Possibly, the maddest thing I have read in many a long year, and quite a few short ones, too, is this one on ITV’s website about the tragic separation of ‘media influencer’ Molly-Mae Hague and Tyson Fury’s younger brother Tommy. “Everyone,” adds ITV’s unnamed hack, “is talking about it.” Everyone?
I have heard of Fury, who is a modestly talented protagonist of the sweet science of hitting someone else in the head, but Ms Hague? No. She’s a mystery to me, although ITV helpfully informs me that she was on Love Island, which I fear is not targeted at my demographic. She is also the ‘creative director’ of Pretty Little Thing, another brand I am inexplicably unfamiliar with, runs a self-tanning range of products and has been sponsored by Starbucks. I know what the word ‘influencer’ means, but I am at a loss to understand what and who she is influencing. If you think I have adopted the attitudes of a geriatric buffoon who barely knows what day it is, I fear you may be right. Look at these stats from the ITV article:
“On Instagram alone Hague boasts 8 million followers, as well as a further 3.6 million on TikTok and 1.86 million subscribers on YouTube where she uploads vlogs about her family’s life. The term “Molly-Mae Effect” has had more than 35 million related posts on TikTok.”
Sometimes, it feels good to be old.
Not knowing what an influencer actually is – at a guess, maybe they influence people to buy their self-tanning products or coffee? – I carried out more in-depth investigations and found that Molly-Mae Hague is Britain’s 11th most popular influencer, a list topped, incidentally, by the alleged comedian Rob Beckett, closed followed by Joe Wicks and, less amusingly, the thuggish misogynist Andrew Tate. Also in the list are PewDiePie, Mr Beast and KSI which, as Midge Ure so aptly put it, “this means nothing to me.”
Nick Ede (no, nor me) is, apparently, a media expert and describes Mr Fury and Ms Hague as a “power couple”, rather like the Beckhams, apparently. So, let’s call this for what it is: hype and bullshit.
ITV describes “their shock break-up is likely to go down as one of the biggest pop culture moments of the year”, whatever that is supposed to mean, but what does it say about modern day Britain that this is even news at all? If Mr Fury is a modestly talented boxer, then how do we describe Ms Hague? What, beyond being an ‘influencer’ does she have to offer?
I am always reminded of the late musician David Crosby when he talked about Kanye West: “He can’t write, sing, or play at all. He is an egomaniac, he is dumb as a post, he creates nothing, helps no one,” adding that he was also “an idiot and a poser … has no talent at all”. I do not know enough about Molly-Mae’s all round talents and for all I know she may well have more skills and ability than Kanye himself, admittedly a very low bar. They’ve been hidden well so far.
And good luck to Molly-Mae and Tommy. It seems to this grumpy old man that they are both making fortunes on the back of mediocrity and that in itself is the work of genius. Unfortunately, I fear, it says much about the country that embraces and enriches the untalented. If that’s progress, I’m a banana.
