I come from a family with no history of going to university. I went to my Cambridge interview assuming I wouldn’t get in and was grateful when I did. Imagine growing up thinking Oxbridge is your birthright.
Furthermore imagine saying, “Well, I didn’t even apply because it isn’t as easy to get in now as it was in daddy’s day…” Well, you didn’t want it then did you? You just wanted to feel ‘elite’ without effort.
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The “Substack is a scam” discourse is dumb as rocks. Is it shit that some of the writers it has given advances to have appalling politics? No doubt. But I’m there making a proportion of my living from it not because they tricked me with stars but because it works for me, for now.
“Substack scam” is pleasingly alliterative but if you read the main piece getting shared around you’ll see it’s shaky logic at best wrapped in some catchy subheads.
Platforms in a capitalistic system are almost always parasitic. They are never apolitical and they are never free of ethical issues. Substack didn’t fool me into using it and when it stops working for me, I’ll go somewhere else.
The moment where Harry tells Oprah that his family are scared of the tabloids and know that they *have* to play the game is the one that has most stoked that media rage. You’re not supposed to say out loud how the trick is done.
The tabloids run as a protection racket for the royals as much as other celebrities. You smile for them, you praise their ‘campaigns’, you give them interviews, access and tidbits of information and they deign to give you ‘nice’ coverage.
Consider how William and Kate let pictures of their children appear in calendars given away with The Daily Mail. And how tabloids in turn damp down the more spicy rumours about Wills in return.