Sali Hughes #21 A Sali by any other name would smell as sweet with pretty bitter topnotes

[Dillydally]

So, I discovered Sali through her ITB series on YouTube and decided to follow her on Instagram. It was refreshing to follow someone who seemed a little outside of the influencer bubble. Then I saw her Insta story about this new documentary about "dragging sites" and found my way over to here. Like so many others, I expected to see vitriol and hate, but have instead found predominantly constructive criticism and sociopolitical discussion. The fact that this woman is using her privilege, position and power to bully, gaslight and stifle debate is horrifying. Needless to say, if she hasn't been talking about this site and calling wolf, I would never have known she was on here and I would never have seen screenshots of her ugly tweets (I'm not even on Twitter). What disturbs me aren't people making flippant jokes about her husband being a nanny, it's the words and accusations that she herself is posting. Seeing them in relation to the actual posts here, they are downright hyperbolic.

Although these sites are not without their issues, they are often the only safe place viewers and consumers have to discuss shady business practices. I actually found them for the first time when trying to ascertain whether an influencer was sponsored by a company...I'd made a purchase based on their recommendation and could not understand why the product was so bad. (Side note - this, Sali, is why it isn't crazy for viewers to wonder about your relationship with brands; it's not to defame you but to ask a genuine question in the context of a very dishonest industry. A simple clarification would suffice for readers here.)

What Sali is experiencing isn't anything new. We have had these discussions since the dawning of celebrity culture, and such discussions escalated yesrs ago with the advent of reality TV: what happens to human beings when their lives and personalities are commodified? What does it do to their psychology given that such commodification opens their very lives up to scrutiny? How is their psychology affected when they receive outpourings of adoration in conjunction with criticism? Moreover, what are the implications for our political systems where representatives are also treated in the same vain? How are people to participate without going crazy? (The example of Dianne Abbott comes to mind once again.) Now, that's a documentary I would watch.

 

[Doobots]

My feeling (and I'm repeating myself from earlier threads so apologies for being a broken record) is that if we were men talking about footballers in the same way, no one would give a shit. This is only an issue as it's women discussing another woman negatively. Which is unsisterly and mean. Whereas slagging off Andy Carroll's performance on Saturday is just dissecting the stuff you're interested in.

Us ladies should know our place and that's to buy all the products we're told to, to look pretty and shut up if any of them don't meet our expectations.

 

[GTL Old-Timer]

I’m disgusted that she chose to interview someone like Jess Philips rather than Diane Abbot because the latter has been subjected to the vilest abuse both from inside and outside the Labour Party, including from Jess Philips herself. I’m pretty sure that I saw a stat in one of the stories of the historian Kate Williams a short while ago that showed Abbot has been subjected to more abuse than all female MPs combined.

But exercising such a degree of intellectual rigour in her research also involves the capacity to empathise with people who don’t look like her - not subjecting Abbot to and laughing at misogynoir jokes at Abbot’s expense.

This is peak #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen

 

[Jade Mitzi]

I truly feel with her Level 11 drama over Tattle, which is basically people mocking her and her choices, her questionable #Ad declarations etc, she does a MASSIVE disservice to people suffering genuine horrific abuse.

Prime example, Diane Abbott, an elected public figure who has received death threats, rape threats, you name it - she has had it in bucketloads. Is Sali truly putting herself, someone who has made a living writing about her personal life (husband, family, kids, friends, sex life etc), in the same category as someone like Diane?

 

[Yel]

It's all a bit pathetic for Sali. The only media attention she gained was articles in the echo chambers of the bbc and guardian.

Not much blue ticker support this time. They were en mass quick to defend her last time before they could have checked anything out. Maybe now they've seen things and know she's pretty dishonest?

The only social media influencers supporting her were Katie hayes and Lydia millen, who are equally dreadful (they've got threads). These are the kind of people that Sali and her chums would be pilling onto for laughs or to steal their work if there wasn't tattle making her accountable.

I do agree with Sali that "it's a ticking time bomb", but because there's so much of her behaviour logged here that at any time a journalist could pick it up.

Imagine commenting about someones parenting and causing a mob to attack them . That's what we low lives do, not respected journalists with a large platform..

 

[Aude]

Insofar as I can recognise any of the examples she gives of ‘false allegations’ they seem to be, as always, a gross misrepresentation of what was said here – a tiny speck of substance taken out of context and exaggerated out of recognition.

