Editorials

Genuine Apology or Just a Formality?

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19 September 2017

By Bronwen

You all remember Hetty Douglas- the girl who took a sneaky picture of a group of scaffolders and put the picture on Instagram with the caption “these guys look like they got 1 GCSE”? Well, she has decided to do the right thing and post an apology/explanation of her actions on her website. It’s worth noting that her website used to be a platform to display some of her ’art’ and now the only content on her site is a piece of text entitled “explanation”. Below, you can find her entire post along with our commentary.

I’m Hetty, and my story starts at McDonald’s. Already, the word “story” makes out as if this whole scenario was something that just happened to her completely out of her own control.

I was on my way to work in central London one morning and ran in to get some breakfast. There was a large group of guys in front of me, and some at the counter, some of who were bantering. No big drama. Quite jarring on an otherwise subdued Monday morning. I should have just let it go, but it hit a nerve so I took a photo of some of the men and posted to my Instagram account with a dig at their intelligence. Why people “bantering” in a queue would “hit a nerve” with anyone so much that they’d post a picture making a “dig at their intelligence” is baffling.

Not nice and not clever and I didn’t really think it through. In the age of social media, the gap between having a thought and broadcasting it to thousands can be a few seconds. Of course, what I did was wrong, particularly because the guys I captured in the photo weren’t the loud ones. Whether or not the people in the photo were the “loud ones” isn’t relevant- you can’t go round taking pictures of anybody with the intention of mocking them to thousands of Instagram followers.

Also, they were wearing working clothes – it turned out they were scaffolders – and it looked like I was saying that people who do manual jobs are stupid. That’s not my view and it was me that was stupid for not seeing how it might look. What happened next was surreal. Yes, it is “surreal” that people don’t take kindly to seeing anyone’s worth being equated to “1 GCSE” just because they were (or were not) being loud in McDonald’s.

Some people didn’t like what I’d said and made that clear to me, which was fair enough. But they also shared their disapproval on social media and before long there was a massive backlash which included threats of violence, sexist abuse and thousands of hostile posts on Twitter and other platforms. For all she did a terrible thing, some of the messages and comments sent to her were equally disgusting. Threats of violence and sexist abuse were never going to cause this woman to change her attitude or apologise.  Here are a few examples:

l really hope that one of these blokes is a blood relative with the same glint in his eye as the man that raped Hetty Douglas’ mother. This is clearly unacceptable and such a violent way to express anger towards Douglas. To bring rape and any sort of violence into a debate that was all about classism is just a way for people to vent their own misogyny.

#hettydouglas another failed rich kid. For an artist, she’s rotten to the core, just another vile excuse of a ‘human’. This comment didn’t seem to be saying anything too untrue/unreasonable. Hetty just clearly didn’t like hearing how the internet perceived her.

If we’re judging on looks then #hettydouglas looks like the result of an incestuous relationship that has then been raised gender neutral. Again, this kind of comment focuses on the wrong aspect of Hetty Douglas.

There were SO many of these #hettydouglas people at uni from London live in 2m houses, bank of mum and dad & pretending to be poor #fuckthem. This example shouldn’t have been included in Douglas’ top 4 abusive comments as it isn’t really ‘hostile’. From one perspective, it just looks as though it’s a truth that Douglas finds hard to accept. 

A consistent theme was that I was a posh upper-class rich kid looking down on the workers like some kind of artsy Bullingdon Club snob. If you post pictures of yourself at lavish art showings displaying your mediocre art, you do give people the impression that you’re a “posh upper-class rich kid”. You don’t have to be at a Bullingdon Club level to be a wealthy person either- if making a living off being an artist is an option for you then you’re probably a lot richer than you think. Also, her mother and brother are artists and as far as most people are concerned, being an artist is far from having an ordinary working-class job.

This irresistible narrative then attracted the attention of the tabloids with the Sun, the Mail and the Mirror piling in with headlines like

‘THAT’S A BIT RICH!‘ Posh’ artist sparks furious backlash’ and

‘Furious backlash at ‘little rich girl’ artist who mocked workmen’

Journalists laid siege to my mum’s house and I’ve had to temporarily move out of my houseshare. I became an instant hate figure. Again, she seems to be acting as though she was vilified unjustly through using terms like “irresistible narrative” and “hate figure”. The “narrative” of her being ‘posh’ and a ‘little rich girl’ was used because that was the impression she forced upon us. 

The attacks were based on a web of lies. I am not posh. I come from an ordinary family in Nottingham. I went to my local comprehensive with lads like the ones in McDonald’s. How does she know the scaffolders didn’t go to a private school? Some people just fancy an outdoorsy, manual and creative job whether or not they went to a local comprehensive or Eton. Even her apology has classist undertones.

I’ve always worked and never had hand-outs from my parents. Yes, I’m an artist, and yes I live in south London, but I’m a grounded person and was raised to work hard for what I’ve got. I acted irresponsibly. Although I photographed the men from behind, the papers managed to identify one of them who was justifiably upset with me. As was his mum. I’ve written to them to say sorry because I really am. This is the first time in her explanation that she says what she has done to try and rectify her mistakes. For all she caused this entire situation, it was still good of her to contact the identified man and his mother to explain herself.

I’m told that I’ve got no future with my career because no one will touch me. I hope that’s not true because I don’t think any fair person knowing the truth would wish that on me.  Ah, the cliche “all my friends and family know the real me!”- A timeless and classic ingredient for any public apology.

For everyone else this is a cautionary tale: don’t make brash judgments on others, and certainly don’t put them on Instagram. She could have just left it at “don’t make brash judgements on others”. Look, this girl is 25 years old and really should have known better than to do something like this. For all she has been brutally shamed and her future as an artist is now on the line, people have suffered worse for doing much less. Because of one foolish Instagram post, she has had to move out of her house, her reputation is destroyed and even her family has been brought into it. As Douglas says, her story should be a lesson for us all to think long and hard before posting things online.

 

 

 

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