Friday 1 May 2015

Little Miss Nasty


I sometimes wonder why people feel they have the right to cause offence and be just downright nasty.

If I offend people, usually by accident I hasten to add, I feel absolutely terrible about it and I am usually overcome by guilt. Even if I genuinely dislike the person, I will apologise profusely, although sometimes I also wonder what good an apology actually does.

I mean if I were to say something along the lines of “I’m sorry I’ve just squashed run over your cat.”

The apology isn’t going to bring the cat back is it? A better alternative would be to try to replace the cat and offer some other form of compensation, surely?  Not that such things stops me. British people apologise for everything anyway – even if it’s the fault of the other person.

You may wonder why I’m talking about nastiness. Well a certain person has been at it again. I am talking about none other than Katie Hopkins, a woman I first mentioned in my post earlier this year: A Celebrity Rant.

A national tabloid has given her a column which gives her a stage to write offensive comments about anything that takes her fancy. And recently she seems to have cranked up her game.

If you are not aware, there are currently hundreds of people trying to flee from war torn places like Libya and Syria to seek sanctuary in the European Union and paying large amounts of money to unscrupulous traffickers who pile them in huge numbers into useless boats that simply cannot accommodate them. These boats then set sail for southern Europe on treacherous seas and hundreds of people have drowned as a result.

Katie Hopkins wrote an article describing these poor people as “cockroaches” and “feral humans” and that she did not care that these people were dying.

This isn’t all she has said. Recently she had a pop at depression basically saying that these people need to pull themselves together and “get some running shoes and some fresh air”.

She is basically trying to seek attention but is going about it in totally the wrong way. Some people try to claim the moral high ground by “telling it as it is” and don’t care who is upset as a result of their outburst.

In their view, it is a good thing to offer such appalling opinions, saying things like “It’s my opinion – just deal with it.”

The truth is that these people have no clue how hurtful their words can be. Nastiness is something I simply cannot understand. Why would you want to hurt the feelings of a fellow human being in any way?

Katie Hopkins is just the celebrity face of such nastiness (though I use the word “celebrity” in its loosest possible term – actually by saying that, am I being nasty to her?). In my opinion she says the things she says just for attention. In other words, she had a taste of fame on The Apprentice and now she wants more of the same, even if it means becoming one of the most hated people in Britain.

She is like a keyboard warrior, or internet troll – except she’s worse because everyone knows who she is and she actually says bad things in front of the camera too.

Australian comedian Adam Hills sums her up perfectly:



Of course, she won’t listen.

Nevertheless, she might think again thanks to recent events. Such is her ego that she thinks she can go to a TV channel with a proposition for a show where she interviews celebrities as a form of entertainment for the rest of us, the majority of whom really do not want to hear her utter a single word more. Unsurprisingly, when agents were approached to put forward their celebrities for a cosy chat with Ms Hopkins, nobody would do it, citing her controversial opinions and nastiness as the reason – and a pretty valid reason it is too. I know that if I were famous I wouldn’t want to even be in the same building as the woman, let alone the same room.

The one thing I could use Katie Hopkins for would be the unit in scale of nastiness. For example, if somebody were to say something nasty in front of me, I could chastise them by suggesting that they had reached a certain level on this scale.

The unit would have to be a centiHopkins (or cH)  because the top of the scale would be a Hopkins, i.e. the pinnacle of nastiness, with 0 cH being really nice (just like me) and 100 cH (or 1H) being really nasty.

The Hopkins Scale of Nastiness
Seriously, though, such nastiness is rife in the UK but it’s not limited to the shores of our small island. I’ve seen and heard similar things in other parts of the world too. People being nasty too or about other people based on wealth, religion, skin colour, nationality and even something as ridiculous as the sports team you support.
I’m not built that way and I simply do not understand  those who are.
The chances of Katie Hopkins ever reading my words are tiny if not impossible. 
But, if you DO stumble across this blog post, by accident, Katie, then all I have to say is this.
Please stop being nasty to people. 
As human beings we need to love and be loved and I think you are capable of both. 
If you want to be famous, the general public will hate you for uttering outrageous statements under the pretence that “these things need to be said”. 
The truth is that they do NOT need to be said. 
What you need to do is be a kind, generous and caring person who uses her fame for good rather than spouting bile and vitriol in the direction of everything that displease or annoys you.
There’s no need for it. 
Despite what I’ve said above, I will be nice to you because nastiness is not in my nature. I’m sure if you try you can eliminate this and people will warm to you.
I hope you care enough to listen to me, because although you wind me up with your outrageous and offensive comments, I can’t bring myself to stoop to your level and write a truly nasty post about you.
Being hated for being nasty is not a good thing - and nobody will love you for it.
Peace!



8 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Yes.
And the sooner people like Adam Hills get more attention that the oxygen thieves the better.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Ec,

Totally agree.

I'm sure KH won't though.

:o)

Cheers

PM

River said...

I don't purposely wish for bad things to happen to others, but if Katie Hopkins were to get run over by an eighteen wheeler tomorrow and die, I wouldn't be sorry.

JahTeh said...

I bet her reasoning is that other people are thinking it, but I'm just out and proud enough to say it.
I can be nasty but I always think about how I would feel if the words were said to me and I hold my mouth.
Having said that, my sister has been so bloody minded recently that whacking her across the head with a brick is right up there on my bucket list.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi River,

I would - but only the same way that I would be for almost everyone.

I would prefer her to change having seen the error of her ways.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi JT,

I assume that she thinks most people feel the same way - she's totally wrong.

We all have moments of red mist where we forget about those constraints that stop us being nasty - but she does it all the time.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Jackie K said...

I came across her comments recently and could not believe it. How someone could be that thoroughly cruel and uncaring and horrible is a mystery. I just hope that having some people voice the worst extreme of what others are secretly thinking, will force people to see how awful these viewpoints are. I hope.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Jackie,

I can't imagine why she does it - other than for publicity. In which case she has got it horribly wrong.

:o)

Cheers

PM