Misogynist Jeremy Clarkson gets his comeuppance… but what can be done about the thousands of other Meghan/confident-woman haters?

At least I've learned a new word 'Meghannilation'...

Sounds like a thrash metal band. 😆

As you can now see - a spirited defence of them being called grifters. I have asked on other threads what about them makes them swindlers, con artists, scammers or frauds but no real answers. It is apparent that some believe that we should ignore the blatantly unprofessional behaviour of a senior person in a company so long as he is acting that way towards someone that they dislike.

But I also recognised it was clearly a reference to a Game of Thrones scene. I really don’t like the latest trend of people taking jokes deadly seriously no matter how poor taste they are. I don’t think we even need taste to be policed.

I have read the books and have not seen the show past a season 3. Many people will have recognised that this scene involving Cersei was specifically meant to be sexually humiliating by degrading her and stripping her of whatever pride or power she had. This is what Clarkson was evoking in his “joke” and absolutely needs to be policed. It was not ok. It is never ok - regardless of who.

Unfortunately despite Bouzy identifying several accounts responsible for a large proportion of online Meghan harassment - and successfully shutting down and effectively demonetising accounts significant dedicated to Meghan hating, a campaign to delegitimise his work and application is now underway with some success. (It is interesting that he has looked at women who revive a disproportionate amount of online ire - Amber Heard, Kamala Harris and Meghan)

Jeremy Clarkson isn’t getting any sort of comeuppance. His column was in the Sunday Times today and will continue. His TV programmes are continuing. He will continue to lead his lovely life on his lovely farm with his lovely girlfriend and continue to write and say goady things, though he may be a tiny tiny bit more circumspect in future.

The Sun will publish an apology and that’ll be the end of it, except on here where it will get mentioned at least once on every thread about the Sussexes.

Really?

Yes. Really.

Even if he invented the podcast, how would a couple of meetings with H&M make him (and presumably, you) an expert on "their situation and their attitude to work"?

He has run 2 podcast networks and employed a considerable number of people over the last 12 years. He has coached talent and helped them develop their broadcasts. He has a lot of experience. It doesn't take long to make an assessment on people's attitude to work.

Is he a mental health expert deeply experienced in assessing "attitudes to work", including those of ultra-high-profile mothers of two young kids, who left the Royal Family and are now at the receiving end of dozens of books and hundreds of hateful articles per week written by total strangers and by their own family members, who have to fear constantly for her life because - to quote security services in the UK - "credible [death] threats" were made against them, who have stalkers trying to break into their houses as happened to Meghan recently?

If they couldn't do the work because of their mental health, they shouldn't have signed the contract. If they signed the contract, do the work. They're not at school where they struggling to do their homework. They signed up to a multi million dollar deal in the cut throat world of American business.

Is he a time management expert, who knows how much time and mental energy it takes a person every day to make decisions on whether to issue statements or threaten legal action in response to defamatory content popping up every day, or indeed how long it takes to prepare for court hearings? Or be constantly discussing security arrangements for every school run or trip to the doctor or supermarket.

I doubt he's a time management expert. Why should he be? He expects two adults who want to get their hands on $20m to work for it. Because that's what we all have to do. We work for our money. If all this takes so much of their time and mental energy, they shouldn't be agreeing to do work that they can't deliver. Because it isn't and shouldn't be Spotify's concern how they handle the school run and grocery shopping. I repeat, $20,000,000.

Hiwever, we already know that Meghan has no problem taking her child on the school run. Another private thing she shared with the world. And of course, she showed a bit of charity as well, by giving a homeless person a bag of her home grown produce. Although, clearly she didn't give it. She showed Archie how to send the chauffeur across the street to give it.

Clearly, your "facts" about Bill Simmons are irrelevant to the matter at hand, as he is in no position whatsoever to judge whether H&M are "grifters" - no-one who isn't living their life is, and that includes you.

He works at Spotify. He works in the podcast division at Spotify. He hears everything that's discussed about them. He hears about their work ethic. He's spoken to Harry himself to try and help him. So, yeah, that's his opinion. Some have said he's unprofessional to have said it. And that may well be true. But that's what he believes they are, and there's been no disagreement from Spotify. Not even a polite bit of fluff to preserve the Sussexes' modesty. So I guess we now know Spotify's opinion too.

I suspect I am not alone in finding that Bill Simmons' spiteful and disproportionate online abuse of a former business partner was in extremely poor taste (not to mention foul-mouthed, which says a lot about the man), and lacking in humanity.

You keep talking like these serious multi million dollar businesses should be handing out millions and tissues and reassurances that they don't need to work to earn their money. That might be what Harry are used to. A few sobs and moans about how awful life is. But these businesses don't care. It's about the bottom line. Do people really think these huge sums of money just get handed out to people as a form of charity? You have to work for it and if you don't work for it, you're sacked. And these two were sacked.

Brings me back to my original post: a) folks focusing on the negative while ignoring the fact that Meghan's podcast won a People's Choice award (beating Conan O'Brien) and a Gracie award for top Entertainment Podcast Host

Loose Women receive the UK equivalent of The People's Choice award. I don't doubt Meghan has fans.

