Friends, you can stop sending me this article. I saw it the day it came out and my first thought was, “This is too easy to ridicule. Even for a blogger, this is way too easy. I’m sure no one else will take it seriously.” To me it was a piece of fiction, and a highly comedic one at that.
In case you missed it, Samantha Brick, whose name even sounds made-up, wrote about how "pretty" she is, and how it leads to constant spontaneous gift-giving by men around her. "There are downsides to being pretty," she wrote. "The main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks."
I didn’t even hate Brick like I was supposed to, because I was convinced she wasn’t real. Kind of like how H&M's models are photoshopped versions of people rather than actual humans. Or, just like how that sensationalized story about the 8-year-old whose mom was giving her botox — which began in "The Sun," another British tabloid — also wasn’t real. From a practical standpoint, a lot of stories in the British tabloid sare made up so I had reason to believe this woman is a photoshopped image with a photoshopped personality.
Except instead of trying to improve upon her personality, her editors made it worse. They made it as bad as a personality can possibly be. In fact, if her personality was a thigh, it would be covered in cellulite, bruises, bloody gashes, pubic hair, vericose veins, and dead animals. And can’t you see why they did it? Because the world ate it up. Fake Samantha Brick Twitter feeds sprouted rapidly. She was on morning television in the U.K. today. Even Barbara Walters took a moment on "The View" to say that Brick "is not that beautiful, okay?" Barbara Walters is talking about this on "The View"! I’m sorry, but I’m not: really?
Following the backlash against Dara-Lynn Weiss’s harrowing "Vogue" story about snatching food out of the hands of the 7-year-old daughter she forced to go on a diet, the last thing the world needs is to shower massive press on another loathsome woman. All you’re doing is setting her up for a book deal like Weiss, people! And the more you respond with outrage the more she’s going to write about herself and talk about herself and maybe get that very lucrative book deal. Is this what we really want from our most attention-grabbing female writers? Sensational stories about how they’re bad people? Is "hate me" journalism the new "gotcha journalism"? Okay, FINE. Here’s a selection from my upcoming essay, “Please Hate Me After You Read This Thing I Wrote.”
I went to the gym today where no one could stop staring at the perfect-ness I displayed in my matching Lululemon sports bra and leggings. I don’t wear anything but a sports bra and tight bottoms at the gym because I don’t want to deprive the world of the Gisele-surpassing beauty that lies underneath. I owe it to them to inspire them to be better looking.
Also, here’s another thing that happens when I’m at the gym: people practically thrust kittens holding full champagne flutes and diamonds in my hands when I’m on the elliptical machine, while trying to ask me on dates and beg me for advice about life. I love how it reminds me of how stupendously amazing I am. Also, I can afford to take the time to stop and pet the kittens and tuck the diamonds into my incredibly enviable cleavage because I don’t need to work out anyway, really. I just go to the gym so that other people don’t feel bad about the fact that they have to go to the gym and still look so much worse than me. When I use the steam room, I’m so hot they don’t even have to turn it on. That’s another favor I do for people there.
Often on my walk home from the gym, people will stop me and get on their knees and beg me to take money out of their wallets for being as hot and amazing as I am. I have to take the money because if I didn’t, I’d end up with people crawling on their hands and knees all the way home with me, waving money at me. It’s so hard being me! *Sobs!*
And when I’m not getting champagne bottles and diamonds forced upon me, I’m probably working on my lesson plan for the “How to Make a Thinspo Pinterest Board” workshop I teach to tween girls as part of my ongoing community service work to make the world a hotter place.
And because I can admit that I'm wrong about that piece being fiction, here is Samantha Brick talking about herself on television, which I guess proves she is a real person.