Asks Joanna Williams (at The Spectator), looking at Time's "100 most influential people of 2021," which has a silly photo of them on the cover.
Harry and Meghan, we are told, ‘turn compassion into boots on the ground’. They ‘give voice to the voiceless’, ‘mental-health support to Black women and girls’ and feed ‘those affected by natural disasters’. Okay so maybe not with five loaves and two fishes, but ‘hand in hand with nonprofit partners’. In short, ‘They run toward the struggle.’
Or should that be fly? They fly toward the struggle, right? And the ‘struggle’ is a charity polo match in Aspen and the flight is a £45million private jet. The ‘voiceless’ now being given a hearing can surely only refer to the Duke and Duchess themselves: certainly it’s the case that since leaving the royal family they rarely miss an opportunity to remain silent. And the ‘springing into action’ must mean firing off a quick text to Netflix or Oprah, or, more likely, their lawyers....
What’s bizarre is that Time magazine takes this stuff seriously enough to print.
But maybe Time has it right, after all. The Duke and Duchess are certainly influential and very 2021 indeed.... Like the Californian celeb-set they have bought into, they co-opt the language of political struggle to direct attention to their own moral superiority over the plebs.
It’s no coincidence that the issues Harry and Meghan choose to highlight – race, gender, mental health, the environment – can all sit comfortably alongside immense privilege....
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36 comments:
somebody is giving them $$$$$$$$ to be La Voce
Who, or what, are they ‘influencing’?
Success today is defined by your Communications Operation and your ostensible adherence to the narrative.
Take a respected institution.
Kill it.
Gut it.
Wear its carcass as a skin suit.
And demand respect.
-Iowahawk
I ask not to mock but to ask a legitimate question: What will it take to stop paying attention to the institutions that have evolved into hyper-political actors, especially those in traditional media?
...I get that this very thing is Ann's whole bag. I'm concerned for the rest of us. I'm still expected to respect the actions of the ACLU and the AMA and the Chamber of Commerce as if they were still those things.
I'll just keep my garlic wreath and silver bullet close by thank you very much.
Everything the aristocracy does looks like parody but it is really the historical norm.
For millennia the rulers have made rules that they don't follow.
It is only very recently that the concept of equal justice has even been introduced.
Joe Biden is openly racist. He is obviously and indisputably corrupt. He is an admitted rapist.
Yet some people in this country support him because they get some power out of it. That is how it has always been.
They have always paraded out the beautiful people to influence the masses and keep the proles in line.
I'm watching "Suits" and Megan Markle is very good as Rachel. She's a good actress. Not such a good person. Needy. Attention whore. As my Mother used to say: "Children should be seen and not heard." She should just go away and leave the adults in peace.
stlcdr said...
Who, or what, are they ‘influencing’?
The people who buy magazines at grocery checkout counters are very susceptible to this sort of idol worship.
If all of the beautiful people think something it is ok for them to think it.
It provides moral cover for things that would be indefensible otherwise.
Monty Python’s “Upperclass Twit of the Year”, sketch was not supposed to be a ‘how-to’ guide for Harry and Meaghan.
I thought Ann, with her BFA from Michigan, would post about their photo. Harry is behind his wife and she is standing in a straight line Alpha power position.
I'm watching "Suits" and Megan Markle is very good as Rachel. She's a good actress.
I agree. I have watched her star in a Lifetime movie, and I thought she was an excellent actress.
Worship of royals and celebrities is puzzling to me and an equal and opposite reaction to that seems logical. Mocking and ridicule are appropriate for such thirsty privileged grifters as they, especially when they are presented by Time in such an odd fashion. It is eminently possible to do “work on the ground” and help people in a multitude of ways that don’t require publicity or self adulation. “Raising awareness” is the shadow of the reflection of doing actual work. It’s what people who don’t do anything but want credit for “caring” do. When they have world-class publicists working for them then an embarrassingly staged Time cover is there to promote your grift.
The best comment about the photo that I saw online:
Harry is her hairdresser. He asked Meghan to look into the mirror. He is explaining to her what he did to her hair to make it look so fabulous.
Concerning Time, this "influential people" issue reminds me of the Onion video of several years ago, regarding a new version of the magazine for adults:
https://youtu.be/4TT81o4hL4c
There are millions of people that buy People magazine, do not know what ppm means, do not know what CO2 does in the environment.
Plants grow better if there is 800-1500ppm CO2 in the environment. The planet has spent more time with CO2 levels above 2000 than below it. They don't perform autotrophic functions without CO2. It is an easy comparison to humans and Oxygen. All Macrofauna on the planet is dependent on plants converting energy from the sun into glucose.
But People magazine readers will believe two beautiful people flying around in private jets telling them we have to give the State more power over their lives to save the planet from CO2 levels returning to normal levels.
"I thought Ann, with her BFA from Michigan, would post about their photo."
