POLLY VERNON
COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR
I’m dubious about those apologies
IN THE WAKE of Kate Middleton’s announcement she’s receiving treatment for cancer, a new cultural phenomenon arises.
I’m calling it Loud Grovelling – ooh, unless it’s more of a Loud Self-Flagellation? One of the two. Anyway : it’s the phenomenon where those who threw themselves headlong into online speculation over the Princess of Wales’s absence from public life speedily rolled back on that gleeful frenzy, on their cheap jokes and rabid conspiracy theories, with solemn, florid public apologies, statements laden with shame and regret.
I guess you’d feel a bit of a knob, wouldn’t you, watching the dignity with which Kate shared her cancer diagnosis, knowing she was deep in the heart-rending business of tr ying to mitigate its impact on her kids, then contrasting it with the spittly-gobbed wild-eyed prurience of your own pronouncements, the spite and the nonsense and specious conjecture you splatter-gunned over the internet cos you were bored.
But forgive me if I am dubious about the real intent of those apologies. Forgive me if I suspect they have less to do with genuine remorse, more to do with reputation management, not getting cancelled and (bonus!) tentative early forays into a bold new form of content. It’s always all about the optics online, isn’t it? And what is Loud Grovelling if not an opportunity to look like you’re Humbled, Learning and Growing while (yippee!) simultaneously accruing attention, likes, follows ? Plus, you know they’ll do it again. Not to Kate, but to someone else, someone they’ve dehumanised to the poin
