To everything there is a season: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to cast off all restraints and unleash barbaric torrents of profanity.
This is one of those latter times.
Prince Harry calls misinformation a “global humanitarian crisis:” “I am determined not to lose my children’s mother.”
Kalinka Aaman Agger, Berlingske.dk, Nov 10
There’s so much wrong with this article, beginning with its very existence, that I don’t even know where to begin.
I realize a lot of people enjoy keeping up with the royals, and people who used to be royals, and people who are still kind of royals even though they said they wanted out of the royalty game, and even people who are whatever the bloody hell these two narcissistic twits may be.
So I can understand why an editor desperate for clicks and shares and likes would sign off on a story with less actual news value than the pulpy mass of organic matter our cat just coughed up in the foyer.
A story about two of the most self-absorbed, narcissistic, clueless people on the planet.
But I cannot understand, and don’t want to understand, why on earth the story would be reported without at least a hint of an acknowledgment that these people are grotesque abominations.
Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan left royal life in favor of a more independent life in the United States. But also because the pressure from the British tabloid newspapers became too great.
Since the ducal couple left the aristocracy in favor of the American dream, they’ve tried to influence the “systems” that they feel contributed to pushing them out of the royal family.
The pressure from the tabloids became so great they moved to America, where the groveling media (and its echo chambers in Europe) line up respectfully to listen to, applaud, and report on the moronic platitudes issued by the pair at all of their many carefully controlled press conferences and events. Surprisingly many, really, when you consider how very badly they want to get out from under the media.
The “systems” that pushed them out of the royal family were probably a lot kinder and gentler than the “systems” I would have used to push them out of my family.
On Tuesday, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan each cranked up their criticism of the tabloid media and the misinformation that together, according to the couple, make for a dangerous cocktail.
Note the constant emphasis on the modifier tabloid. It’s not the sturdy and reliable old broadsheet media causing all these problems: it’s those danged “tabloid media” with their smaller size and easier-to-turn pages.
At the Deal Book event, hosted by The New York Times, Duchess Meghan called for tabloid media to be equipped with warnings similar to those on cigarette packets, indicating that smoking is dangerous.
Hosted by The New York Times, notes the Berlingske journalist without pausing to explain why Duchess Meghan chose a forum hosted and run by a newspaper to sound off on the toxicity of newspapers.
On the web page for that event, by the way, we’re informed that the Duchess of Sussex (and co-founder of Archewell) was on a “conversation” panel with the co-CEO of Ariel Investments. Their topic was “Minding the Gap,” explained in a little blurb: “How can women reach economic and professional parity? Two groundbreaking figures join us to discuss top-down solutions, and reflect on how their shared experiences influenced their thinking about creating opportunities for others.”
Parity with what? Groundbreaking how? This woman was an actress who hooked herself a billionaire, marrying into one of the wealthiest and most famous families on the planet. Anyone surprised to learn she’s interested in discussing top-down solutions?
“I would urge people not to read tabloid media, because it’s not healthy for anyone… Hopefully they’ll come with a warning label one day, just like cigarettes. They (tabloid media, ed.) are toxic to your mental health,” the Duchess explained during a conversation about equal pay and respect in professional life, writes The Independent.
I would urge people not to listen to grasping, family-wrecking narcissists lecture them about what makes for good reading.
The Duchess has experienced first-hand what the pressure from the media can mean for one’s mental health and psyche. She has previously explained that at one point the pressure was so great that she considered taking her own life.
The media drove her to the brink of suicide: the only cure is obvioulsy more attention. What further proof of her stupidity is required?
Duchess Meghan is backed by her husband, who condemns the harassment that the couple believe the British tabloid media led against them.
As an example, he mentions the term “Megxit” (as a play on Brexit) which quickly spread online after the couple’s exit from the royal house and Britain in early 2020.
The prince calls the term “misogynistic” and a clear example of online hatred and bullying.
“The term was created by an internet troll and reinforced by royal correspondents. It grew into the mainstream media,” the prince said during a panel discussion on Tuesday with the headline “Internet Lie Machine” organized by the American magazine Wired.
