Although it feels like an eternity, we’ve only been locked down for a matter of weeks – asked to do absolutely nothing except stay away from other people. And yet, we’ve still managed to cultivate a whole host of brand new completely intolerable comportments.
Celebrities making ham-fisted attempts to relate, parents baying to be crowned Most Accomplished Homeschooler or anyone wanting plaudits for their altruism, the goings-on since we all moved inside prove that as a species humans are the worst.
Maria Von Trapp Syndrome
Lockdown was made for competitive parents. The timetables, the immaculate workspace, the no-TV pledges, the phonics cards, the playdough, the egg blowing, the times tables games, the sculpture, the virtual museum tours, the long division, the shadow puppets, the pipe cleaners, the (sugar free) cake baking, the book binding, the poetry recitals, the long division.
The easy accomplishment of all of these are breathily transmitted onto Instagram by the type of parents who look like they were once part of The Kooples advertising campaign but now live in Stoke Newington where they just finished project managing the installation of a side return the size of Wookey Hole.
“Now is not the time for perfect parenting,” they purr, as their children master joined up writing/coding/Mandarin/meringue mixture in the background. “It’s just about survival.”
Their ‘survival’ is a standard that most parents – wild of hair and foul of breath in fusty dressing gowns, serving three meals of beige matter per day and blithely handing the TV remote to their children at 7am so they can attempt to salvage what remains of their careers in relative peace – would consider a zenith. And they know it.
Poor Houseparty Etiquette
It’s hard to believe that one can experience FOMO during a global crisis where there is a government mandate demanding that we all stay in our homes but Houseparty and other such apps ensure that you can still get a regular fix of acute social anxiety from the sagging mass of your own sofa.
Who is in The House? Shall I wave? Why haven’t they waved at me if we’re both in The House? Who are they waving at? Why they in that locked room? Who else is in there? Shall I lock the door on my own room to add an air of mystery even though it’s just me in here?
Then, how to be available in The House but also invisible to all the people you have been avoiding for years? Also, why are we doing this? Why do we need to be talking heads with people more than before? And why can’t we just talk ear-to-ear? I hate seeing my egg-with-hair head and find I can’t look at anything else. Also, some people definitely do full make up and have erected a lighting rig so they look devastatingly beautiful for Houseparty. That’s irritating.
The pressure to Houseparty is relentless.
“Can we just do ear?” I say to friends, on the normal phone.
“But it would be quite nice to have a bit of a party though?”
“Yes it would,” I say. “But absolutely nothing about 23 people bellowing over one another on a screen is the kind of party I need. Let’s not shoot our party load like this – let’s wait until we are free and have an actual human party.”
But no one is convinced and we continue to drink face to multiple face, everyone in slight crisis over who gets to hold and conch and for how long? How does one know when to speak, or when to stop speaking? At least one person has poor internet, someone else mutes themselves but doesn’t realise, the sound crackles.
But the worst part of it is when people screenshot their house party – beaming faces, wine glasses, backdrops of plants and paintings and obscure ornaments and bookshelves – and then post it to Instagram. Because if you were involved in a thigh-slapping party with loads of super fun friends and you don’t broadcast it on every social media platform, did it even happen?
Volunteering Mentionistis
If lockdown reinforced anything, it’s that seemly only a very, very rare beast can perform a totally altruistic, good and generous deed and simply not mention it to anyone.
I’m not talking about fundraising efforts that rely on social media to gain traction and support. There are some brilliant initiatives such as the Artists Support Pledge or the Run 5 Donate 5 Nominate 5 Challenge - and there’s no better way to spread the word than online.
I’m talking about the relentless referencing – verbal, pictorial, written – of everyone’s volunteering efforts. Giving - time, money or skills - is a beautiful thing, but it is tarnished somewhat by the accompanying need so many of us have to be congratulated for it.
From soup kitchen selfies to humblebrags about burst shopping bag fails while out delivering pasta to the elderly: we just cannot resist seeking attention and praise for doing what is essentially the only right thing to do.
Is discreet humility too much to ask for? Seems so.
Misery Volleyball
“I feel really, really alone right now,” says a single friend.
“Huh – I’d love to feel alone. I’d love to feel anything at all but I can’t because I don’t have time. I am so stressed. I’m exhausted,” I say.
“Well at least you don’t have the mental space to ruminate on stuff. Like, when am I going to hug another human being again?” says my pal.
“Careful what you wish for! This morning I couldn’t even take a shit without a child demanding to sit on my knee,” I huff.
“Well I find it really hard when people post pictures of their families or other halves together during lockdown – at least you all have each other,” says my friend.
“Well I find it really hard that you post midday selfies in £500 silk pyjamas and you’re reading a book a day and do your job uninterrupted and get paid for it and can make macaroons from scratch if you feel like it.”
