Em Clarkson #2

[cee-bee]

She isn’t keeping her baby private though? Her name and birth were publicly announced.

she is holding her baby whilst advertising an air fryer - why? Because being a domesticated mum is part of her brand now, and she needs a baby as a prop to make an effective ad. “I’m a new mum guys, look how easy and convenient this air fryer is #ad” and she’s making a joke referencing her baby’s birth.

the baby has been in several posts, stories and reels.

I’m genuinely confused as to how this can be interpreted as protecting her baby’s privacy? Arlo is literally a few weeks old and is already in an ad with her mum…?

in my world, privacy is not being put online at all, not having your name released, not being used as a prop for content. Pixie Geldof is more famous than Em Clarkson, and never features her daughter on her social media. Her birth and name have never been released. To me - that’s an example of privacy being protected.

are we so overexposed to celeb and influencer culture that we’ve lost sight of what true privacy actually is?

 

[cee-bee]

Yeh, covering a kids face or not photographing it, isn’t really very private is it? It’s paying lip service to it, to sleep better at night I imagine.

It’s especially feeble if baby’s whole life is online from a few weeks old. The details of their birth, their clothes, the trips they are taken on, if they are premature or not, health problems and milestones, their name and date of birth.

i remember going to a lecture on open source investigation. Law enforcement and bad actors only need two bits of biodata about you to be able to build from that. Name and date of birth included. Arlo’s full name and date of birth have been published online to an audience of thousands, when she was just a few days old.

At a minimum, Arlo has already featured in eight of Em’s grid posts - including one advert for an air fryer and one promo post for her podcast. That doesn’t count the stories she may have been featured in. That doesn’t factor in any posts her father has made featuring her. The baby is ~8 weeks old. That’s one post per week of her little life. She’s featuring in adverts before she is capable of conscious thought.

of course, she was being monetised before she was even born. Em has made posts about her pregnancy and about motherhood. Arguably this is about Em, but let’s not pretend it’s wholly disconnected.

and let’s not pretend Em is above monetising her child. Em will 100% post “funny” stories about things Arlo says or does. Arlo will 100% continue to feature heavily on Em’s gram, will be used as part of Em’s branding and to appeal to wider audiences. Em will 100% leverage being a mother to a daughter to promote herself further as some sort of feminist saviour (even though many of her views on feminism are problematic and shallow).

Will she feature Arlo’s face? Maybe not. But it doesn’t make a huge difference, does it? You don’t need to have your face splashed online to have your identity completely co-opted and monetised. If every other little detail is published online, her facial details are inconsequential really.

From a glance at Em’s account, I immediately know her daughters name and date of birth. I know what that child has been wearing, and where her parents have been taking her on trips out (Ground by Coco can be clearly seen on a coffee cup, so looks like they were in Chelsea that day). Chelsea bridge features in another post quite clearly in the background, so I know the baby is taken to Chelsea fairly regularly which - without knowing much else about Em - would suggest she lives in South London. Em had to do the obligatory breast feeding pic obvs, so I know Arlo is breast fed. Em has posted from her home too recently, so a quick glance at the last couple of posts and I can get a fair idea of what arlo’s home looks like. Again, this child is 8 weeks old and already a ton of info about her life is freely available on social media.

so for the posters who said they respect how Em is protecting her daughters privacy, I am genuinely interested in how you’ve reached that viewpoint? Because to me this baby has been plastered all over the internet without a thought for her privacy at all, within days of her birth. I just can’t get my head around the view that she is being protected with clear boundaries at all.

and imo it’s really shitty. It’s a sign of shitty parenting. It’s a sign of a talentless woman who has little of value to offer social media in terms of creativity or thoughtful output, and so needs to utilise her child for her own means.