For example, the allegation ‘…your marriage simply a means of acquiring a free nanny’. All there is here* is, first, a comment in December 2018 responding to SH’s Twitter criticism of an article by Esther Coren during which SH said ’I feel hugely sorry for these kids on the basis of what both parents have written about them’.

There were a number of comments here about that including:

‘This is yet another influencer cat fight made public ( of course ) by encouraging the sheep to take down the oppostion. SH will use her pool platform to further inflame and humble brag as always. In tyical smug SH style. EC has the bigger house, plus the better looking and far more successful husband. SH husband is a rather podgy nonentitiy, though a useful nanny I expect.’

The comment received one ‘like’ and no response from other posters.

Then in June 2019, SH retweeted a tweet by her husband which showed the cover of a cookery book alongside the cover of one of SH’s books, with the comment: ‘I’d love to know where the idea and design aesthetic for this kitchenalia book came from but can’t for the life of me work it out.’

There were a few posts here noting that the covers weren’t very alike and commenting ‘what a strange fight to pick’. The poster who had posted that comment above about EC having a more successful husband now commented:

‘The latest and very petty *kitchenali* insult from her unheard of comedy writer ( see unemployed ) spouse shows how low she can go.’

There was an immediate reply:

‘I do agree that the tweet was petty, but [name of SH’s husband] is hardly an unheard of comedy writer.’

The OP replied:

‘Hi, happy to be wrong. But honestly, I have never seen or read anything by [name] besides some work with [name] and the odd bits through Sali's sources like the pool/ soho radio. I suppose I'm comparing him to tv comedians which isn't the same. What is he famous for?’

To which the reply was:

‘He writes for [names] and does a fair amount of stuff with [name]. He’s definitely not a TV comedian, but he’s been around on the comedy scene for ages.’

To which the OP replied:

‘Ok. Thank you for replying. I've never heard of any of those people either. Anyway pleased the he isn't just the free nanny I thought he was [blushing face]'

So, yes, one poster - one single person - once made a sort of jokey comment about her husband being a 'free nanny' and one person ‘liked’ it. And then even the original poster retracted it!

How can that reasonably be considered a 'false allegation'?

I’d also note that the two occasions the ‘nanny’ comment was made were in the context of SH being unkind about other people to a far greater audience on Twitter. The context for the first was her comments about Esther Coren; the second was SH retweeting her husband’s implied allegation that her cover design had been plagiarised by someone else.

Again insofar as I can recognise anything, it dates back well over a year, to before her IG video. As we say in the Wiki, although her video gave a grossly misleading account of the content here, since then we have been careful to avoid making any comments at all about her family.

I do not doubt that online trolling does great harm to its victims – and if that was her campaign I’d be backing it – but these threads are not what she says they are.


*I assume she’s referring to here although she doesn’t name the site.

 

[Skiddidlydaddle]

Why would Becky be worried about being found out by people here? She makes it sound like it's a scary bullying place.

Wait, what? So she is suggesting that we know Becky's address and IP details and would ask our media friends to send round their paedophile husbands? Come on, Sali. You're getting your stories mixed up. That's not us. That's you.

 

[Corbyn'sCat]

She's such a snidey person as well. The bit where she says "yes well EXPERTS have looked at the stuff they write and they told me what it says about them rather than the victims"

Whatever. I expect she wants people to think that the experts said that everyone on here is a sad, friendless spinster driven mad by loneliness and how very ugly they are both in their appearance and their SOULS. What a load of bollocks. If she wants to believe that we are all pitiful creatures to make herself feel better, she can do. I can only speak for myself when I say that I have a nice life. I have friends, nice, loyal, funny friends. My home is nice and I like my job. I don't think that I sour milk with my appalling looks, either. I just happen to have an intolerance for bullshit and hypocrisy and I don't mind calling it out when I see it. I stand by everything I've ever said. I'm not confrontational enough to go and point out her inconsistencies on Instagram or Twitter bc I do believe that to be trolling.

I've long maintained that this is the internet equivalent of a group of mates in the corner of a pub discussing stuff. You can't police what people talk about unless you are being defamed (which I don't think is the case here?) What she's asking for is a blanket ban on discussing her unless it's flattering. What planet?!

 

[Raindropsonkittens]

I think that article is a typical Sali humble-brag: “I’m so TINY people were AMAZED at my PROWESS in GLAM DESIGNER heels, but now I’m LEADING the charge in embracing COOL flats - I’m keeping it REAL for the sisterhood - GO ME (spon Grensons).”
No analysis. No research. No insight into other women’s lives. Just our Sal chuffing on about our Sal.

