Commentator Katie Hopkins spoke to a fringe group about electoral reform during the UK Independence ... [+]
If you've ever heard of Katie Hopkins, it’s likely through one of her controversies.
For example, she once explained, proudly, how she prevents her children from playing with members of the working class, by judging the names of potential playmates:
“For me, a name is a shortcut of finding out what class a child comes from and makes me ask: “Do I want my children to play with them? When I hear screeched across the playground: “Tyler! Come back ‘ere.” It’s the Tylers, the Charmains the Chantelles, the Chardonnays.”
Or perhaps it was after hearing one of her many rants against overweight people, mothers, Muslims - the list goes on. If you’re different from Hopkins, she’s probably criticized you, indirectly.
But Hopkins isn’t special - like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, or Piers Morgan, she has managed to carve a career out of being unpleasant, repackaging her nastiness as “outspokenness.”
Media fixation on hysterical and reactive social media activism has created a space for opportunists to spew vitriol against minorities, while framing themselves as brave warriors, boldly speaking out against, umm ... teenagers on Twitter.
Thus, performative cruelty has become a lucrative career. Aiming insults and accusations at the marginalized is an easy way to attract publicity, a shortcut to fame that requires little talent or wit; just a willingness to incite hatred towards others.
But performative cruelty comes at a cost.
Recently, YouTube star Josh Pieters pulled off an elaborate prank designed to publicly humiliate Hopkins. Under the guise of winning a fake “free speech” award, Pieters flew Hopkins to Prague and staged an award ceremony, recording Hopkin’s gleeful reaction and her acceptance speech, which quickly turned into a rant against minorities and disabled people, for some reason.
It’s a devastatingly cruel prank, in which multiple actors were hired to wine and dine Hopkins, pretending to admire her willingness to say unpleasant things on television. Indeed, Hopkins seemed genuinely touched by all the encouragement, stating,
“It’s strange to hear nice things being said about yourself. Normally it is an incoming deluge of fireballs coming my way.”
The prank is probably one of the meanest, most excruciating things I’ve seen on YouTube, and yet, it’s difficult to feel sorry for Hopkins. There’s a reason people rarely have nice things to say about her - she’s spent much of her life proudly targeting the vulnerable, in a cynical attempt to enrich herself.
Hopkins’ acceptance speech, filled with racist jokes, bizzare jabs at disabled people, and a nasty insult directed at environmental activist Greta Thunberg, highlighted exactly why this happened to her, and why there won’t be any activists coming to her defense.
In an amusing coincidence, Hopkins was recently suspended from Twitter for violating their terms of service, just before the prank was revealed on YouTube.
Performative cruelty seems to require a delicate touch to ensure your social media account stays online, by remaining hateful while never quite crossing the line into hate speech. Successful hate-mongers can advance their careers indefinitely, as long as they ensure their opinions are merely unpleasant, rather than viscerally repulsive.
But cruelty attracts cruelty, and eventually, said hate-monger might just find themselves winning an non-existent award, the victim of an elaborate prank from some kid on YouTube, currently sitting at no less than 4.5 million views.
On the internet, karma might just be a literal concept.
