Welcome back Ganesh! Been out today?
Been out at the Chelsea Flower Show, since you ask. T'was like Glastonbury for beige-wearing Middle England.
I think Shahbaz was most certainly more of a naturally annoying person rather than a maliciously antagonistic one, and I think the distinction is quite wide. Most of his weirdness, especially at the start, stemmed from him being a very clingy, overly tactile character, or he would talk over poeple or flit off in mid-conversation. These seem to me to be the traits of someone who just is selfish and annoying, rather than someone trying to be annoying on purpose to piss someone off.
At the beginning, he probably was simply self-centred and inconsiderate of others but, as these approaches failed to win friends and influence people, Shahbaz moved on to more provocative tactics. At several points, he freely admitted he was going all-out to provoke a hostile response; in some of the quieter moments with Dawn (which were almost reflective), he reckoned this was because he'd gone in expecting antagonism and, when the other Housemates had turned out to be more accepting than anticipated, he'd set out to generate antagonism.
Similarly with his rampant attention-seeking. Although selfish, his techniques are primarily employed to make himself feel better, rather than to make others feel worse (although I do feel that with Glyn he was most unfair and took Glyn's honest words out of context, I'd say he did this more because he doesn't know how to listen and how to engage with someone elses problems).
I think his behaviour was motivated by the need to be centre of attention constantly, whatever the feelings of others - and, for Shahbaz, being the centre of negative attention was preferable to someone else hogging the limelight, even for a moment. After the initial hyperactive shouty 24 hours and the first steadying advice from Dawn, he began to antagonise people individually: first Sezer, then Lia and Lisa. With younger, quieter Housemates (Glyn, Bonneh), he was simply overbearing and dismissive. Latterly, he alienated even Dawn, who'd repeatedly attempted to patiently help him find a way of relating constructively to the rest of the group.
I don't think he simply didn't know how to engage with other people's problems; he wasn't remotely interested in other people's problems. Further, I agree with him that he did work to recreate a dynamic in which he became the hated outsider - presumably because that's a set-up with which he's all too familiar, and which affords him a degree of victim status without having to put in the work of engagement.
Aside from nicking, nay hiding (not destroying or pissing in the coffee like ... Sandy? did) the food, what else did he get up to that was so nasty? I must have missed a bit.
Well, apart from the repeated physical mauling of other Housemates, even when they made it clear they didn't like to be touched, and the 'othering' of Glyn as homophobic, he made that memorably racist/misogynist comment aimed at baiting Lisa, Shahbaz determinedly wrecked every moment of relaxed socialising by throwing inexplicable tantrums which effectively put everyone on edge. He elbowed his way into lead position when it came to presenting the shopping list to Big Brother, erased previous choices in favour of his own list, then used the whole thing as an opportunity to create more drama.
I think you have "missed a bit". Shahbaz was psychologically exhausting to be around; pretty much every Housemate expressed this. His selfishness took the form of disrupting any pleasurable activity or conversation which didn't feature him centre-stage, and the seeming-endless cycles of tantrum, supposed 'apology' (all of it, naturally, creating more Shabaz-centric drama) and betrayal/disappointment of those who genuinely reached out to him must've been wearing in the extreme.
Looking for specific 'acts' is slightly missing the point, I think. They're there all right, but taking the "yeah, but he didn't piss in the coffee" line underemphasises the effect of constant, low-level background Shahbaz on the psyches of all concerned.
Hiding the food was obviously another attention-grabbing trick, it wasn't that harmful, and were the actions of a lone, not particularly logical man in the wee hours of the morning.
Hiding the food was a turning-point because it was aimed at the entire group, making no distinction between people he'd clashed with and those who'd helped/defended him, and it upped the ante. It was a mass 'fuck you' to all concerned, and tangibly shocked those who, up until that point, had been doing their best to emphasise the positive in Shahbaz. It was a furious, infantile response to being ignored - the worst thing possible for Shahbaz - and it, more than anything else, demonstrated the fact that, whether individually or en masse, Shahbaz respected his fellow Housemates not a jot. He was perfectly prepared to shit on friends as well as enemies, in the pursuit of attention.
