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Mail in 'middle class' twattery shocker

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Tabitha Tickletooth

08:52 / 04.01.06

The Daily Mail, in conjunction with some ludicrous PR company, today brings us this in the guise of news.

The fact that this is something I might manufacture to mock the Mail and its evil, spiteful readership had me checking the date on my cuts - but no, it's not actually April Fool's Day.

In essence, some PR company has compiled a list of the 'top ten influences on the middle classes', with Jamie Oliver in the lead. And, at number three, Chris Martin for... 'his influential anti-poverty stance'.

I'm sure, once the urge to make noises like a cat with a furball has died down, there is something interesting to be gleaned by thinking about why the Mail is running this and what it thinks it says about the paper and it's readership. But not yet. I just wanted to share.

Trying to track down a press release or anything else from the PR firm in question, but no luck so far.

Tryphena Absent

09:30 / 04.01.06

Yes Chris Martin's BMW X5 lets me know he cares about the world.

09:45 / 04.01.06

But at least he'll tryyy...

...

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... to fixx yooou.

09:50 / 04.01.06

How hard did you try to track down more press releases from Fish Can Sing?

They seem to be obsessed with the middle classes, that’s for sure. Good market though. Big dollar. etc.

Can’t quite see why this upsets you so, Tabitha? Papers are full of this kind of toss all the time. What's so surreal about this?

Tabitha Tickletooth

10:10 / 04.01.06

I was looking for a little more detail on this particular list of influences - ie a press release that might explain how they measured 'influence', amongst whom, etc.

It doesn't upset me - I read tabloids daily as part of my job and there is far more to be upset about than this. I just find the utter lack of irony or self-awareness with which this is published amusing.

Come on - you telling me you look through that list from Jamie Oliver to Prince Harry and Frank Lampard (acceptable as a middle class influence, apparently, for being a former public schoolboy) and don't get the urge to snigger? If someone asked me to take the piss by coming up with a list of ten ineffectual and pointless people that I suspected a Daily Mail readership would look up to - accompanied by suitably patronising reasons - this is practically that list.

I think it's funny.

10:29 / 04.01.06

I was looking for a little more detail on this particular list of influences - ie a press release that might explain how they measured 'influence', amongst whom, etc.

Sorry, I see what you mean. They spoke to 20 people in a pub in Fulham would be my guess.

Still not quite sure I get the joke. That the list is predictable?
See, I think the tone is quite self-aware, disinterested even. These ‘middle class people’ are referred to as ‘they’ for one thing. Dunno. YMMV, but "Coldplay may sound like a duff U2 band but the middle classes always had terrible musical taste." sounds pretty self-aware to me. But I might be missing the same irony that you think they are.

It does make me wonder about the whole class thing though. Are these not people who the working or upper classes might admire? (Or is that your point?)

Tryphena Absent

10:50 / 04.01.06

You've got to give the interns something to do occasionally.

Tabitha Tickletooth

11:23 / 04.01.06

While I agree that there seems to be some degree of self awareness in the quotes from the PR company, contrast this language and tone with that used in the Mail copy. I can believe the top ten list might be intended to be slightly ironic, but it certainly is in no way being reported as such by the Mail. Any even implied criticism is printed in direct quotes from the PR company or guide.

I guess I am assuming that Barbelith readers regularly read the Mail (which is grossly unfair, and indeed a hazard to your health). This is partly based on the fact that I know a couple of them in real life who also read tabloids for a living. The Daily Mail do not mock the middle class. They don't joke about 'Middle England' - they pander to them because they are what the majority of their readers self-identify as or aspire to be. The people included in this list are precisely the kind of people the Daily Mail holds up for its readership to admire.

I think our opinions differ on whether this is funny or not because you think Daily Mail readers are enjoying a wry chuckle at a gently ironic swipe at themselves, and I don't. Which probably makes me mean.

11:28 / 04.01.06

I remember speaking to a journo on the Scottish Daily Mail and he told me, perfectly straight, that the Daily Mail targets the 'decent people of Scotland'. And he sounded irritated when I laughed. It's hard to believe he was serious but he was determinedly acting the part.

12:09 / 04.01.06

How the fuck is Prince Harry middle class? He's bloody royalty!! Now that made me giggle. Buncha middle-class twats...

"The major influences all have effects for different reasons, it says, citing Prince Harry in fourth place because of his occasionally bad behaviour."

So... does behaving badly demote you from upper-class to bank manager material?

"Likewise, singer songwriter James Blunt is proof that nice guys can rise to the top." - just like vomit in a bath.

From reading this piece, it seems that middle-classness is being confused with blandness.