Em and her ilk are compelled to share every aspect of their lives and their children’s lives because that’s the core base of their appeal - making themselves accessible and building that relationship with their following. That’s the trade off. I expose every detail of my life but I get to use that attention you give me, to sell stuff to you.
It’s bad enough when an influencer does it themselves, but it’s reprehensible when they include exposing their child as part of building that relationship with their following. Many, many
Academic journals and news articles have flagged children being exposed for content (and the impact and lack of safeguarding) as a key concern. This isn’t just a few harmless pictures online. This has real, long term impacts. Social media is relatively young, so we won’t know the full impact of how having a childhood posted online, will affect these kids in adulthood.

it’s unethical, it’s immoral, it’s selfish and it’s 100% happening to Arlo

 

[cee-bee]

View attachment 2322874
I mean, if I was trying to describe someone as a good mum I’d certainly not showcase that they’re on insta during what seems to be a family lunch. But then it’s hard to show someone is a good mum when they aren’t!

It’s a casual lunch in their local Clapham eatery, where a sandwhich costs £15. Em is scrolling on insta looking for negative comments she can attack and belittle..

Suddenly, Alex whips his phone out.

Em knows what to do, bourne out of a decade of doing nothing but scrolling through social media, her influence instincts are finely honed

she quickly picks up her baby, adopting a flattering downward tilt face, eyes cast down and demure - the epitome of a grounded mother.

once taken, em quickly drops arlo in her pram, ready to inspect her creation. They nod: the perfect shot. In agreement, Alex posts at prime workday commuter scrolling time, ready to capture the hearts of the nation.

 

[Whazgoinin]

This is awkward, I was hoping this might be a rave thread as I quite like Em.

I'm not sure why as I can't relate to her at all, shes much younger, richer and opinionated than me buuuuut I love the energy of her Feel Good Fridays.
Also, the reality of some of her FML moments make me chuckle (her post jaw surgery journey springs to mind) and I really, really like the fact she hides her babies identity.
Keeping some privacy and boundaries on social media is a rarity and I'm glad that Ems keeping her baby private for now.

Thats all, I'll see myself out now

 

[cee-bee]

Em’s content is so thoroughly boring.

she steals ideas from others and repurposes them - boring, nothing new. She doesn’t add in anything particularly insightful.

her work outs are boring. The symprove ads are tired and boring and so transparent. She’s not convincing anyone this product is any good and she just comes across as soulless when she advertises it.

her comment section just seems to be full of people offloading and using it as a therapy session. E.g. she tells people to not care about wearing shorts and people are like “no way I can’t wear shorts I was born with a green coloured leg that was then mauled by a rabid dog and has scar tissue that I was bullied for in school because it was green and also I had to have surgery that time to remove a kidney stone in my knee, and then pirates stole it in a horrendous hostage situation I was held captive for three years and they replaced my leg with a wooden peg. I haven’t worn shorts in years because I just don’t have the confidence”

Like chill out huns, she’s just encouraging you not to be self conscious. No need for the life story and medical history.

you get the odd normal person commenting that wearing shorts isn’t a big deal and of course em responds with a bitchy comment and bullies her into apologising.

 

[cee-bee]

I personally think it's wrong to assume that just because your parents helped you out, that Em's parents are doing the same.

tbf it’s consistent with how Em’s relationship with her parents (particularly her mum) seems to be. They both seem very overprotective of her - way beyond what is normal. And they are both wealthy people. It’s impossible to know how (or if) they help em financially but it is normal for wealthy people in a position to, to help their kids. It’s also entirely consistent with how they treat Em. And Em’s behaviour and attitude (read: entitlement) is consistent with someone who’s been propped up their entire life.

Jeremy himself has been vocal about nepotism and he may as well have said he’d pulled strings for Em. She got features in columns in the sun and other newspapers off the back of her association with her father, and her subsequent book deal. He has been known to plug Em which has helped her “career” no doubt.

her wedding was held on his farm and I think it’s fair to say as host, he’d probably financially helped a fair bit. Again, we can’t know for sure - but it’s obvious as a father he steps in to help Em significantly. If she was another random blogger, she wouldn’t have had that book deal.

