October 1, 2009

"We will be Live-Tweetin' the game and possibly stalking Emma Watson, so keep your eyes peeled for that, too!"

The actress/Brown student is stalked by Harvard students.
A succession of tweets posted on the [Harvard] Voice's Twitter account during the game followed, including, "Let's go Hermione! Lolz," a reference to Watson's character in "Harry Potter." It went on, "In enemy territory. Lookin for a certain witch," and, "WATSON FOUND. i repeat WATSON FOUND....

The Voice eventually attached an editor's note to its post of Watson's photo, saying, "There seems to be much ado about nothing over this photo and liveblog. Understand that these live tweets were made to be intentionally outrageous and overblown."
The Harvard students are almost surely not great artists, nor are they — I don't think — religionists, and yet they too feel a sense of privilege that lifts them up above the common people to whom the rules apply. It is the privilege that comes from being so much cleverer than the ordinary person. Clever with a famous stamp of cleverness — and good fortune — on you.

22 comments:

kathleen said...

This hardly rises to the level of raping a minor. I don't see the analogy.

Balfegor said...

This hardly rises to the level of raping a minor. I don't see the analogy.

Yes, this one just sounds like normal college students behaving like college students. I don't think their being from Harvard has anything to do with it.

tim maguire said...

Stalking someone famous who is trying to live her life and advertising that fact broadly is not child rape, but it is more than an obnoxious prank. It is threatening.

But it's ok. It was meant to be outrageous and overblown and it was, so they should be applauded.

Job well done!

the jackal said...

Yes, unprivileged Wisconsin kids would never pull this sort of stunt.

traditionalguy said...

What we have here is a failure to communicate what "Class" means when we see it in others and pursue it for ourselves. The world system uses a concept of Class to separate the winners from the losers. But in the ongoing democratic experiment in Christian America we say there is no such thing as class, but Rich is another category we do respect.

Bissage said...

It would have been funnier had they tried to present Ms. Watson with a bouquet of her favorite roses and an old-fashioned fraternity serenade, but then, they didn’t ask me.

PatHMV said...

That these are college students, from whom some "hijinks" are expected, is what leads us to not permanently label them as reprobates and stalkers. It does not, however, make their behavior any less crass, boorish, rude, thoughtless,mean-spirited, and cruel.

Shanna said...

Hmm. I'm not sure what I think of this. In general, it's weird to run around after famous people, but it doesn't sound at first glance like what they did was malicious. Glad nothing bad happened as a result.

Revenant said...

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it sounds like all they did was say that Watson was at the game, find out where she was, and say that they had? From the article I don't understand how Watson was even aware they were doing it.

I don't see what was particularly mean-spirited or cruel about it. Ok, so they called her "Hermione", but come on. That's like calling Harrison Ford "Indiana Jones". Ford's probably sick of hearing it, but it isn't an insult.

Sprezzatura said...

Althouse is on the lookout for the elitists. Althouse is a protector of (and frequent apologist for) the elitist-abuse-victim Palin. Welcome to the all encompassing elitist v non-elitist meme.

Skyler said...

I don't see the threat. So she was said to be at a football game. Sports broadcasters do the same thing all the time by showing famous people in the audience.

But I will say that almost all the Harvard grads I know are insufferably elitist. Off-the-scale elitists. There are exceptions, of course, but the idea is very widespread among Harvard grads that they are the mostest smartest bestest wonderfulest enlightenedest people on the planet ever to exist. To too many of them all intelligent people in the world go to Harvard. Any intelligent people who lived before Harvard existed are in a sort of limbo, in that they would have gone to Harvard if were around.

But there are exceptions. And the exceptions are wonderful people.

1775OGG said...

"But it wasn't 'stalking stalking' so what's the big deal"

I guess that according to Whoopi and her peers, so-called minor transgressions are OK if the cognoscenti do something like what those dear boys from Harvard did. Then, it's acceptable.

After all, if that actress is frightened by this harmless fun, she needs to rethink her career, doesn't she!

wv: misidou unless one wishes not to!

MadisonMan said...

What is today's theme?

Apparently, having class is not a prerequisite for getting into Harvard. And once you're in, you can't flunk out.

Cedarford said...

The Voice eventually attached an editor's note to its post of Watson's photo, saying, "There seems to be much ado about nothing over this photo and liveblog. Understand that these live tweets were made to be intentionally outrageous and overblown."

My guess is that since it is an official student publication, the students involved in the harassment campaign against a student at an affiliated college will be having a little sit-down with the Dean and Faculty Advisors soon about their ability to stay on as Harvard Voice staff. If they do any more stalking or harassment campaigns against prominent students at Harvard or other Schools. (And Harvard has many students in the present or past noted on their own, or necause of their parents - who do have security concerns and would not appreciate being singled out in a public event attended by 45,000 people any more than Ms. Watson was.

It would be a real shame for Jackasses to make Watson reconsider her choice to attend university in America and have to go to Britain or France instead.

(Watson is also a gifted student besides being famous for movies. Besides Brown, she was accepted Yale, Stanford, at Oxford, and the Sarbonne, where she applied anonymously under her Mom's French name.)

Balfegor said...

Sarbonne, where she applied anonymously under her Mom's French name.

This is the one that actually sells it -- for the American universities, at least, she'd be getting a double bonus in the admissions stakes, being foreign and somewhat famous.

Penny said...

"It would have been funnier had they tried to present Ms. Watson with a bouquet of her favorite roses and an old-fashioned fraternity serenade, but then, they didn’t ask me."

Bissage, I can hear you doing karaoke to Rudy Vallee's Whiffenpoof Song...

We're poor little lambs who have lost our way

Baa, baa, baa

We're little black sheep who have gone astray

Baa, baa, baa



Lovely song. Especially when presented with roses. Four roses bourbon, to be exact. ;)

Penny said...

"Understand that these live tweets were made to be intentionally outrageous and overblown."

Hasty puddingish, I would imagine.

miller said...

Didn't Jodie Foster go to an Ivy League with relatively little attention? So why can't they just leave her be?

WV: swine (I kid you not); the people who stalk people like Emaa Watson

Penny said...

"So why can't they just leave her be?"

Do you remember that old adage, "When you live by the sword, you die by the sword"?

Because it comes with the territory, miller.

Synova said...

You know... hyperbole exists.

And trying to see a famous person once when you know you'll be at the same event is not stalking.

I would disapprove if it went on, or they bothered her, or if they gave specific enough information that she could be located by others. "At the football game" isn't specific information.

Synova said...

Maybe this is the same thing... not stalking-stalking... like Whoopie's not rape-rape, but first stalking has to be defined DOWN to something more or less innocuous just as rape was defined down until the word was meaningless.

I don't think that's a good thing to do. Stalking is serious and threatening. That the word was used in jest doesn't change its meaning but agreeing that *yes* it is stalking to "see if we can get a glimpse of Emma Watson" does.

Big Mike said...

... yet they too feel a sense of privilege that lifts them up above the common people to whom the rules apply. It is the privilege that comes from being so much cleverer than the ordinary person.

That's part of why I'm usually reluctant to hire Ivy graduates. The other part is that too many of them think they proved themselves the day they got accepted into an Ivy and don't see much need to ever extend themselves again.