I do not pretend that I am in touch with the modern world these days. In fact, I don’t think I was in touch with the modern world when I was much younger and perhaps should have been. No matter. One thing I will never understand is the public’s obsession with celebrities who appear to have little or no talent. One celebrity in the news this week is Katie Price who, as you will see from the header to this blog, has been banned from driving for the seventh time.
Price, or Katrina Amy Alexandra Alexis Infield as she isn’t known, but was, is described by Wikipedia, so it must be true, as follows: “(Kate is) is an English media personality, model, and author.” It goes on: “Price has released eight autobiographies, eleven novels, one fashion book, and two series of children’s books. In 2023, she began presenting the podcast The Katie Price Show.” I could add, but won’t, that all she actually modelled was her naked body and that all her books were ghostwritten because that would sound petty-minded and jealous. My view, for what it is worth, that despite her obvious lack of talent is good luck to her. If people enjoy reading about her, gawping at pictures of her, reading books she hasn’t written and listening to her podcast, then everyone’s happy, aren’t they? What I absolutely hate is the comments about her on social media. Here’s a selection:
- Her plastic surgeon should also be in prison for that hack job
- Jesus fucken christ, they should have banned her from the butcher who calls themselves a plastic surgeon. What a fucken horror show.
- It’ll really fox archaeologist’s in the future when they dig up a truck load of plastic around her bones!!
- Another brain dead female who has ruined every aspect of her life all by herself. She was once a reasonably decent looking woman( cheap but passable), and now looks as if her face is going to collapse any minute. A perpetual victim.
- Shes using her disabled son as a get out of jail free card. Only reason she parades him over social media.
- I have work boots that are in better shape.
And so it goes. And that’s a fraction of the hate speech Price attracts. I find it quite repulsive, far more so than any kind of work she has had carried out to her face and body.
Frankly, it is none of my business what work Price has done. Cards on the table, I am not a fan of plastic surgery, implants, Botox or any of the other so-called beauty treatments that, in my opinion, people (it’s not just women) are pressured by society’s ways into having done. I don’t think cosmetic surgery makes anyone look more attractive. That’s a very personal thing. I like the lines of age, which in my case is just as well. I do not expect any woman of a certain age to look like a young glamour model anymore than they should expect me to look like, I don’t know, Jason Mamoa. I don’t like what I see in the mirror these days, so that means I am conditioned to society’s expectations, too. I really shouldn’t have to worry, though.
Price came to fame when she was what old folk remember as a Page 3 model in The Sun ‘newspaper’. Every morning, a photograph of a young, bare-breasted woman featured on Page 3 (geddit?) in order to ensure the erectile tissue of testosterone-fuelled men remained fit for purpose. (Well, can you think of another reason for Page 3?) She was known as Jordan at the time and soon had surgery to make her breasts bigger. My own views on the matter are irrelevant and moreover what she had done was her business. Privately, I may have a view but then again, Price doesn’t comment on my appearance so why should I comment on hers?
She is a hugely popular woman. When she came to the local shopping centre a few years ago, many thousands of young women and girls crowded the shopping malls to see her. Personally, I would like to think that she was not a role model for all these women and girls, but that’s a matter for those women, the girls and the girls’ parents and guardians. One way or another, Price has become extremely rich and successful. Who’s the mug?
Mainly, I just can’t abide the hate that surrounds her. What is it about these social media users who write such hideous things about people, including Price? Can they not try to be kinder and gentler? I have tried, and often failed, but keep trying, to be a better and more tolerant person. How hard can it be?
In the end, Katie Price is just another human being, albeit I fear an extremely damaged one, perhaps both physically and mentally. The social media pile-on helps no one. Price’s popularity does baffle me, but clearly her public profile is such that I am part of a minority group and I am content to be so. I just wish people would leave her own and live her own life. She is human, after all.
