UK Literary Luvvies

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I wondered about adoption. I know the urge to have your own child is really strong but I think often it is a parenting urge and, personally, I knew I wanted to be a mother really strongly. I didn’t think I would ever meet the right person and it felt like I was running out of time. I fully intended to foster children and try to adopt because I wanted to be a mother one way or another and felt I had something to give (my kids may disagree ha). I think with ED there is such a strong perfectionism and feeling that she must succeed at being a child- bearer.

With the sharing news thing I think she’s gone past the point of reasonable argument.The vast majority of people want to share joy when they post pregnancy news and it is always so nice to find out that someone else is genuinely happy and joyful BUT she does have a bit of a point. I think baby and pregnancy posts fall into two categories- genuine sharing of joy and those who want to share a curated version of the perfect family/ fertility / life. Like all social media, it can get toxic. Personally, it rubs me up the wrong way when people have their 3rd 4th hold and say something like ‘our family is complete’. Or they publicly thank (the baby??) when being so grateful for an easy pregnancy, perfect birth or whatever. There is just no need to say those things publicly and it’s hurtful to others. Share the pregnancy, share your cute babies, hold onto the details for yourself and close friends.
 
Love_hate_small_town said:
I wondered about adoption. I know the urge to have your own child is really strong but I think often it is a parenting urge and, personally, I knew I wanted to be a mother really strongly. I didn’t think I would ever meet the right person and it felt like I was running out of time. I fully intended to foster children and try to adopt because I wanted to be a mother one way or another and felt I had something to give (my kids may disagree ha). I think with ED there is such a strong perfectionism and feeling that she must succeed at being a child- bearer.

With the sharing news thing I think she’s gone past the point of reasonable argument.The vast majority of people want to share joy when they post pregnancy news and it is always so nice to find out that someone else is genuinely happy and joyful BUT she does have a bit of a point. I think baby and pregnancy posts fall into two categories- genuine sharing of joy and those who want to share a curated version of the perfect family/ fertility / life. Like all social media, it can get toxic. Personally, it rubs me up the wrong way when people have their 3rd 4th hold and say something like ‘our family is complete’. Or they publicly thank (the baby??) when being so grateful for an easy pregnancy, perfect birth or whatever. There is just no need to say those things publicly and it’s hurtful to others. Share the pregnancy, share your cute babies, hold onto the details for yourself and close friends.
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See, that’s exactly the kind of nuance that was missing from what Elizabeth Day said.
 
mfch said:
omg so glad I found this thread!

I quite like Dolly, Pandora, and then also Caroline and Ella Risbridger and that set but have a massive issue with the absolute refusal to acknowledge their privilege.

They are all rich women from middle class families (maybe not Caroline but Ella for sure) and then market themselves as #relateable they are all also thin, straight, white, and able bodied and yet present as though they are the quirky interesting set. When really they are all extremely samey.
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Sorry to jump back all the way to January, but I’ve literally just discovered this thread and am feeling really smug that I’ve managed to predict two of the names in this thread: Bryony Gordon, and Ella.

God I tried so hard to like Ella. When she went viral with her then-boyfriend John, his blog about undergoing treatment for blood cancer and their fundraising, I wanted to like her. She managed to get a column writing for The Pool, launched by Lauren Laverne and Sam Baker. I remember it went down in flames, the founders having jumped ship shortly before, leaving a lot of freelancers unpaid (Robyn Wilder was one). Sali Hughes naturally wrote a column too, because she was in Lauren’s set. She used to very pointedly not write about beauty and instead mined her own life for content, as all the best luvvie writers do.

Anyway, back to Ella. Wanted to like her, and she wrote so movingly about the crappy cards John had been dealt in life. But she was also whiny, annoying, and liked to cosplay being just a regular London girl scraping a living and renting a tiny flat in Whitechapel. When she landed a book deal at 21 I realised aha, we have a nepo baby on our hands (although the term hadn’t quite been been invented back then).
 