And then her mum; who has form apparently, for fighting Emily’s battles on her behalf.

indeed, both Emily’s parents seem to infantilise her quite a bit (probably because she never demonstrated much promise at school by their own admission).

she was catfished by a girl online that, by all accounts, seems to have been someone who was very mentally troubled. Her parents (very disproportionately, IMO) got police, lawyers and private investigators involved to hunt down the person who’d been messaging Em down. They were happy to throw money at someone who had dared misled and tricked their previous Emily; so isn’t it fair to assume that they’d be happy to throw money at her too?

all of the above indicates parents who maybe cosset their adult daughter, and so it’s reasonable to conclude they financially help her.

she lives in a house in a nice area in fairly central London. it must be worth around a million at least. She wears higher end high street, gets beauty and spa treatments, attends expensive exercise classes, has expensive gym equipment in her home, and frequently travels/staycations. She also had a top end wedding with designer dress and expensive bridesmaids dresses from Halfpenny in London.

…but she’s a fairly small time influencer who had a bit of a mediocre book a few years ago, has a somewhat successful podcast and doesn’t really have huge collabs?

there’s no way she’s earning enough to afford that house and lifestyle. Alex will of course be on a salary as senior PR director, but according to glassdoor for the PHA group, directors earn ~£55k per year. Let’s be generous and assume he’s earning £65k because he’s “senior”… that’s still not enough to own a sizeable house. Most lenders will require at a minimum - a starting salary of £160k per year combined, for a mortgage of around £1mil.

so yeh, I’ll be shocked if Em and Alex got there on their own.
---

so if she wanted to take maternity leave she could.

I’m confused, what part of her day to day life doesn’t look like maternity leave?

she rocks up to record a podcast for what, an hour a week? Baby in tow?

she’s hardly doing a 9-5 and has gone straight back into work with important deadlines and stressful objectives. Her version of work is taking selfies and stories of her day. She’s not working and never truly has - she just pretends she does to seem relatable.

 

[Kate7144]

are we so overexposed to celeb and influencer culture that we’ve lost sight of what true privacy actually is?

I think I may be very guilty of this.
My comment on privacy and boundaries was mainly driven by the quiet few weeks post birth - as honestly my expectation was there would be hour by hour updates and baby ads everywhere

But having read your full post I do agree that things are not actually as private as I thought!

 

[Bunbun1]

Honestly I mostly don’t mind her except I think she could be a bit more picky over which brands she works with- a little less snake oil please - but also has she not heard of breast pads yet? Like I don’t understand why she is showing us that she’s leaking beads of milk through a thin top, when she could just get some breast pads.

 

[cee-bee]

At least her dad is very open and embracing about the fact he is a total and utter cunt.

Em is just as unbearable but pretends she’s a champion of the people.

I can just about endure cunts, but it’s the ones who pretend they aren’t cunts that I have zero tolerance for.

 

[Bunbun1]

Oh you know what like a week ago or something she posted something, a meme or something that went something like "now women are under pressure to be relatable" and tbh I meant to come over here with my soap box but I got distracted by anyway here's the opinion no one asked for...
Women aren't under pressure to be relatable.
influencers that built their brand based on just being normal humans living normal human lives are under pressure to be relatable. But not women in general, just that small batch of people that to be fair could also be men. And why are you under pressure to be relatable? Because that's what built your following. That's what people like about you. So when you start getting the brand deals in and its hashtag ad this and hashtag ad that and you're like oh this top? it was a barge honey only £300... then yeah people start going I can't relate to this. it doesn't interest me. And they unfollow. Do you know what doesn't interest me? WIEIAD videos showing a bowl of yoghurt with four berries and a lonely oat for breakfast lunch and dinner. It doesn't interest me because I don't relate. Show me a bacon butty for brekkie and a tesco meal deal lunch. I can relate to that.
---
Oh I screenshotted it! Fab! What bellendery it is.

