Tag: Prince Harry

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Nepo kids, a perfect term by the way, are the children of famous people who, supposedly of their own accord, also obtain a modicum of success in some famous person profession. There is some, not totally unwarranted, suspicion that these kids had a leg up in their climb to success. Well, the Huffington Post recently highlighted the struggles that many of these Nepo kids had when they matured. Many were financially abandoned by their parents and forced to get jobs. You heard that right jobs. Think about it. Just remember to have a hanky near you as the stories of their travails are heart rendering. Just in case you missed the link here it is again — Nepo kids. (Hint, please read the link)

I found myself laughing over this pathetic attempt to make these people stories even remotely like a real person’s struggle. The first story shows how really difficult these kids have it. Dakota Johnson had to ask her mother for money instead of her father after he cut her off financially. That was her big problem. I mean it sounds like Hell, I know. I am not sure how the poor thing survived.

Then there is the story of Jamie Lee Curtis. She was cut out of her father’s will which was pretty shabby if you were a 18 year old girl but she was 52 years old when her father died. I think she had plenty of time to milk her parent’s fame and fortune in her rise to the top. Tori Spelling also had will problems. Her take was only $800,000. What an insult, if I would have been her I wouldn’t even have bothered to collect it.

Then they talk about Prince Harry and this is when I started laughing uncontrollably. They are trying to say that that idiot’s climb to corporate power and a luxury home in one of the poshest, if not the poshest, towns in Southern California is the result of his talent and not that his father is the King of England. I mean isn’t the whole structure of the monarchy based in nepotism? I mean if anyone deserves to be called a Nepo kid, Prince Harry is the definition.

But Kourtney Kardashian gives away the game when she said her Dad told her he would help her find a job. Well, yes, there it is — the leg up. You got a break that a normal person wouldn’t get. Their stories are clearly different to the struggles of less connected and wealthy people. Their complaints are incomprehensible to me.

This points to a bigger problem which is a blindness to what is actually happening to the rest of the world who aren’t as fortunate. It is disheartening and more than a little disingenuous. Some of these people might be genuinely talented and deserve their success. OK. But the world is full of talented people. Most of them don’t have the connections these people have and it matters.

I don’t blame them for using these advantages. I would have used them too if I were in their position. But, a little humility about your good fortune would help. To be helped by your parents is not a terrible thing. People do understand it and most people accept that people will use these connections to get ahead. Just say yeah I did have leg up and put your fucking struggles into perspective before opening your mouth.

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First, I have to confess I know very little about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I am uninterested in them. I don’t read about them. I don’t watch them on television. My knowledge is limited to knowing that Prince Harry is in the British Royal family and Meghan Markle is married to him. Despite all this lack of information about the couple, I have an opinion about them.  I think he is dim and she is a megalomaniac monster.

I never really bothered much about having an opinion about them until a friend and I happened to start talking about them. It was soon after their interview with Oprah Winfrey.  I confess I missed the show. The interesting thing is before I could give my opinion about them, he gave me his impression.  It was very close to mine – Prince Harry is dim and Meghan Markle is a megalomaniac monster. Given my history with the friend, I am fairly certain he had as much interest in the royal family as I have – which is none. Why do two different people who have no interest in Meghan and Harry have exactly the same opinion about them. 

Meghan may be a monster and Harry may be dim. I don’t know.  I have no experience with either of them.  I have no relevant data to determine whether this is true or not. It may be. Or it may be incorrect. What concerns me here is that I have an opinion about people who I could care less about and who I so disinterested in that I haven’t bothered to learn more. 

You may say that they are public figures and their behavior permeates the news. I can buy that.   It could be easy to subconsciously pick up this information without actually trying.  They are in the news regularly.  I am aware of their names. Yet there are hundreds of people in the public eye that I have no opinion about.  Meryl Streep, for example.  I like her acting and I have from time to time read about her. The difference here is I still don’t have a particularly strong opinion about Meryl Streep. I like her acting but I don’t have a definite view about the her as a person. I like her because she is a great actress.  I can’t say if she is a monster, or dim, or bat-shit crazy.  All I know is her abilities which is really all I need to know. But Harry and Meghan I have a definite view of the person I might find. 

It concerns me that I have an opinion about someone with whom I have no interest. This opinion popped into my mind without any effort on my part. It obviously coming from somewhere.  Someone is influencing my opinion without me paying too much attention to who it is and why.  Someone wants me to know that Meghan is a monster and Prince Harry is dim. And I do. I have acquired an opinion without even trying. This is troubling.  

Even more troubling is that powerful people want me to believe certain things about which I am not paying very much attention to. I simply don’t care enough to learn more about the couple. But someone does care and they care deeply enough to try to influence my opinion. They have succeeded in this instance. I believe it to be true and am talking about it with other people as if it were true.  I won’t give it another thought because it seems like a silly irrelevant opinion. Why should I give it a second thought? I am not terribly worried about Meghan and Harry, I am fairly certain they will land on their feet no matter what travails they face.  I am, however, deeply concerned on how effortlessly I have been manipulated into having an opinion about them.