I’m not sure whether she thinks other people buy into it or not. I suspect it’s pretty painful for her when they don’t and that matters to her more than the objective success and failure of her projects.

It’s all pretend and fake.

She is the embodiment of style over substance

Right. And on that, interestingly, a professional acquaintance of mine was sent a complimentary promotional sample of the jam and commented to me that whilst the spread itself was a bit thin, the packaging was gorgeous (if a bit bashed about in transit).

I thought it was the perfect metaphor for Meghan herself - as South Park (another perspicacious social commentator) called it: looks great on the outside, absolutely nothing of interest or worth on the inside.

Are we looking at extreme editing here - all the questions recorded post-interview, with heavy supervision from Limonada.

If you had such a strong market that could sell tens of thousands plus units in minutes it just begs the question of why not produce more, especially the generic products. It's not really rocket science. There was initially a pitch of the non boxed jam being sold. I honestly believe the first principle of the business is the optics of being successful. The podcast was probably prepared before the marketing of products.

If Charles does give him an allowance (and I'm not sure) it makes Harry's accusations even worse.

Even though she doesn't really work and has housekeepers and nannies, she has to take a break from the children! They exhaust her so.

@GiveMeSpanakopita you never cease to amaze me with your insight into these things. Thank you.

@GiveMeSpanakopita I don't know if this question falls under your purview, but do you think it's weird that none of the As Ever line of products/packaging has ended up on Ebay?

She says it herself, very openly.

In her promotional Instagram reels, the video is of her going over packaging options and "proof reading" the side of the box of crepe mix, rather than sitting with taste testers and showing batches of failed shortbread cookies (or whatever), or in a working kitchen or orchard.

The soft focus videos are of her beautifully wafting through gardens, rather than showing raspberries shining on the plant in her Montecito sunshine.

On the Jamie Kern Lima podcast, she describes her hectic mompreneur life as being about picking packaging and doing social media and deciding what to wear (all about presentation and packaging) as well as <dramatic pause> being a mom and a friend and a wife, rather than the nuts and bolts of product development sitting with accountants and lawyers and tech people and salespeople.

She literally decanted Trader Joe's snacks into a plastic bag and tied a bow on it, and presented that as something noteworthy.

We know her products are cookie cutter products, chosen for their ability to be shelf stable and therefore be beautifully presented, all supported by the soft focus beautifully shot (but tragically hollow) WLM show.

It's all about how things look and seem, rather than what they are. She's not clever enough to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. Or rather, she can't extract herself from her obsession with how she/her output/her products/her children/her life come across long enough to focus on actual content. That can only last so long. Imo, not long enough with people who write the checks.

it's possible she'll end up exactly where she began, or worse.

That's pretty much already the case, isn't it, professionally? She hasn't developed at all. She's tried all these bits and pieces, but hasn't put any time or effort into acquiring and building the skills to make a success of them.

Everything that's come to them since they flounced is because of who Harry's family are, not because of any talent either of them has - Oprah, Netflix, Spare etc - and now it's clear they're cut off from the RF and there'll be no more juicy revelations, no-one will want to know them, because as themselves they've got nothing to offer.

@HonoriaBulstrode

Amen!

Oh dear

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14719121/Ryan-Reynolds-Conan-OBrien-poke-fun-Meghan-Markle.html

Or have any of her stans or friends unboxed online?

Yes - whats happened to WME?