Too many people jumped on it too quickly. I'm happy not to do what was predicted.
Also, I didn't want to link to Time. Such bullshit clickbait.
Who are these people and why should I care?
Do people still read Time? It stopped being respectable about 30 years ago.
"Too many people jumped on it too quickly. I'm happy not to do what was predicted."
This is why I read this blog. Also why I don't comment much.
... Time's "100 most influential people of 2021," which has a silly photo of them on the cover.
The job of Time Magazine is to sell magazines and advertisements, not reliably and honestly inform.
Entertainment.
Time-Life writers used to complain about being heavily edited, so maybe it was a kind of game for someone somewhere in the editorial process to sneak in satirical references and wonder if they'd make their way into print.
Everything the aristocracy does looks like parody but it is really the historical norm.
There's a dynamic in the royal family of children acting out in rebellion against their parents. Straightlaced George III's sons were debauchés and reprobates. Victoria's heir, Edward VII was similarly hedonistic and sybaritic. His son, George V was respectable and upright, but George's oldest son, Edward VIII, was one of the unruly ones. There's often a political dimension. George IV caroused with the radicals, Edward VIII with the Nazis.
Sibling rivalry goes back even further in royal families, and in families in general. Elizabeth was dutiful like her parents, so her sister Margaret had to be rebellious and fun-loving. Charles tried to be rebellious and high-living, but his pedantic nature wouldn't let him, so Andrew had to be the one who got into trouble. William is dutiful and responsible, so of course Harry goes off the rails.
For the umpteenth time, I am blacker than Meghan (and I'm Italian)...she is a fraud.
I'm blacker than Kamala for that matter...where's my vice presidency on a platter?
And if you read the Hollywood gossip sites, MM has quite a 'history' with men.
I will let Norm Macdonald explain it...stay until the end.
Besides, does anybody read 'Time' anymore?
I think it is simple trolling by Time. This year they just got a bonus with the Influential issue rather than just the annual "Person of the Year".
I'm watching "Suits" and Megan Markle is very good as Rachel. She's a good actress.
After she made headlines as Harry’s squeeze the wife and I had a chance to watch a Hallmark movie starring Markle and … we regretted it. The premise was ridiculous, the writing was as bad as it can get, and her acting was pretty terrible.
Media whores need lots of pimps
The phony fills the air. Our "best" schools are circling the bowl, having bought and then peddled to their customers--because that is what they are--some of the worst, most moronic, least credible racist trash in the name of being anti-racist.
And now, one of the dimmest sprigs of a clan of minor German nobility is sprung upon the world with his third-tier supporting actress wife as a person of note.
I propose a new test for that which we think could be important: that it inhabit the real world of experience and that it pass an empirical test of observation.
To the media: Stop telling me that that which is bad is actually good. It's bad. Employ your critical faculties. Down with hype.
... For millennia the rulers have made rules that they don't follow.
It is only very recently that the concept of equal justice has even been introduced...
-----+++++
When Lincoln said Government of the people by the people for the people he was probably well intentioned to mean all three references were same group.
----+++++
But as Lawyers should know not necessarily.
Similarly for theology and monogodism
Harry!! All the other guys in the frat house have already boned her, and moved on.
Maybe you didn't get the memo.......
I don't really care about this couple or their celebrity set. I am just surprised the Duke of Suffix and the Duchess of Cranberry beat out Joe the Senile and Jill the Doctor as Most Useless People on Earth.
After she made headlines as Harry’s squeeze the wife and I had a chance to watch a Hallmark movie starring Markle and … we regretted it. The premise was ridiculous, the writing was as bad as it can get, and her acting was pretty terrible.
In other words, a typical Hallmark movie.
You have to be in the right mood and setting for those. Put a log on the fire, set up a Christmas tree, and open a large bottle of whatever it is that unhappy women are drinking nowadays.
Seriously, though, the chief merit of those movies is that there's nothing in them to offend (or surprise) anyone.
By the time these two showed up on the American radar Norm had been much silenced. Oh my goodness, so much material left in a desk drawer somewhere.
Influencing has replaced doing in our civilization.
I can't figure how she got so much daylight between her legs. She didn't ride horses until she was bow-legged like Jackie O did. The photo accentuates her Spongebob torso, a weird choice.
Harry and Meghan’s world is the parody; we’re just livin’ in it.
'In other words, a typical Hallmark movie.'
If one is on I will sometimes watch for a bit. But only because they are so bad they are good.
This is every Hallmark movie in one...
My mother is a big fan of the Hallmark Christmas movies that start airing in October. The movies are all the same- small town girl/boy with a big time job the city, returns home for Christmas to rediscover love with an old flame who never left for the big smoke. There is sometimes a golden retriever involved in the story.
Like AOC, Pelosi, Biden and the rest, these two schmucks are just tele-screen actors from the book Fahrenheit 451. They keep the mouth breathers of America enthralled while the Nation burns down.
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