Whether it was "harmful" is not the point. It was indiscriminate and utterly remorseless - justified by "because you really pissed me off". Shahbaz made it clear that his pissed-offness made it reasonable, in his mind, to punish the group as a whole, so it's not surprising that the group then wanted to punish Shahbaz.
As for his being "not particularly logical" or it being the middle of the night, none of that diminishes Shahbaz's personal responsibility. In the cold light of day, he was perfectly prepared to defend his actions, which I'm sure made perfect logical sense to him (members of the group have pissed me off therefore I am justified in punishing the entire group).
It's different from a bunch of people in a group mentality purposefully picking on someone, knowing full well that it's going to cause distress.
No, no it isn't. Not significantly. You overemphasise "group mentality" and the knowledge of likely distress, while underemphasising Shahbaz's purposefulness in doing something he knew would cause everyone distress, and taking visible pleasure, the next morning, in their unhappiness at finding the food gone.
I felt while watching the (edited) highlights that some housemates were taking pleasure in being able to pick on Shahbaz with the blessing of the rest of the group. Sezer especially, with the very childish repeated chucking away of the food, and also Richard leading the group in 'everyone walk away' and Nikki egging them on and laughing away like a little shit-stirrer. Even Imogen, grinning and muttering 'I don't know if this is okay...' is as much to blame. She's showing that she knows it's wrong, but doesn't want to challenge the rest of the group. It bugged me even more later, as he couldn't say two words to anyone without being accused of 'bullying' them.
I think they took pleasure in retaliating because they'd had almost a week of Shahbaz. I'd quibble with the phrase "pick on" because I think Shahbaz systematically stretched the patience of everyone, and could expect no better. I don't doubt that some people, being human, did take pleasure in exacting some measure of retribution for the week he'd given them. As I saw it, Sezer called Shahbaz's bluff with the food; to me, Shahbaz was the childish one for continuing to pour more cereal then leave it - or challenge Sezer to pour it away. Richard doing the "walk away" thing is, arguably, preferable to people sticking around and punching Shahbaz (which I'm surprised didn't happen over the course of the seven days) and I can't really bring myself to condemn Nikki and Imogen for enjoying seeing someone who'd deliberately antagonised the group being ostracised.
Perhaps, if you've only watched the edited highlights, you're not fully aware of how this situation came about? When Shahbaz tried and failed to "say two words" to the group, this came at the end of several cycles of the group, individually and as a whole, entertaining numerous supposed apologies, explanations and mini-redemptions - which, fundamentally, did not change Shahbaz's actual behaviour. Can you blame them for not wanting to listen any more?
I just think the housemates could have handled themselves better. I wanted someone to take a stand against the mindless, endless retalliations that it seemed Shahbaz would have to put up with until he left. I couldn't see any way of him to make his way back into the group, and I felt bad for him, and resented the others for it.
The retaliations were neither mindless nor endless, and they eventually sprang from a series of failed attempts at being constructive - failed because Shahbaz repeatedly shat on those who sought to draw him back into the group. I'm a little surprised that you're apparently unable or unwilling to appreciate this. Using Barbelith as an anology, it's like when a long-standing troll reappears and gets short shrift. Inevitably, someone, usually a newbie, decides to "take a stand" against what they perceive to be mindless, petty responses from Barbeloids who could doubtless handle themselves better. What they tend not to fully understand is the extent to which said troll has devalued his own currency, again and again. It's all well and good to say "can't we give X one more chance" but, when this occurs subsequent to multiple instances of X systematically pissing on his own chips, those who've been in the situation itself are inevitably going to be less forgiving than the naive outsider.
There's a saying about wrongs not making rights, but I forget it.
A cliche, even. Society, however, tends to punish wrongs, especially multiple wrongs with no evidence that those wrongs will stop coming. |
