I don’t agree with cancel culture but when it comes to Facebook and the like I have been doing a bit of cancel culture of my own. I don’t want to keep receiving stuff labelled “Of interest to you”. If there is anything unmissable in The Mirror, for example, I have at least one friend who will post a link to it. But I’ve fixed it so that I no longer keep getting reminders of what a beautiful, talented, kind, loving, successful working mother, asset to the royal family but basically a down to earth young woman who could be living next door to you the Duchess of Cambridge is. Now I should no longer be shown charming photos of her children, snapped by the clever Duchess herself. I don’t need to know that Carrie What’s-Her-Face’s wedding dress cost thousands of pounds and that copies are being bought by loads of wannabe-lookalikes ready for when/if they ever manage to have the wedding of their dreams.
On the subject of the cost of dresses, how do you justify spending thousands on a dress that you will hardly ever get to wear? If you divide the cost of an item of clothing by the number of times you wear it, you get an idea of whether or not it gives you value for money. You can work out how much each wearing “costs”. On that basis underwear is practically free! Some of my clothes are down to just a few pounds. My hiking boots are doing quite well. One of the most expensive dresses I own, bought for my son’s wedding, is running at about £40 a wear. But you have to choose the occasion to wear certain items. No doubt wardrobes all over the land are bursting with outfits just waiting for their moment to arrive! Waiting to give value for money!
Maybe though, if you ignore the expensive clothing and the fact that the wedding took place in Westminster cathedral, perhaps the Johnsons will have started a fashion for running off and getting married quietly without making a big song and dance about it. Oops! Bang goes the “wedding industry”! Whatever did we do before getting married became big business?
Returning to the media, I can understand the feelings of Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka when she says she doesn’t see why she should have to talk to the media if she is not so inclined. (I fail to see why her withdrawal from Roland Garros should be the first item on last night’s TV news though. Surely more important things were going on in the world!) i can understand that if a sportsperson is sponsored by a particular company they should wear the clothes, the cap, the sports shoes and so bearing that company’s logo whenever they appear in the media. But since when did playing in big tournaments and competitions mean selling your soul to the media. It must be great to be the winner and no doubt you want to tell everyone how it feels. You only need to look at the face of the loser to see how they are falling apart, even if that loser is the second-best player of whatever sport is involved. Coming second is probably harder than being eliminated in the early stages of a competition. And not everyone is strong enough to put those emotions into bite-sized, pithy sayings for the press immediately after their dream has been shattered.
On the other hand, Naomi Osaka has perhaps overplayed her mental fragility. All through this last year and a bit we have been hearing how sport and exercise will help to keep us mentally stable, on an even keel, better able to deal with the stress of life. If those who play sports for a living are so mentally fragile, does that not give the lie to that idea? Of course, what really does it is the competitive element probably introduced from a very early age. And early success makes it harder to deal with later failure.
However, nothing gives us the right to poke about into the intimate details of the feelings of the rich and famous, or the up-and-coming talented. Some of them thrive on the attention but there have always been those who fall apart under the pressure. We don’t actually own them and we should not forget that.
I seem to be on a media rant today. That’s enough of that. Today is another fine and sunny day. Time to go out and enjoy it, I think.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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