Tauriq Moosa alerted me to an example of “there is no depth too low.” What is it? Harassing a child who has leukemia? Torturing a kitten in front of the kitten’s weeping human? Firebombing a picnic just for the lolz?
No, it’s harassing Amanda Berry for going outside and having fun – Amanda Berry, who spent ten years not being able to go outside and have fun because she was imprisoned in a house by a filthy human being who kept her locked up there.
On CNN over the weekend, Nelly told Erin Burnett, “What stuck with me most was that she had a smile on her face. That’s one of the most impressive things to me, considering everything she had been through … I thought, wow, that was special.” But Burnett was too busy being amazed that “She looked totally normal.”
Burnett’s concerned astonishment was charitable compared to what the lowest form of opinion generators – Internet commenters – had to say about Berry’s newly reignited social life. “It’s just odd given the years of abuse she suffered. Normally she would not have that kind of trust or comfort. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t make sense,” wrote one concerned ABC News commenter, while another more bluntly decided, “It seems to me she was enjoying it and is gonna use her ordeal to cash in.” Many were concerned that she appeared with a man who stood behind her and warmly put his arm around her and kissed her neck while she was onstage. Or, as some of the ABC commenters decided, he was a “dirt bag hanging all over her,” who “groped” and “pawed” her. A CBS News commenter more generously decided she looked “pretty hot.” And 645 comments later on NBC, Berry had plenty of well-wishers but also comments about her eyebrow piercing, and how she doesn’t look like “a real victim….lol.” And of course, if you want to plumb the absolute bottom of the barrel, there’s YouTube, where Berry is being accused of “milking everything she’s getting.”
Uh huh. She did it for the blog hits.
“I’m sorry, but…” is pretty much the generic version of “I’m not a racist, but….” isn’t it?
Two things, ok, maybe three. One; it is wonderful to see an example of resiliency like this. Some people can bounce back from tragedy and some are defeated by it, if she turns out to be lucky enough to be in the first group, hooray. Two; can you think of many examples of people who more deserve to go out and enjoy themselves? Three; these idiotic types of responses only prove that the decision to stay out of the public eye for as long as they did was not unwise. I can not imagine the misplaced vitriol that would have oozed out of the slime had the three of them granted the flood of interviews and appearances that I’m sure were available to them. I hope that they are able to cash in on something to compensate them for the time that was stolen from their lives.
Does “milking everything she’s getting” mean the same as “making lemonade out of her vast supply of lemons”? If not, what is the difference?
Just because she is reclaiming her freedom by being a social being, she’s the one who is somehow “milking it”. BTW, “milking it” refers to the theoretically inevitable monetary gain from book or movie deals, interviews, etc. Now, color me weird, but I imagined that someone playing the victim for all its worth would be the one “milking it”. None of the women involved are doing that. They are all dealing with it differently (surprise! right?), and they need to be left the fuck alone to the extent they wish to be left alone, and they need to be able to do what they want without endless commentary and interference.
The only critters milking anything would be the news media. And trolls who need comment fodder.
Ariel Castro made the same argument at his sentencing hearing.
You beat me to it but it bears repeating. Pretty much shows what kind of scum these commenters are.
Jebus what’s wrong with them? She deserves every tiny little bit of happiness she can possibly get from “milking” any opportunities that pass her way. What sort of an asshole would try and deny her that!
Quite possibly the same sort of people who like to induce a general moral panic when kidnappings (or whatever) happen. They have something ridiculous and/or dangerous to say about everything.