Em Clarkson #2

[MarthaFarkus]

I do actually like Em and Alex but listening to their latest pod has really pissed me off. They’re discussing Tattle and its ‘downfall’ for part of it and I had to skip through most of it because they were chatting utter shit.

I know people have been a little mean on here sometimes and that’s perfectly within anyone’s rights, what people say about me is none of my business etc etc. However, Emily said she hadn’t read here for a long time but gets someone to monitor this thread to see if we’re posting pictures of her children’s faces or being mean about them. FFS! Tattle may be many things but we’re all about the child safeguarding on here and slate people for exploiting their kids online, most if not all applaud her for keeping her girls private as it should be. If a kid gets posted on any thread on this site (to make a point or whatever) then their face is blanked out.

It pisses me off that we’re the scum of the earth when in reality we’re sick of kids being pimped out so their lazy bastard parents (not talking about Em or Alex here because they, quite rightly, don’t do this) don’t have to get a job.

So, to Em’s thread monitor, please report back that there has never and never will be any kid slating or pictures in here, just calling influencers out on their shit when needs be. Cheers

 

[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?

 

[lilchicken]

I honestly think it’s pretty toxic to follow Em. Especially if you are post partum.

She’s ridiculously out of touch. Her unearned privileges aren’t reality for the 99%. Bringing her baby “back to work” when working is sitting and chewing the fat with some mates for a “podcast” just isn’t the norm, feasible or realistic for the vast majority of women. And in her efforts to present herself as some boss babe, it’s easy to forget that.

It’s fantastic Em has the time, money and support network to facilitate her going to her reformers Pilates, massages, coffee dates. But again, most new mothers don’t have the time or money or support to do all this. I’d argue that Em’s time would be better spent shedding light on that fact, but hey, that’s not Em’s purpose in life.

Em Clarkson was born into generational wealth. It’s why she has her big London townhouse. It’s why she’s never had a real career. Her husband - in his media career - is also benefitting from that generational wealth.

For all intents and purposes, Em is a wealthy SAHM with a few side projects (insta, podcast etc) that give her a sense of productivity without demanding too much from her, intellectually, financially or otherwise.

I’d love to see Em tackle the real reasons women struggle PP. lack of support and resources mainly. If only the well off embraced their responsibilities and instead of hoarding wealth and finding loopholes, paid their tax liabilities to fully fund initiatives to help new mothers. Yano, like a certain Mr Clarkson. In my area alone, local mother/baby groups have been shut down because of lack of funding and resources. But you won’t see Em go near a topic like that.

Taking advice on what is good for you, from the likes of Em Clarkson, is a recipe for disaster. Because Em simply doesn’t have a clue. Nor will she ever.

 

[lilchicken]

They’ve got a point! She (and other influencers) always have to overthink various issues and have an opinion on topics that they don’t need to, when did we all this start and become a thing??

iTs mY WoRk

no it’s not Em. You’re not an activist. You’re not a spokesperson for anything. You’re a sales person. You just use causes to make your sales. Because people are more likely to buy from people they think are morally aligned with them. More likely to trust them.

You sell Symprove, Huel, erborian, Beautypie etc etc and anything else if the money is right.

you convince yourself it’s noble so you don’t have to examine the lack of originality or purpose in what you do.

you sit and cry in your nice big London house you’re able to own because of rich parents, and feel unsatisfied because most of it is unearned wealth, and your job is inherently dishonest. And you decide that posting your medical history, acne flare ups, “underwhelming” days and tears somehow compensate. Because apparently that’s all that honesty means to you.

it’s deluded thinking. She’s deluded. And she’ll stay deluded because she’s surrounded by wealth that shields her from reality.

 

[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

 

[lilchicken]

Fuuuuuuck me she is so privileged it's unreal. How would she cope if she had a normal job that required you to go in somewhere regardless of HG. Most people cannot lay in bed feeling sorry for themselves for days on end. They have to get on with it and puke in the bogs at work

she reminds me a lot of Florence Given.
There’s a certain type of Rich Posh White Girl Feminist that’s almost cookie cutter.

she lectures into the camera, takes selfies, co-opts messages from other demographics, ignores the way unearned privilege is the reason she has a soapbox at all, spews the same, clichéd, reductive “empowering” soundbites while yelling into the camera because she’s so quirky and silly. She always has a way of sort of lecturing people and doling out advice despite having had no real life experience or having had to really ever graft at anything. Talks about body positivity but almost always has a traditionally acceptable body type.
Does a sad face into the camera or has a moan now and again because to her privileged, out of touch self, this is what being relatable means to them, and having a bad day feeling a bit sad is the closest they’ll get to some struggle in their lives.

Thinks “I’m so excited about the woman I’m yet to become” or “they taught us to fear witches but not the people who burned them” is profound and meaningful philosophic thought.

 

[MotherInferior43]

That rant she did yesterday was the final straw for me. As someone who has struggled with my weight all my life to see someone who has never had a weight problem moan about their body its insulting. As a larger person, to see someone who is a, what size 10? Complain about their body what hope is there for a size 20 person. It’s infuriating that people like Em jump on the BoPo train to be relevant but they have no idea. I bet she’s never struggled to find nice clothes or always been overlooked by men for being too big. I get that it’s all relative and it’s about how you feel about your body but fuck off woman, you rant for the sake of it

 

[hadtosayit88]

She is a massive part of the problem she keeps moaning about. Every day she posts videos/photos of her exercising. I don’t care if it’s supposedly nothing to do with weight loss, it absolutely comes across as her being desperate to change her body. That coupled with pictures of her breathing in for dear life (sunbathing photo, recent bikini pics) says that she wants to lose weight or appear thinner too. She’s also completely missing the part where she’s a size 12/14 at most - slim and straight sized. All this ‘I don’t owe anyone thinness, I can take up space’ - mate you are thin.