 

[lisa.mekh890305]

Honestly I mostly don’t mind her except I think she could be a bit more picky over which brands she works with- a little less snake oil please - but also has she not heard of breast pads yet? Like I don’t understand why she is showing us that she’s leaking beads of milk through a thin top, when she could just get some breast pads.

For attention of course. To be relatable.
Why is she showing us pictures of herself crying regularly? Why is she supposedly having a breakdown most days? Why did she remind us about her HG daily when she was pregnant? Why does she still tell us about her HG when she is no longer pregnant? Why has she made dirty hair her entire personality?

 

[cee-bee]

This thread has been awfully quiet!

I unfollowed too. She was just so boring and repetitive. Everything she did was so utterly easy to pull apart, so completely ridiculous. There was nothing intelligent about her worth discussing.

her content is so bad and uninspiring that even tattlers can’t be bothered to comment lol.

I had a quick click on her latest reel and it’s so pathetic in how transparent it is.. the faux wake up (literally filming herself from inside her fridge I mean, really?!) and drinking that bloody symprove… having her butt cheeks out but blurred out so she can stoke controversy and then use that controversy to speak about how much it a pioneer she is for women and their bodies yada yada yada.

she’s just a spoiled, entitled, uninformed (but highly opinionated) rich girl who is probably a little bored, so spends too much time on social media sharing her uninformed opinions. It’s too pathetic to comment on sometimes.

 

[Beepbopbooploopdoop]

Here. She says she still has hours left of her flight.

I thought this was a hotel room . Shows how far away I am from first class

 

[JulieScoobyDoo]

Yeh, covering a kids face or not photographing it, isn’t really very private is it? It’s paying lip service to it, to sleep better at night I imagine.

It’s especially feeble if baby’s whole life is online from a few weeks old. The details of their birth, their clothes, the trips they are taken on, if they are premature or not, health problems and milestones, their name and date of birth.

i remember going to a lecture on open source investigation. Law enforcement and bad actors only need two bits of biodata about you to be able to build from that. Name and date of birth included. Arlo’s full name and date of birth have been published online to an audience of thousands, when she was just a few days old.

At a minimum, Arlo has already featured in eight of Em’s grid posts - including one advert for an air fryer and one promo post for her podcast. That doesn’t count the stories she may have been featured in. That doesn’t factor in any posts her father has made featuring her. The baby is ~8 weeks old. That’s one post per week of her little life. She’s featuring in adverts before she is capable of conscious thought.

of course, she was being monetised before she was even born. Em has made posts about her pregnancy and about motherhood. Arguably this is about Em, but let’s not pretend it’s wholly disconnected.

and let’s not pretend Em is above monetising her child. Em will 100% post “funny” stories about things Arlo says or does. Arlo will 100% continue to feature heavily on Em’s gram, will be used as part of Em’s branding and to appeal to wider audiences. Em will 100% leverage being a mother to a daughter to promote herself further as some sort of feminist saviour (even though many of her views on feminism are problematic and shallow).

Will she feature Arlo’s face? Maybe not. But it doesn’t make a huge difference, does it? You don’t need to have your face splashed online to have your identity completely co-opted and monetised. If every other little detail is published online, her facial details are inconsequential really.

From a glance at Em’s account, I immediately know her daughters name and date of birth. I know what that child has been wearing, and where her parents have been taking her on trips out (Ground by Coco can be clearly seen on a coffee cup, so looks like they were in Chelsea that day). Chelsea bridge features in another post quite clearly in the background, so I know the baby is taken to Chelsea fairly regularly which - without knowing much else about Em - would suggest she lives in South London. Em had to do the obligatory breast feeding pic obvs, so I know Arlo is breast fed. Em has posted from her home too recently, so a quick glance at the last couple of posts and I can get a fair idea of what arlo’s home looks like. Again, this child is 8 weeks old and already a ton of info about her life is freely available on social media.

so for the posters who said they respect how Em is protecting her daughters privacy, I am genuinely interested in how you’ve reached that viewpoint? Because to me this baby has been plastered all over the internet without a thought for her privacy at all, within days of her birth. I just can’t get my head around the view that she is being protected with clear boundaries at all.

and imo it’s really shitty. It’s a sign of shitty parenting. It’s a sign of a talentless woman who has little of value to offer social media in terms of creativity or thoughtful output, and so needs to utilise her child for her own means.

