Curious Incidents of a Flailing Mermaid

Overshadowed and Leading a Double Life

30-Day Blogging Challenge – Day eight
Prompt: Does an athlete's or celebrity's indiscretions overshadow their entire body of work in their respected field? Why or why not?


I really hate opinion Thursday. The prompts are (nearly) always reasonable. But I hate responding to them. There is, however, a reason why I am a huge wimp when it comes to writing opinion pieces. It is not because I’m not opinionated, either. Trust me, I have many opinions!

I mean look at the post I wrote the other day ("Obesity Ruled as a Disability: My Thoughts" ). I tried to be all opinionated and stuff, but floundered and pretty much ended up apologising for thinking anything of the sort.

Why Fran, why? Because I’ve been trained that way!

We all know that if someone is in the public eye and says something wrong, they will be scrutinised. Now, I’m not saying I am famous, by any stretch of the imagination. But in the work I’ve done, pretty much since I was 13, I’ve had to keep an eye on myself. All the time thinking, “don’t say that, you’ll get in trouble,” or “woooah, step away from that twitter conversation – it is public!”

I’m not saying it is right, but that is the way I’ve lived for the past sixteen years. Which is precisely why I am currently trying to re-launch myself as a new person, while keeping the old me separate.

Famous people are role models, whether they like it or not. Every single person in the public eye will have at least one (if not millions) person who looks up to him or her. Therefore, it stands to reason that if said person makes a mistake people will feel let down.

Furthermore, if you make a big enough mistake, your achievements will be blurred into the background. Lets take two extreme examples. When you see these two names, what do you think?

Lance Armstrong  
Oscar Pistorious  

Not long ago, these two men were absolute heroes. They’ve done amazing things. The second didn’t even have to cheat to be amazing, he just was! But now what? Forgotten? Achievements masked? Yes, I reckon so. Probably never to be revealed again.
These two were once heroes to young kids and adults, alike. They probably still are to some, but it is far less likely.

Some people use fame to be mean and nasty. I completely disagree with this. They don’t deserve the attention they get. But, yet, members of the public will still look up to them. Take Katie Hopkins  , for example: she will undoubtedly be someone’s role model.

That said, different types of “celeb” can get away with different types of things. A sports person, a TV presenter, or someone who engages with kids, will need to be pretty clean-cut and nicey nicey: Much more so than a writer, a musician (although they can fall into both categories) or a general social commentator.

Hence, I’m trying to lead a double life! I get the best of both worlds. It is hard to do though: I’m pretty sure I’m going to get more twitter followers than myself soon. Now, that is embarrassing!


Other happenings today:

I wrote this: "The Mighty Pen" 
I got an awesome trophy from Creeper Of The Realm ... LOOK...

FORUM

CLOSED!The Monthly Reading Challenge  (13+) Read and review a certain number of books within two months period and receive the prizes. #1945699 by ~Minja~