The Gracie Awards are awards presented by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation in the United States, to celebrate and honor programming created for women, by women, and about women.
First of all, it's not for all podcasts. Just women centred ones.
Secondly, they're not judging all podcasts. You actually have to nominate yourself and pay an entry fee.
They split the hosts down into several categories. And within each category, there's more than one host winner. Alex Cooper won best entertainment podcast.
We don't even know how many or who was entered in each category. You'd think Michelle Obana might have won something!

I'm not belittling her achievement. I'm not. It's great on her first outing that she won an award. But we're talking her entering 15mins of her entire series for consideration and she shared the top host title.

(but hey, they're not Bill Simmons so what do they know about podcasts?)

That's laughable that you would compare the experience of the Sussexes with Simmons'.

b) a random Spotify exec no-one outside the business had ever heard of attempting to detract from the fact that his company is struggling and needing to review its business model by blasting Meghan with catchy insults in the classic Meghannilation pile-on.

Seriously? Because you've never heard of a man he's got to be if no import? Well, hey, he's important enough to be still working at Spotify whilst the Sussexes got binned.
It's true Spotify is struggling. The exec that signed a very costly group of celebs, Dawn Orstroff, has been sacked over it. The sports division that Simmons worked on, is going strong and growing.
He couldn't have blasted them if they'd done the work. Actually, if they'd done enough work, they'd still be working for Spotify.

I did think that you wrote in genuine ignorance before. But now I think you write in prejudice with a weird idea that these huge entertainment industries owe the Sussexes a living. You complain about lazy attacks on the Sussexes but really are just as guilty of doing the same thing. Clarkson will carry on in the same vein. Because he can't acknowledgement he might have made a bad judgement about someone. Turns out, you and Clarkson have a lot in common.

I feel sorry for Harry.

@Gracewithoutend - perfectly summed up
Anyone with any sense can see shirkers ... he did, and called them out - let's face it, they never have an original idea it's all about cozying up to other works going on and taking the cream for them

Great post OP

@Morestrangerthings - you didn't need to quote the OP's very long post to say what you did.

And you didn’t have to read the quote. 🤷‍♀️

I think it deserved a repeat.

I don't know how I manage to avoid it but I have never seen anyone, celebrity or bloke in the pub, opining about MM or Harry on social media. I've read a few threads on here about them ... especially around the time of the death of the Queen and the publication of Spare. But generally I don't give them much thought at all ... my head is too stuffed full of my own day to day stuff. I strongly suspect the vast majority of people in the world are the same.

Yours is one of the oddest opening posts I've ever read on Mumsnet btw OP.

Everyone who is reading the thread will have read the op. Who are you repeating it for? Quoting the OP just clutters up any thread and makes it ridiculously long.

Thank you for starting this thread and for putting into words what I and others think.

You have already been told you are prejudiced ignorant and the same as Clarkson and I fear the attacks will not stop coming because seeing Meghan as human, with flaws like us all, and to post in that vein, as opposed to someone who is the worst human imaginable, is not easy to express on here

Where will it all end, it's reached fever pitch to vilify both of them, and for me it makes me more supportive of them because if I were Meghan my MH would be in the gutter. I think people forget she is a human being, a Mum of two small children and is no doubt living her life in the best way but this multi million dollar bandwagon of hate rolls on endlessly. I fear for both of them to be honest.

If more than one person on here can find JCs article funny, fine, just his opinion...well, we have a problem. No, the whole article was not just GoT, there was far more in it than that. It was sexist, mysogynistic, bigoted disgusting words designed to shock, and to hurt and humiliate a woman in the worst way possible. And these sort of people are amongst us. There's plenty of JCs out there. Frightening. He is quite obviously not sorry, and only forced a mealy mouthed apology out when his daughter very publicly and very loudly strongly criticised him.

Stay strong @TallerSally there are lots of posters who agree wholeheartedly with you, it's just not easy to stand up and be counted.

I will follow this thread closely in the hope it doesn't get pulled, you deserve your valuable opinion and I am in total agreement with your OP

Jeremy Clarke was a Spectator columnist who died recently after a long cancer battle so "Misogynist Jeremy Clarke gets his comeuppance" was quite an eyebrow-raising title for me - I know some sections of Mumsnet are no fans of conservative politics but that seemed a step too far!

I think MNHQ should probably fix the title of this thread.

It’s so predictable now - we have no one cares anyway, JC doesn’t care anyway and The Sun and him are laughing all the way to the bank anyway, they’re shirkers and don’t deserve their money - and so it’s justifiable that JC wrote an article that said Harry was a puppet beguiled and mesmerised by Meghan skills in the bedroom, that he would gain satisfaction from sexually humiliating her, that took a passing snipe at Nicola Sturgeon and compared her perceived misdeeds as being worse Rose West. Many people will say that we misunderstand JC’s boorish comedic style and the hyperbolic humour in which he used the GOT reference as part of a dream which kept him up at night grinding his teeth. His article though is/was actually a clear example of how the relentless multimillion pound industry of Meghan vilification will ramp people up and enable them to write and print such bile.