“It’s just a long time to be on my own, that’s all,” says my friend in a small voice.
“Well it’s a long time to be without childcare,” I roar. “I’m staring down the barrel of six months of this horseshit.”
“It is your child…” snaps my friend.
“Yes but I feel like I am losing my identity… Am I a nanny? Am I Mary Poppins? Is it ok that I have been forced to feel like Miss Hannigan?”
“I know exactly what you mean, I think I am fixating on my identity and reducing it just to being single, you know?”
And on it goes forever and ever and ever – this misery volleying, this unseemly competition about who is having a crapper time; both sides certain they are worse off and neither willing to accept that their trash is the other’s treasure.
Right at the very end of 40 minutes of moaning and whining one of us will say “are you going out the cheer for the NHS at 8?” and shame will silence us – for a day or so.
Exceptional Exceptionalism
Nothing sums this up better than England footballer Kyle Walker who urged his Twitter followers to #stayhome “protect the NHS and save lives” having, not 24 hours prior, hosted a sex party at his Cheshire abode with two hookers whom he paid £2,200 before sending them packing. How’s that for social distancing?
Hypocrisy and exceptionalism are not rare traits – and almost everyone is guilty of either or both to some extent. I simply don’t have the intellect to unpack this with any sort of eloquence or clarity but this piece by Alison Hills – a philosophy fellow at University of Oxford - brilliantly explains the conflict between individual choice and common good.
Celebrities trying to relate
As her extremely dewy face hove into view and she began to coo into the camera about super powers and isolation from the comfort of what is presumably a private residence the size of Versailles no doubt fully serviced by staff, it was hard not to feel irked by Gal Gadot.
The Wonder Woman star said she had been feeling “philosophical” and was inspired by Italians making music on their balconies to entertain one another while quarantined with Covid-19.
And then the singing started. Some 20 or so celebrities earnestly performed an acapella montage of John Lennon’s Imagine in oversized loungewear.
It takes a certain type of egomaniac to think that, when the world finds itself in freefall they can provide the global population an aural salve by launching into song – especially a song which urges the public to imagine no possessions as their livelihoods hang in the balance.
The entire thing was tone deaf in every way – and some of them (Kristen Wiig) should have known better. Zoe Kravitz at least had the decency to look ashamed of herself. Cara Delevigne WASN’T EVEN SELF ISOLATING! She was having some kind of sorority party with Cindy Crawford’s daughter. (There is also something unsavoury about Gadot calling this bunch of some 20 plus celebrities her “Dear friends”. There’s more than a whiff of luvvie exclusivity about it that is totally surplus to requirement right now.)
Someone on Twitter wrote that the video was clearly a direct result of people’s publicists being ill or in self-isolation – that is the only explanation for something so ill-conceived.
Why do famous people seem to salivate over any opportunity to practise humanitarianism from on high? Why are they so convinced that all us plebs are going to be weepingly grateful for their glossy, emo content? Why do they think that - in a world where people have been physically fighting over loo paper in barren supermarket aisles and doctors don’t have adequate clothing to wear while treating sick patients and jobs and minds are being lost on a daily basis - their #mindful private estate mashups are going to be a welcome salvation? They are literally singing from an entirely different hymn sheet to the rest of the world.
It is, of course, a disastrous time to be a celebrity – their thunder stolen by a grizzly virus which not only sucks up column inches but has brought into sharp focus all the people that really matter – all those we have underpaid and disrespected while mooning after beautiful egomaniacs, and inflating their bank balances to boot.
However, despite the Imagine effort going down like a shit sandwich, an intrepid handful of famous people weren’t going to give up the limelight with anything approaching dignity.
We then had Madonna submerged in a bath of rose petals advising us that Coronavirus is “the great equaliser”. We had David Geffen reminding us to stay safe from the deck of his yacht, currently moored in the Caribbean.
And then, in extraordinary scenes, we had the cast of Contagion - Kate Winslet, Matt Damon and Laurence Fishburn - acting as conduits between us and Columbia University in explaining how to best wash our hands. This does not say much for how we are perceived as a species if it is generally accepted that we think actors who play pandemic experts are pandemic experts.
Celebrities have been lulled into a false sense of security that we want more from them than just looking pretty, singing or acting. We did this by liking all their insipid inspirational quotes and writing “PREACH” underneath their political musings and generally shoring up their belief that they were philosophers, academics and activists.
But it turns out that a crisis of this scale will reveal what we really want from our celebrities. And it isn’t self-aggrandising performance platitudes or Norah Jones and Labyrinth joining forces to warble about the possibility of a world in which there is no need for greed and hunger. There is nothing less palatable than when celebrities try to be relatable and reach out to the little people, offering us a flake of their gilded concern and solidarity.
We want celebrities to shut up and get their wallets out – something class acts like Rihanna have managed to do with almost no fanfare.