So this account has under the influencer threshold numbers (although thousands) so have blocked it out but I think we have a JUNIOR LITERARY LUVVIE :)
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maytoseptember said:
Sorry to jump back all the way to January, but I’ve literally just discovered this thread and am feeling really smug that I’ve managed to predict two of the names in this thread: Bryony Gordon, and Ella.
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Bryony Gordon’s been laying low! Is she scheming up some confessional autobiography that’s more outrageous than the last? :)
 

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mfch said:
How is Ella a Nepo baby? She gives off huge vibes of being so. She seems very understated posh.
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I just googled Ella and couldn’t work out who her parents are, but did work out her actual name is Ellabell which is embarrassing for her and them.
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I don't think she is, I think confusingly her name is very similar to Alan Rusbridger but that's Bella Mackey's dad. I could be wrong though and there could be another nepo connection.
 
tatty400 said:
I think ED is naturally beautiful, but she’s starting to look weird with the fillers.
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I can’t cope with how frozen her and Emma’s faces look anytime they post a video for Best Friend Therapy. Emma’s forehead in particular just does not move! I don’t dislike either of them as people but I can’t help find it a bit inauthentic when they talk about ageing and how women are judged on their looks that they never address their own preferences for Botox etc.
 
mfch said:
How is Ella a Nepo baby? She gives off huge vibes of being so. She seems very understated posh.
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I just googled Ella and couldn’t work out who her parents are, but did work out her actual name is Ellabell which is embarrassing for her and them.
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I am possibly stretching the definition of nepo baby here, but assume that her wealthy parents and extremely privileged background (private school etc) gave her enough connections to land a succession of book deals and plum jobs that most young writers could only dream of.

I remember Googling her way back (must have been 2015) and apart from finding out her father isn’t her bio father (but is the father of her siblings) and some talk of going to several different schools, including one in Dubai, I couldn’t find that much.
 
soph30 said:
So this account has under the influencer threshold numbers (although thousands) so have blocked it out but I think we have a JUNIOR LITERARY LUVVIE :)
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Bryony Gordon’s been laying low! Is she scheming up some confessional autobiography that’s more outrageous than the last? :)
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LLs really
Londongirl89 said:
Who is this junior LL? She’s trying to copy Dolly’s writing, it’s v annoying 😂
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It’s from a Kickstarter project. Christ, even the begging is over-stylised and smug.
 
maytoseptember said:
I am possibly stretching the definition of nepo baby here, but assume that her wealthy parents and extremely privileged background (private school etc) gave her enough connections to land a succession of book deals and plum jobs that most young writers could only dream of.

I remember Googling her way back (must have been 2015) and apart from finding out her father isn’t her bio father (but is the father of her siblings) and some talk of going to several different schools, including one in Dubai, I couldn’t find that much.
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I think that's a stretch. All the LLs here would be classed as nepo babies if so. To me, nepo babies are offspring of celebs who then follow directly in their footsteps/become celebs too. Different to coming from a wealthy family. I do think she was published on the strength of her writing - sometimes the style/content grates but to me the quality of her writing does stand out and she did have a specific and more interesting context to write about than others IMO. She has talked about how she had no connections in the beginning but made them herself. And I get the impression she works hard - writing and producing a lot throughout significantly traumatic times. I don't think she's funded by her parents due to the way she talks about money etc but could be wrong.

Also, that ED extract from her book - terrible writing, unnuanced and lacking any kind of self analysis. Weird pictures too. Though it does sound like she had some crappy friends, why get so hung up about it when she obviously has friends who do get it. By this age you learn that people will let you down and lives diverge etc. And yeah, total lack of acknowledgement of her own privilege, being able to afford IVF. Astonished she wedged metoo, BLM in there. I get the feeling she never really learns much from her podcast guests...
 
My take on ED corresponds with what others have said. Weird pictures - sexy power dressing when she’s talking about her sadness at not being able to conceive?

SO much bitterness - her friends must all be texting each other today going omg.

And that thing saying you’re a bad human if you share happy baby pics online - from someone with the smuggest social media accounts EVER! I had to stop following her as I couldn’t take the endless smug couple pics with her sexless millionaire husband, the smug nights out with Jo Elvin and that Peloton woman, the smug pics of her in active wear...

The hypocrisy to now have a go at others putting up happy pics just because they have the one thing she does not!
 
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