“We will see Diana-style photographs of her, all on her own, outside the Taj Mahal. And then she will be pictured gazing into the middle distance, on the back of a playboy’s superyacht and will marry a tech billionaire and they’ll have a child called something vomitty like Peace. Or Truth.”

A paragraph which would not be out of place on these boards.

OMG @skullbabe I had to read the latter part of your post more than once, because as far as I'm concerned, that has been posted on here. I honestly thought so.
We have seen enough speculation on here of who Meghan is going to marry next (names put forward) what will happen to the children, how often will Harry see them, will Charles be able to claim them and in a few years Harry will be found in a hotel room, yes honestly someone did say that. Horrible stuff.

Yes, I did read Clarkson's piece, but had forgotten that bit and thought you were quoting from here because it is exactly what I see on these boards, no different. How much lower can we sink....

Even politicians have commented on it... Bryant said newspapers had "filled their online sites" with "hateful Meghan Markle material".
"It is becoming their richest clickbait scene… it drives viewing and earns advertising income," he said.
Mr Bryant said the monetary incentive was "why so many British opinion writers penned so much drivel about the couple".
"Not because the story matters. It doesn't. Not because the writers genuinely cares about it. They don't. But because it makes money," he said.
"That is not journalism. It's a perversion of journalism and it means, yet again, the press see people lives as commodities to be traded."

And Harry is part of the court case kicking back against this despite endless and vitriolic media content rubbishing him for doing this.

Do people really think these huge sums of money just get handed out to people as a form of charity? You have to work for it and if you don't work for it, you're sacked. And these two were sacked.

Nobody thinks this, some people have a different opinion to you on Simmons and Spotify, that's all. You're incredibly defensive about Bill Simmons @Gracewithoutend and not for the first time. He's a man with a big fat mouth who has said misogynistic things before and spouted off about how great he was to poc only to have it pointed out to him he actually didn't have a diverse staff at all, and his guests, on his sports podcast no less, were 85% white. Quite a lot of people think he's a dick and that he was extremely unprofessional, and has been many times before. If he knew so much about podcasts in general, Spotify would be doing better. They're failing miserably and still can;t make a profit, are massively in debt and have had to drop a lot of podcasts. That's why he took a shot at Harry and Meghan, he knew it would make headlines and deflect form his own failings. Nobody knows if they were fired, they're not staff so I will say with certainty they were not. They simply didn't continue the contract. Harry was rumoured to be one of many podcasters unhappy with Joe Rogan's controversial comments, and unwilling to share the same platform. Meghan also said on her last podcast she was looking at ways to share this with a larger audience. So what I think is probably closer to the truth is, neither party was keen to continue.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of a multi millionaire sports jock, theres no need to call other posters ignorant ad prejudice. I am really shocked to see such nasty posts continue.

"It is becoming their richest clickbait scene… it drives viewing and earns advertising income," he said.
Mr Bryant said the monetary incentive was "why so many British opinion writers penned so much drivel about the couple".
"Not because the story matters. It doesn't. Not because the writers genuinely cares about it. They don't. But because it makes money," he said.
"That is not journalism. It's a perversion of journalism and it means, yet again, the press see people lives as commodities to be traded."

This is so accurate.

The more I (try to) follow the RF threads, the more I become convinced that no real adjustment of press behaviour can ever happen while having the RF at the centre of the debate. People have become too polarised.

Take the OP - you started a very valid and interesting discussion about how we delegitimise misogynist assholes like Clarkson (isn’t he a known violent thug who got sacked from a previous job for being…a violent thug?) and the role of the regulator in all this. But why did you have to include your little snipe about the Princess of Wales who, last I checked, is out and about as that’s her job. You can disagree with the job but you’re adding to the sexist narrative by trying to put a woman down (and using her appearance / outfits to do so 🤦‍♀️).

Bill Simmons can be unprofessional AND an expert in podcasts at the same time. I’m not sure we know much about what he’s like to work with so his opinion of others is just that, his opinion. Not the gospel, not a ‘hate attack’.

On other threads there were lengthy arguments about which married in woman had it worse in the RF. What on earth? Everyone had a shit time. Isn’t that the grand sum of what we’re trying to address?

I see it time and time again. People who dislike Harry and Meghan picking apart their every gesture, basking in the shadenfreude of anything that doesn’t go perfectly well for them, doubting every emotion and statement. Some of the conspiracy theories that surround them are up there with flat earther societies.

People who support Meghan and Harry have continuously put down Catherine as dim / opinion less / lazy (because sexist-imposed standards on mothers of young children mean that no matter what you do you’ll be judged for it). Every charity initiative is pulled apart and dismissed because no way could she ever be involved in something good. Her marriage and her parenting constantly undermined.

Doria and Carole haven’t escaped either. How dare Doria mind her own business? How dare Carole be a savvy business woman? And how dare either of them have ever been less than perfect? Absent / pushy / etc. More sexist tropes thrown left right and centre.

Media behaviour won’t change until OUR consumption behaviour changes. Until we’re all willing to go beyond personal likes and dislikes of any woman in the public eye and focus on the actual problem we’re trying to solve. With the current approach, at best, you will only swap one victim for another OP. Is this what you want?