Em and her ilk are compelled to share every aspect of their lives and their children’s lives because that’s the core base of their appeal - making themselves accessible and building that relationship with their following. That’s the trade off. I expose every detail of my life but I get to use that attention you give me, to sell stuff to you.
It’s bad enough when an influencer does it themselves, but it’s reprehensible when they include exposing their child as part of building that relationship with their following. Many, many
Academic journals and news articles have flagged children being exposed for content (and the impact and lack of safeguarding) as a key concern. This isn’t just a few harmless pictures online. This has real, long term impacts. Social media is relatively young, so we won’t know the full impact of how having a childhood posted online, will affect these kids in adulthood.

it’s unethical, it’s immoral, it’s selfish and it’s 100% happening to Arlo

I have seen you post on a few threads and everything you say is measured and insightful. This is bang on. Hiding faces is done as a "look at me protecting my child, only showing the back of their head or covering their face with a sticker". It is performative. What you explain above is exactly why it is so problematic.

 

[cee-bee]

What did she actually ‘get famous’ for? Like what was the thing?

tbh, it’s mainly through her association with her dad.

she was born in July 1994, so she’s about to turn 29.

She left school in 2012. she met hubby as a teen at Glastonbury and were a couple by jan 2013, so shes been with him since she was 19. They probably met at Glastonbury in 2011 (there wasn’t a Glastonbury festival in 2012) sooo she met him when she was 16 and presumably started dating from then.

He’d been in a boy band and studying in Dublin I believe

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-andrew?trk=people-also-viewed_member-image

She followed him and lived in Dublin for a year (I think it was 2013, so basically as soon as they become “official”) working as a deliveroo driver. 2013 is the only gap she includes on her LinkedIn so… reading between the lines.. they met in June 2011, kept in contact and she moved to Dublin to be with him in January 2013 and became a couple then.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/em-clarkson-31516b89?originalSubdomain=uk

Then he moved to London later for work and she followed. She briefly worked as a marketing consultant but I don’t think that lasted long. It wasn’t a proper full time job, more a scattering of internships and freelance work which she never held down for long (see LinkedIn above)

She started blogging in 2015 so that’s when she was, what 21? I don’t think it was especially popular or widely read.

again in 2017 she got a book deal but… I don’t know much about that book. Never seen it, don’t know anyone who read it. It’s got a 3.65 rating in good reads which is very low for there. She’d only down a handful of pieces of the likes of the sun and teen tattler, and these seemed to focus largely on her being Jeremy clarkson’s offspring.

her blog was www.prettynormalme.com and was active from late 2014. It was very cringe and imo, badly written. You can see for yourself on the internet archive;

HOME

Pretty Normal Me was founded by Em Clarkson last year to help women be the happiest versions of themselves. Growing up she had been surrounded by a damaging society of 'size zero', 'thinspiration' and that BLOODY Thigh Gap! She decided that life was too short to spend counting calories...

web.archive.org

she started using Instagram from around 2018 I believe, and had management involved straight away.

she had a full blown media kit, literary agent AND publicist back in 2018, at a time before social media management was a big thing. She most certainly benefit from her parents influence and contacts at that point.

Work With Emily Clarkson - Pretty Normal Me

If you would like to work with me on a collaboration, writing opportunity or anything else please email me at [email protected]

web.archive.org

basically, she’s never done anything that substantial or remarkable.

She is in the news semi-regularly because of the connection with her dad. Even in the early days of her Instagram she would frequently pointed out the connection to her dad and tag him.

