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'm finding this thread really interesting - thank you :).

How did the word stan come into being and what does it actually mean? And if Meghan's stans are more about hating her detractors, how did they (the stans) land upon her in the first place? What do they see in her that makes it worth their while targeting others?

I think that Stan referred to the obsessive fan in the Eminem song. In terms of Meghan I think they just really bought into the breath of fresh air narrative, but did not really understand that a lot of people love stuffy arcane traditions. The weird ancient kind of makes me feel anchored, like my old dad.

What do they see in her that makes it worth their while targeting others?

I think this is an interesting question @Wundy . I don't know the total answer, but I think she (and Harry) are somehow perceived as victims of abuse and unfairness taking on "the system". I don't believe that they are at all, they seem most aggrieved to be permanently consigned to a secondary role in the RF rather than what they consider their rightful position (which will never work with a hereditary line of succession), but have presented victimhood for quite a while now.

It is though IMO mainly about attack and I agree with other posts saying that the numbers doing it are smaller than they may appear.

Exactly @HonoriaBulstrode

For someone with the name recognition she now has, the contacts she now has, the backers she has, the finances and personal team she has, it should have been a shoo-in for a successful business, for something to hit the mark at least, yet nothing has succeeded. She had the ultimate jumpstart anyone could possibly have had and yet, despite that, she has delivered rubbish, talks rubbish, she is eerily similar to an arrogant teenager struggling to find their way, not a good place to be for a middle aged woman.

But let's not forget that bunch of young twenty somethings she met in NY shortly before WLM was aired. Those young ladies had been her fans when she was writing the Tig. They must have been young teens at the time. I think Meghan has cultivated (or tried to) a loyal following for far longer than her time in the RF.

I'm far from convinced they were actually followers of the original Tig of course, but it is all about appearances, isn't it?

ETA because missed a bit, who do young girls really follow? Other (gorgeous) young people on the whole or women with stellar reputations who have captured the zeitgeist (Madonna for my generation, Taylor Swift now)

Meghan was at the centre of the Toronto Soho House scene. Maybe the glamour of the life she was portraying was alluring and seemingly obtainable to them. I think there's some suggestion she met up with some of them from her tweets from that time.

I think they just really bought into the breath of fresh air narrative, but did not really understand that a lot of people love stuffy arcane traditions.

A lot of those stuffy arcane traditions mean something. They're not just there to look pretty.

I remember Prince Charles (as he then was) saying in an interview that we might not have a written constitution but it is in fact all there in our ceremonies and rituals.

For example when the doors of the House of Commons are slammed in Black Rod's face when s/he comes to summon MPs to hear the King's Speech.

Or the ceremonial greetings between the Sovereign and the Lord Mayor when the Sovereign enters the City of London.

Both of those are visual demonstrations of the limits to the sovereign's power.

More recently, on the last day of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, there was talk about whether the Queen would be there for the balcony appearance - and then the Royal Standard was raised over Buckingham Palace, telling everyone that she was there.

And on the day she died, apparently, the flag over BP was lowered to half mast before the official announcement was flashed to all the media waiting outside the Palace. (And quite right too, imo.)

I just Googled Dido (of Eminem + Stan), wondering what she's up to: she's 51yo, still making music, and has a son named.... Stanley 😂

That dates from Suits times.

I see South Park are planning on an update.

Oh yes please, plenty of material since the last one

They had better have MM cooking with Cartman.

"Elevating", please

or with the Beckham chef 😂

Fair enough. I want her to elevate Cartman's favourite chicken pot pie.

Perhaps some dried flowers and cellophane? 😂

Maybe she'll cover it in raspberry spread and charcuterie.

I think for some women, some black women, and women of colour, especially Americans, she was seen as someone inspirational. A woman of colour who married a Prince. It was like a Disney movie come true. For some of them they just can't admit she's made mistakes or been the problem.

Some people will believe the racism allegations wholeheartedly even though Harry has backtracked on them. I sometimes have twinges of sympathy for the pair but then remember the hell they have put his family through and my sympathy evaporates.

Perhaps, I don't know. It's not the case for Black women in my family, who don't respond to her positively. Including my DD, who just regards Meghan as a trad wife. Promoting clothes and making food look pretty, and clinging on to her husband in public. No substance, and little to respect or admire.
Disclaimer: I know opinions vary and no ethnic group is homogeneous.

I think that's a very good point. For many of these young women, it must have seemed glamorous and inspirational.

I think I assumed that As Ever was some sort of data mining operation or something-the packaging was so expensive it wasn’t ever going to make much profit as a straight merchandising business….

I would expect them to end up on eBay, because it's another PR trick used in the influencer age to make your product seem culturally important, rare and sought after. K-Pop bands do it a lot with their super-expensive luxury limited-edition vinyls and CDs. If you can't shift the whole lot (because who but the most devoted and cash-rich K Pop stan is willing to drop $150 on an undoubtedly gorgeous vinyl that nevertheless has less than 30 minutes of music in total?) then pop a few on eBay and it immediately looks like a collector's item. Tap into the ancient human phenomenon of FOMO. You'll definitely shift it then. There you go Meghan - free tip for you!

@HiRen It's all about how things look and seem, rather than what they are.
Bang on. I don't think Meghan does it deliberately - because I don't think she's that bright - but she really is the living embodiment of the deeply nihilistic and cynical philosophical construct of postmodernism, where everything is about the 'seems', everything is relative, and empirical truth does not exist.

But on the more practical level I think it's impossible to understate just how high the operating costs of As Ever must be. She's selling short runs (they ARE short runs, I would bet real money on that) of expensively packaged jam to OVERSEAS audiences (the acquaintance I mentioned above is Berlin-based).

It's a trusim of FMCG that the packaging and the distribution networks are always more expensive than the item itself, and in Meghan's case, we're talking about stuff coming from Cali to Europe. (So I guess she's not too worried about climate change any more.) Presuming she has access to a 3PL distrib warehouse say on the East Coast too, then there must also be a couple in Europe surely? The rents on that type of commercial real estate are HIGH AF because the supply-demand balance for warehouse space since Covid is so huge. I'm guessing Netflix pays for that.

There's two ways of dealing with this if you're running a business. Either you go like Boohoo and Shein and play a volume game - flog and send so much stuff that you get the warehouse space for cheap and can subsume delivery costs (but even Boohoo got into trouble during Covid from their returns policy). That then becomes a revenue game - you have to drive revenue because your profit margins are wafer thin, thinner than Harry's hairline. Meghan's definitely not doing that; I guarantee her first product run was a short one.

Or you can go like the luxury brands and jack up the sales price and shipping price. But your price points have to be REALLY high to compensate for the short run and the distrib. Meghan's not doing that either - $15 for a jar of jam is extortionate sure, but it'd have to be closer to $70 a jar to cover all the distrib costs and make a decent profit.

So I think you're right @HiRen and moreover I would go further and suggest that she's made a substantial loss on this first run, which Netflix is covering through their profit share deal (of which I don't know the details) in hopes that they will, at some point, make an actual, ya know, profit.

Thanks for all that insight @GiveMeSpanakopita , especially with regard to my question about Ebay; fascinating - As Ever!