This is so rich it could almost live in Buckingham Palace: the other half of this grifting, grasping pair was also complaining about the media at an event sponsored by a media outfit.
And what’s “misogynistic” about the term Megxit? It makes a certain amount of colloquial sense, and rolls easier off the tongue than “Harryxit.” It isn’t even necessarily mean. Her name is Meghan. She and Harry were exiting the royal family and exiting Britain. Slapping “exit” on as a suffix to anyone or anything breaking off from someone or something else was in common use before 2020. It was practically a cliché, like adding “gate” as a suffix to any American political scandal.
Let’s take a moment to contemplate what he’s actually saying: the term was used by someone somewhere on the internet (whom he labels a “troll”) and it gradually bubbled out into common usage. Amazing! Unheard of! Clearly a very targeted and vicious campaign of hatred was afoot. Either that or people found it was just easier and more convenient to say or write “Megxit” than “Harry and Meghan’s departure from the royal family and Great Britain.”
But with these paper-skinned narcissists it’s always the more insulting interpretation they assume to be operative.
During the same debate Prince Harry called out misinformation as a “global humanitarian crisis,” writes the Guardian.
Truly. Right up there with malnutrition, illiteracy, human trafficking, narcotics, disease, and poisonous snakes.
I’m no fan of misinformation. I started this blog, and maintain it, in large part to counter misinformation and disinformation about America in the Danish press. It says so right in the tagline. But for the same man to state in the same forum that the term Megxit is a misogynistic example of hatred and bullying, and that misinformation is a global humanitarian crisis, suggests this is a man not worth listening to.
But listen to him we must, because it is so very desperately and urgently important that he speak to the lying and deceptive and dangerous media that drove his wife to suicidal ideation so that we can give him our attention.
And also our money. He’s very fond of money. He and his wife both. They’re simple people, really: very down to earth. They don’t ask much: only our constant attention. And our money. That’s all. They’re almost holy, when you think about it. They’re like Mother Teresa, if she was a whiny bitch. (And who among us can say she was not?)
As an example, the prince mentioned how misinformation was to blame for the storming of Congress on January 6th.
According to the prince, he sent a message to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey the day before the storm, stressing that his problem was “allowing a coup to be staged.”
Of course he did.
Agger doesn’t give us the full context of Harry’s remarks, but the New York Post does:
Prince Harry claimed in a panel discussion that he warned Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about a “coup” being planned on the social media platform ahead of the Jan. 6 siege on the US Capitol.
“Jack and I were emailing each other prior to January the 6th,” Harry said Tuesday during a virtual panel called “The Internet Lie Machine,” part of the RE:WIRED conference.
“I warned him that his problem was allowing a coup to be staged,” he added. “That email was sent the day before. And then it happened and I haven’t heard from him since.”
A Twitter spokesperson didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
The Prince is worried about the “global humanitarian crisis” of misinformation, but there he is calling January 6th a coup attempt—and fretting that the CEO of Twitter didn’t get back to him.
The Prince also raised a hard critique of the press, which he thinks too often spreads misinformation as truths.
“Hello, liars. I’d like to talk to you about what liars you are, so you can help spread the word of what lying liars you are when you report my words honestly and faithfully as I have no doubt you will,” says only an irredeemable idiot.
At the age of 12, Prince Harry lost his mother, Princess Diana. She died in a car accident when she was chased by some paparazzi. Prince Harry explained that his mother’s death was part of the cause of his fierce battle against the tabloid media and misinformation on the net.
“I lost my mother because of this self-made anger. I am determined not to lose the mother of my children for the same reason.”
The article ends on that maudlin note.
There’s no reflection on the almost unbearably obvious irony of these despicable people running around shoving themselves in front of any audience that will have them—or pay them—complaining about the pain and suffering of a life lived under the magnifying glass of public attention.
Move to a farm, you two. Settle down into quiet anonymity. Spread your money around doing good works anonymously. And maybe after thirty years of your doing so, just maybe your complaints about life in the media spotlight will warrant a listen.
Maybe.