 

[Mazerati]

I'll raise my hand and say that whilst some of you enjoy dressing up and putting on a face and find it relaxing, I never did. I never paid attention to what I wore or how to play with colour and light on my face. I found it all too complicated and still do to a certain extent. I freely admit that I am performing my femininity and have grown up in a world where I've been objectified by society, by men, by women, whether they know it or not, whether I know it or not. I'm not buying the nuface and using it every night because of the meditative ritual. I'm not googling the cost of fillers because I enjoy it. Sure some rituals can become meditative for me, but I do these things because my face and body are changing and I don't like it. And because we still live in a society that tells us that youth and beauty are more valued than the character, soul, creativity and knowledge of women. That we women still exist in a world to cater to and catered for the patriarchy. A capitalist patriarchy (fillers and skin care is NOT affordable to all). And I do all this knowing this and simultaneously trying to fight it both within me and out there in the world. It ain't easy.

 

[Yel]

@Yel, have you or any of the other mods or people who run the site been approached by the BBC regarding the programme for comment or anything?

Someone did contact admin, we were discussing it in the mods forum last week. I think they made it pretty clear was their objective was (no it won't be balanced) and all the mods agreed the standard media copy and paste with tattle's rules and policies was all it deserved.

It was asking for a response for statements from "experts" that said the site has messages that are a hate crime, harassment and cause emotional distress.

Along with the good old fantasist stuff; influencers say that:

• Moderators create accounts when threads go quiet to revive them (bullshit from ptwm the Paypal scammer, as if we need to )
• Admin claims that messages are never deleted (that never happened, of course things are deleted on a moderated forum )
• Messages of support are deleted (see my post on the previous page for examples, people trolling / disrupting are deleted as they would be on any forum).

If I had to make a prediction I think they'll talk to a psychologist who'll say people here don't have much social interaction in real life and instead post vitriol here to vent their frustration in real life to get a dopamine hit on an anonymous forum . Then talk to a legal "expert" who'll talk about the new online harm that acts to protect people from "trolls". Then if they're being really really distasteful they'll interview the parents of a teenager that tragically ended their own life through abuse sent, even though that's nothing to do with commentary on public figures that choose to pursue a business that involves oversharing their private life.

It's a shame as there are so many interesting things to explore around influencer culture. But I highly doubt this will cover it and instead amalgamate people discussing a public figure who publically overshares their life to hundreds of thousands with a teenager being harassed and sent abuse.

If radio 4 and their huge budget can't do something well researched and balanced who will?

Influencers really don't realise how much they've benefited from the lack of regulation. They're the first to call for more rules but are blissfully unaware that more rules and regulation are more likely to disadvantage them.

Gossip on public figures has been a thing before paper was invented. If someone turns their private life into a commodity to make money they can't expect to only have praise. "what people think of me is none of my business" and "don't read the comments" springs to mind.

You'd be surprised the number of people that think they can just request for a tattle thread about them to be deleted, there's a real lack of understanding that once you become a public figure you can no longer control the narrative. Tattle's law seeks to address this by educating people on the downsides of fame and creating a professional influencer agency to make influencers accountable for when they break the rules - https://limegoss.com/tattles-law/

It would be an interesting conversation on the moral maze - how do you weigh up peoples freedom of speech to discuss a business when that business is a social media influencer who sells their private life and is effectively turning this so called private life into a commodity? Hopfully the real conversations about this world will start to be had soon.

Edit: Ha my post is already out of date

How many times is Sali going to talk about "My child’s teacher read how I would sell my kids for money." It was one post that was clearly figure of speach

And Katie heyes is a known liar always making up stuff for attention. Last week she made up that her phone number and address has been posted here.

Kate Hayes #33 Meryl has a heart of gold Tattlers are completely sold

@Quarrantinemadness you won by default because the other one was too long!!! Sorry @Violetx That was a DRAMA please post vital info for new members girls! Background for any new members.. 1. Editing photos so much that she is unrecognisable in real life 2. Using someone else’s scan photos...

tattle.life

 

[Skiddidlydaddle]

No mention of previous sustained Twitter bullying campaigns of Dawn O'Porter or Lauren Luke. Pile ons of Esther Walker and others. Incredible how the 6th form nasty girl can turn on the innocent victim stance like this. If I read this article blind I would also be outraged for her (and deeply curious to read the threads).