12:16 / 04.01.06

Like Smoothly, I'm kind of struggling to get outraged about this article. What, exactly, is the problem? It seems quite reasonable to expect that the people who identify as middle class or aspire to be middle class would laud precisely this type of celebrity. And this is only the type of thing that the Mail has been running for a decade or more - the paper is generally more full of featurey stuff than hard news anyway, and most of that panders to its readership's aforementioned middle class sensibilities. Whatever you can say about the Daily Mail - and I could say a lot if I could be arsed - it certainly knows its market and exploits it accordingly.

Tabitha Tickletooth

12:31 / 04.01.06

I'm not understanding why people think it's about outrage. I think it's funny.

I think it is a ludicrous list for a ludicrous readership. I'm sure it's being taken as a genuine list of influential figures for people who read the Daily Mail by people who read the Daily Mail, and the knowledge that these Mail consumers will be reading along, nodding, 'they're right, you know, I do find Jamie Oliver's unthreatening-ness irresistable' amuses me.

It's not a link to Melanie Phillips, I'm not ranting and the only bigger point is that the Mail once again bypasses the very concept of irony in publishing something that might be perceived as a sideways smirk at their readers. I find most of the Daily Mail oppressively evil and I just thought I'd share what to me feels like a bit of a joke at their expense. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term twattery...

Tee hee. Really, that's all. Tee hee.

12:36 / 04.01.06

They don't joke about 'Middle England' - they pander to them because they are what the majority of their readers self-identify as or aspire to be. The people included in this list are precisely the kind of people the Daily Mail holds up for its readership to admire.

What daily newspaper doesn’t try to appeal to the sensibilities of its readership? I’m no fan of the Mail, but I don’t see how this is pandering to the MOR middle class any more than the Sun panders to the salt-of-the-earth working class, or the Indie panders to the liberal intelligentsia.

And (reaching for my trusty copy of Derry Street’s finest) page 8 is far more sickening than this survey driven filler. I don’t think I disagree with you, Tabitha, so much as find myself a bit mystified as to why anyone would seize on this piece of innocuous puff for particular attention. In fact, I’m tempted to suggest that that list could be a whole lot worse. I feel almost encouraged by it.

12:39 / 04.01.06

Sorry, cross-post. Still don't see what's quite so risible about that list though. I rather admired Jamie Oliver's school dinners campaign myself. Is that unforgivably middle class of me?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:44 / 04.01.06

John, the exploding boy How the fuck is Prince Harry middle class? He's bloody royalty!!

He's a hero TO middle-class people, not a middle-class hero. But come on, this is the Daily Mail, it's like being shocked and appalled to find that Jeremy Clarkson is a sexist bore.

Tabitha Tickletooth

12:53 / 04.01.06

I do find that list laughable, particularly in the context of the justifications given. You might admire Jamie Oliver (I certainly don't) but is it also because you find his 'cheek and unthreateningness irresistable'? Does this list in any way resemble who you think the most influential figures are? Carol Thatcher? James Blunt? Come on. I don't think it's even about any kind of realistic conception of what is middle class and who the leading figures would be (which, as I alluded to in my very first post, is one of the things it might be interesting to consider if I was taking it seriously), it's a very Daily Mail-centric take on who's important. Everything about it screams 'pastiche of Daily Mail readers which appears in Private Eye' but which is instead being reported, very straight, in the Mail.

It's not offensive (unless to Daily Mail readers) - I, and I alone it appears, think it's funny.

12:57 / 04.01.06

He is? WTF?!

13:02 / 04.01.06

I'm just not too sure why it's funny. Perhaps I am just an old curmudgeon now who doesn't get humour any more.

Tryphena Absent

13:03 / 04.01.06

Prince Harry. His hair, his smile, his commanding posture. What a hero! Dashing, in fact!

13:06 / 04.01.06

Oh you’re not alone, Tabitha. A friend of mine sent me the same link this morning.

I don't think it's even about any kind of realistic conception of what is middle class and who the leading figures would be (which, as I alluded to in my very first post, is one of the things it might be interesting to consider if I was taking it seriously)

Could you be tempted to take it seriously? What would be a realistic conception of what is middle class, and who might be the leading figures be?

lonely as a cloud...

13:12 / 04.01.06

You're just jealous 'cos you weren't listed, Sax.
Hinterland just wasn't middle-class coffee-table enough! Try harder next time! :P

Tabitha Tickletooth

13:20 / 04.01.06

I could be tempted to take it seriously, which is why, in the very beginning, I was after some more information. Because while it's funny to me in its existing form, it is difficult to analyse and re-imagine as a serious issue because there are no parameters. What do they mean by 'middle class'? What do they mean by 'influence'? I think you'd have to drill down quite a ways to define who you were talking about, what you were actually examining and how you measured/justified your conclusions in order to come up with anything of any value.