 

[HinchesSousChef]

People who take photos of themselves looking sick and sad. No thanks.

 

[lilchicken]

I am really not meaning to be offensive here. I couldn't care less about whether someone gains/loses weight, particularly in pregnancy. But in a story today she is talking about her 'baby weight'. I am struggling to understand how this makes sense when she made HG her whole personality for her entire pregnancy...?

who the hell knows at this point, I personally take everything Em says with a huge, huge pinch of salt.

the Clarkson fan are multi generational grifters. her grandmother, Shirley Clarkson, started making Paddington bear toys following the success of the book. Michael Bond released the first Paddington book in 1958. A few years later, the Clarkson’s were selling Paddington bear toys despite never having asked permission, nor having sought any sort of green light from Michael Bond - the actual owner to the copyright of Paddington.

luckily for them, Michael bond was pretty chill guy and they were able to win him around in an elevator pitch, after he began legal proceedings against him. I read it as two huge grifters winning round a fairly laid back and easy going guy. He ended up giving them the licence.

The clarksons since rewrote the story slightly and made it seem like they simply pitched the idea to him and he embraced it. That these were toys Shirley started creating in the 70s for Jeremy and his sibling. In reality, they’d started taking the piss but managed to win him over. As Michael Bond himself said - they pretended it was all a mistake.

so Jeremy’s working class parents were able to become wealthy from their con, and send Jeremy to Repton. A friend of mine’s father was good friends with Jeremy Clarkson at Repton. He was bullied there (which Jeremy himself has been fairly open about), possibly because he didn’t quite fit in, being from a working class home. He didn’t do well at school as a result and carried a big chip in his shoulder about it. My friend’s dad even attended Jeremy’s first wedding - but they grew apart when Jeremy started getting TV gigs and became really arrogant and obnoxious. His persona isn’t a persona allegedly - that’s the real him. Like his parents, he’s adept at controlling the narrative. He bought his farm as a tax break, which is gross and exploitive. But somehow managed to spin it as a TV programme which made it seem like it was a charitable endeavour to highlight the plight of farmers. I guarantee that if farmers weren’t having to compete with wealthy landowners (most of them have multigenerational leases and don’t own the land they work on), they’d probably be in a much better position. But somehow Clarkson spun it as doing soooooo much for the farming community. He did it to line his own pockets.

I see Em as simply the most recent generation in a series of people who absolutely love money and are willing to lie, cheat, steamroll and charm their way into getting it. She’s absolutely the last person IMO, anyone should be going to for advice or recommendations on anything.

 

[andwhataboutit?]

Sorry, how out of touch are you if you think this is something that needs to be normalised? I laughed out loud at this

 

[MummyPanda]

So she's finished her podcast. What's her "job" now then?

Professional whiner.

I unfollowed her a few months ago and it’s been so good not hear her getting on her soapbox at every mild social injustice.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

I would love a job reading Tattle. I definitely have the relevant experience. I wonder how I apply?

 

[hadtosayit88]

Helps that she doesn’t actually have a real job, so doesn’t have ‘get through the day’ like a lot of working parents with young children who wake during the night. An hour or two recording a podcast where she doesn’t have to be out the door at the crack of dawn, followed by the rest of the day doing whatever she likes, isn’t relatable. Wish she’d just own the fact that she can sleep off the bad nights if she wants to.

 

[Scubasf]

I love Em, I really do. She doesn’t general irritate me even though she’s clearly privileged. And I’m very happy to see her news.

But. HG? Seriously? She ran a fucking marathon and did all that training during the early stages of pregnancy. She did a tour. She’s been here, there and bloody everywhere. I remain deeply unconvinced that she had HG! I didn’t even have that but the nausea I had when pregnant was so debilitating that I spent 4 months lying still barely able to move my head without retching. There is no way I could have even run 10 steps or gone out anywhere because every single smell set it off, or stayed awake after 7pm.

 

[smirkingrevenge]

So I went and checked how much the classes she does cost and it’s £37,5 / class. It goes down if you book in bulk but still. 5 classes are still £175. I know prices skyrocketed and all but she spends more on working out/running/gym classes/physio than most people’s whole disposable income / month. She absolutely does not acknowledge the privilege she has. Or how unrealistic it is for most women with 2 small children to do multiple workouts in a gym / week. And she isn’t using her platform to change anything or actively try to help women, despite claiming to be a feminist… she just has massive rants and meltdowns but 0 followup or action.

 

[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.

 

[MummyPanda]

I mean she gets enough exercise by jumping on and preaching from her soap box at every opportunity or tiny injustice. It must be so tiring.

 

[BeauJD]

Her and Alex are such pick me girls - don’t tell me I’m skinny and pretty … but also do.

 

[andwhataboutit?]

Every post is either an ad or showing her exercising. Don’t care what she says on SM or her podcast, she is desperate to lose her baby weight and get fit/slimmer again. No shame in that, just don’t try to pretend you’re exercising because you love it/miss it.

Isn’t it interesting that she interviewed Stephanie Yeboah on her pod about diet culture who literally said how body positivity movement was hijacked by thin white women who just did it for profit becayse it’s what sells… and Em sat there, listened, and continued to pretend she’s all for body positivity while making money off that meanwhile she counts steps speed walking through London, next day goes to Pilates, day after day- gym class, what is it today, peloton?? Girly please leave the lies about being body positive, you cannot wait to lose weight, stop pretending.
ALSO! As a mum of 2, it is absolutely ok to want you “old” body back! It’s the hypocrisy that I have an issue with.