 

[Tesla's Ghost]

Prime example, Diane Abbott, an elected public figure who has received death threats, rape threats, you name it - she has had it in bucketloads. Is Sali truly putting herself, someone who has made a living writing about her personal life (husband, family, kids, friends, sex life etc), in the same category as someone like Diane?

This kind of abuse?

 

[under the ivy]

If I wanted to witness someone over egging the pudding I’d watch Bake Off.

 

[Hereforthefacts]

She could honestly just accept the fact that a group of people have a bitch about her (and sometimes don’t) and leave it at that. That is not what Michael Hogan has just described on Twitter as having an Unimaginably Horrific Time.

Or, she could just accept the fact that she is an influencer, and not a journalist because personally I believe this is the root of the problem for Sali

 

[SqualorVictoria]

The part where she mentioned her sons teacher- well Sali, your sons teacher can also read about stuff you have written and put into the public domain yourself. Such as your maintenance shagging.

And while I'm on teachers, you once referenced a PE teacher your son disliked in an article in the Pool. The teacher had no right of reply and unlike an influencers career that relies on clickbait, he could have had his reputation compromised by your writings.

I truly feel with her Level 11 drama over Tattle, which is basically people mocking her and her choices, her questionable #Ad declarations etc, she does a MASSIVE disservice to people suffering genuine horrific abuse.

Prime example, Diane Abbott, an elected public figure who has received death threats, rape threats, you name it - she has had it in bucketloads. Is Sali truly putting herself, someone who has made a living writing about her personal life (husband, family, kids, friends, sex life etc), in the same category as someone like Diane?

Yes she really really is putting herself in that category. Mind blowing

 

[Cherry Chapstick]

As Yel says, people are becoming aware of the 'tricks' of the influencer trade and that can only be a good thing. Part of the reason I am here is because at the university I work at, many students choose to study different aspects of social media. Recently that has increasingly focused on the role of the influencer as a trusted friend online, and the many problems that entails.

As I am old(er) many of the people my students mention were unfamiliar to me, however Sali is someone I knew of and could relate to (like many here I've read her column for years, bought her books). It's the psychology of it all I find fascinating. I am not a hater, I just feel manipulated, and I welcome a space to share that experience with others. These threads are honest, funny, interesting, diverse and inclusive - everything a good beauty column should be.

 

[Whiskers]

Yes the trolling of the woman whose father had COVID was awful. Now that is despicable and everyone on this thread would condemn it.

Equally Jess Phillips case is truly scary and the kind of thing that puts women off going into politics and therefore actually affects our democracy! We need more female MPs!

But they are not the same as someone asking why aren’t you being honest about having Botox when you are using your face to sell beauty products.

 

[Originalnuttah]

The whole shitshow of a spectacle that this has turned into is a new low for SH. In the view of people currently dealing with Actual Problems- the COVID victims, the cancer patients having missed vital appts and treatment, the people laid off work and those trying to juggle work/childcare/caring duties in the middle of a pandemic, SH comes across as a self-absorbed woman who has completely lost touch with the reality of the life most people are having to deal with day-in-day-out.
Disappointed with the bbc for not fact checking the stuff they are broadcasting. I also want to know if there is a legal reason why Tattle’s name was not explicitly mentioned, or was it mentioned on the radio?

 

[Dunstonwrecksin]

Has anyone seen the interview she did with Liz Earle? She said the trolls were teachers and nurses and one worked for an adoption agency. Does she not realise that sounds super stalkery?



Also she's still peddling the whole they spoke about my MARRIAGE and my KIDS and my PARENTS. I've read every single post on every single thread and didn't find anything remotely close to what she's implying. Also: the people helping her with her documentary must have rubbish researchers and fact checkers because a cursory glance through the threads would have proved it's mostly annoyance at her claiming to be honest and unashamed about treatments and then not disclosing what she's had done. Whilst shilling anti aging creams.
She's also said people get blocked and their comments are deleted if they say anything positive about her. What? People on here are always talking about how pretty she is, the few harsh comments are rebuked. Who is relaying this stuff to her??
Honestly, I think she's jumped on the trolling bandwagon to revive her career because there's only so many times you can write about the following things/recycle writing until it gets tired:

-autumn and loving thick tights
-Satisfying clicks on lipstick cases
-Beauty counter staff
-Maintenance shags
-And running away from home at 14/15