I’ve pointed it out before but there’s no way they can afford a townhouse in Balham on their joint wages. She is financially totally propped up by her family. Her “career” exists because she’s propped up by others.

she’s basically never had a real job and gets thrown the odd bone likely because her mum or dad has had a word with someone and pulled in a favour.

no doubt she’ll hover around the media circuit taking the odd, low key piece of work that’s thrown her way, coasting along talking about feminism and smashing glass ceilings, when basically she’s an unemployed housewife? Grifter? with lucrative side hustles from her dad/mum.

 

[AliceInWanderLost]

did you see her story the other day where she spent the weekend alone with her daughter as boy Alex was away somewhere, and was then hyping up single parents, as though spending a night with her baby was comparative to the life of a single mother!

 

[cee-bee]

You’ve articulated perfectly what I was struggling to process. I unfollowed Emily after the MM video, MM’s hypocrisy is just unbearable and Emily not being able to see how she’s playing the game was just too much.

tbh, I think Emily 100% sees the game being played here, but since she plays it too she’s overlooking it and creating straw man arguements to deflect from it.

to be clear (so em doesn’t try and pretend us tattle “trolls” don’t care about Molly Mae’s mental health), MM 100% is deserving of empathy and kindness and support. A lot of the messages she has been sent are very unkind. But she is also a total hypocrite and deeply manipulative, and those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Em Clarkson has a ton of insecurities about her privilege, her own online presence and she gets so worked up about specific issues because she sees her own insecurities reflected in them.

she’s not upset for Molly Mae. She’s not upset on behalf of postnatal women. She’s outraged because she sees her own tactics in Molly Mae. She’s outraged because she knows that, like Molly Mae, she also uses shitting influencing techniques and she also comes from the same place of privilege that she doesn’t want to acknowledge. All of that makes her terrified of the backlash that MM has faced.

And so she comes on and does her silly little reel and pretends it’s all from a place of altruism and feminism to legitimise her position. What she should really be saying is “I’m outraged that Molly Mae is being treated this way and I’m terrified I’ll be called out for the same things, so I’m going to try and whip up a defence for this behaviours and pretend it isn’t about me so I don’t look like the self absorbed twat I really am”

 

[smirkingrevenge]

Okaaaayyy I took a break from her and then started watching her content again and she seemed a lot more tolerable than a while back… only for her to come out with a cycle tracking ad today, which is one of my twatfluencer pet peeves. It’s not an efficient birth control method and Em with her 0 medical knowledge shouldn’t be advertising stuff like this

 

[cee-bee]

Hair doesn’t even look washed! Honestly I get mum life but I’ve done it twice over and I don’t believe in this Martyr mum narrative of I’ve got a baby I can’t shower or iron because I’m BREASTFEEDING
---

yep exactly! If you are able to go to the trouble of taking multiple photos and a video for the gram, complete with affiliate link … then you can take the 30 mins max collective total to wash your hair, steam your dress and order some flats online. She felt that it was OK to dress like that (and proudly post it all) because she genuinely doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that. She’s dressed how she wants, so what’s the problem? ZERO consideration for the couple or the event, its all about Em Em Em. She’s got enough self awareness to mention the shoes/wrinkled dress on her gram. So on some level she knows it’s not appropriate.

honestly, I think taking pride in your appearance is so important. I’m not an especially polished dresser, I rarely pick up an iron unless it’s for work/an event. But my clothes are always clean, my hair is usually styled however simply, I put a little thought into my outfits so I look well presented. It’s not about vanity, more a vase of showing myself some basic respect, caring about how I present myself to the world etc etc. it’s a form of self love.

either Em didn’t care/didn’t like the couple or she’s struggling a lot more mentally than she’s letting on.

 

[JulesC]

Never in my life have I been worried about being ‘relatable’ and I’m a born worrier so have worried about all sorts of things but not that. Ever.

Quite an unrelatable thing to say Em tbh