Interestingly, I probably wouldn't find it quite so funny if it appeared to have more evidence of credibility (and a little bit less of parody). Then I might possibly find it something of slight concern.

13:30 / 04.01.06

"Likewise, singer songwriter James Blunt is proof that nice guys can rise to the top." - just like vomit in a bath

Thanks for that. Fair brightened my day.

13:36 / 04.01.06

What do they mean by 'middle class'?

a huge, economically powerful new class that is linked by a set of vague values. Its members tend to be ambitious whereas their parents were more interested in security; suspicious of authority rather than trusting; vaguely liberal and meritocratic rather than politically aligned and prone to judging people on the basis of birth, accent and profession. The new middle classes are keen to project a love of fashion, football, pop music and television. They suffer from hubristic tendencies and a misplaced sense of entitlement. They watch their weight and think about their hairstyles. A lot. Apparently.

More here too.

And here's that full Class Of 2006 report.

Tabitha Tickletooth

14:03 / 04.01.06

Nicely found, Smoothly.

According to the Class of 2004 report's closing line, they concluded that we are all middle class now. Although some of us are nicer than others, apparently...

Utter rubbish that is probably even now shaping the marketing campaigns of the world. Given the disparate groups that they appear to be talking about, and that I still can't quite glean what their methodology was (apart from we eschewed market research in favour of a more Orwellian documentary approach), I wouldn't even be inclined to take their 'definition' and come up with my own list of 'influential' figures.

Interesting to note the difference between the Observer/Guardian and Mail reports though - former is written and bylined by the report authors, with an explanation of who and what they are; latter published under a 'Daily Mail Reporter' byline.

And a final touch, that I think only those with the actual paper version will see - Article box text: Do you think Jamie Oliver talks sense? Vote at...

14:10 / 04.01.06

Riiight... I see... they're plugging Class Of 2006, which seems to be one of those MOSAIC-alike demographic splitting guides for ad and PR with catchy names for the groups.

To be honest I think their piece is hopelessly internally confused. It starts off by identifying widely different subgroups that could all be termed "middle class", and then goes on to baldly state various trends and concerns that they are all supposed to have been interested in, culminating in the list itself.

However I don't think that matters at all. It's a plug for their agency, and thus custom-designed to have bits pulled out of it by the press for various purposes, so you've got the more serious stuff at the start and some daft lists at the end - everyone's happy.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:25 / 04.01.06

Prince Harry clearly is the role model for people who think dressing as Nazis is cool, though.

14:32 / 04.01.06

Keith Moon?

Mon Oncle Ignatius

14:33 / 04.01.06

Prince Harry clearly is the role model for people who think dressing as Nazis is cool, though.

How far the mighty David Bowie has fallen...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:35 / 04.01.06

I'll amend that... people who apparently AREN'T wankered on drugs who think dressing as Nazis is cool.

14:44 / 04.01.06

Now you're mixing your subgroups stoatie. You need to hire that agency to keep you up to date.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:49 / 04.01.06

Do they do Venn diagrams?

Venn diagrams are WAY cool.

14:52 / 04.01.06

I think this is part of a larger trend that is moving away from traditional, more discretely measurable indicators of position (age, education, wealth, location etc) and towards ‘tribes’. The company I work for it doing the same thing at the moment, using ‘segmentation’ to analyse the market and deliver to particular demographics. It's more nebulous and touchy-feely - I'm not an ABC1, I'm a Connected Early-Adopter! - but I'm beginning to see its merits.

According to the Class of 2004 report's closing line, they concluded that we are all middle class now. Although some of us are nicer than others, apparently

That sounds ridiculous at first, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds about right – a kind of Wittgensteinian, family resemblance approach.

Brigade du jour

21:42 / 04.01.06

Oh come off it Stoatie - Prince Harry NOT wankered on drugs? He's very rich and grew up in a palace having his arsehole wiped for him until he was twenty. If he wasn't wankered on drugs the whole time ... well, he'd probably turn out more like his brother.

Oh my god, I'm gossiping about the royal family ...

22:13 / 04.01.06

Clearly you all missed the Daily Mail's expose on the Beckhams forgetting to bring tissues to the panto, and having to borrow them from the audience.

Why was I reading it? I, uhm, it's the missus you see, was at her da's and he's the son of a Tory lord. Am I a class traitor? Yes/No.

Best story since the News of the World (iirc) ran with that (idiotic) woman who'd preserved a half-eaten, by the Queen Mum, biscuit shortly after her death.

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