This is true, on a personal level because really would you want to hang out with someone who doesn’t think much of you, who’s mean or critical or makes you feel bad about yourself? Actually, the weird answer to that is ‘sometimes we do’ especially if that’s what we grew up with because that is what we understand love to be and even though it’s unpleasant it still feels safe and familiar.
Unfortunately, in TV land what other people think of our shows matters quite a bit. But as a producer once rather wisely said: ‘don’t assume that the majority of our audience is on social media.’ Sometimes it feels like Twitter/Facebook/Insta/Tiktok is real life but if you step away from it for a moment, you realise that isn’t the case.
We have fan pages for our shows on the socials and what always astounds me is the people who consistently go on to the fan page to trash the show. They furiously go on about what a waste of time it is, how XXX show is so much better, how they hope it’ll get cancelled etc..BUT THEY CARRY ON WATCHING IT, dear reader.
I could understand their ire if we were still in the days where you had no choice and you only had TV for about three hours a night and only one channel. That is not the case anymore, if you don’t like something you can just change the channel. But they persist.
I admire their tenacity.
I went to the hairdresser on Saturday, I forced myself to go. This is the downside of short hair where you actually have to do something about it. Also, is this an age thing where things you previously found quite fun, I’m speaking here in particular about getting tarted up, getting hair and nails done, going shopping are now BEYOND F*CKING TEDIOUS?
A case in point: shopping for jeans.
I found the perfect pair of low-cut, flared jeans at H&M on Saturday. But they had a great big fashionable rip in them. I’m not talking about a small rip, this was the Zambezi gorge of rips, I literally stuck my foot through it and then fell over. I lay there where I fell on the change room floor and wept, dear Reader.
FFS!! Can we not just have jeans without rips in them??
Not to mention jeans that are so high-cut we can tuck our boobs into them?
And jeans so low-cut that you can take a trip to the gynae without taking your knickers off??
Also, now there are so many different styles of jeans to choose from, I feel exhausted just reading the labels.
Back to the hairdresser. My lovely hairdresser, Tee, admitted that she was not impressed that our last show, Imbewu had been cancelled and she found the first couple of episodes of our new show Smoke & Mirrors kind of blah.
BUT she kept watching and now she’s really getting into it and the best part is she loves our single mother character and her son because she can identify with her.
This is one of the nicest things people can say to me about our shows/my books is that they feel seen. What is that quote? We read to know that we’re not alone. It’s the: ‘hey, that’s exactly how I felt’ vibe.
That’s the thing about books too, it’s lovely to hear if they resonate with people but some people will hate your work or worse, find it blah. And that’s okay too. Because the thing about books is that once you’ve written them and sent them out into the world, they don’t belong to you anymore. They belong to the readers and what those readers think of them is really none of your business.
Andy Puddicombe says something on the Headspace App to the effect that if we believe our good reviews and the nice things people say about us, then we have to believe the bad stuff too. Best not to be too attached to any of it.
What people think of us is none of our business.
TV/Film recommendation: the Husband and I watched a really fab movie on DSTV Box Office on Saturday night. It’s called Vengeance and stars comedian, BJ Novak (he also writes and directs) and the gorg Ashton Kutcher as an eccentric record producer.
It’s a surprisingly soulful story about a writer who’s leading a fairly emotionally arid life in New York wanting a story for a podcast. He gets a call from a family in Pofadder, Texas (not really Pofadder but similar) that his girlfriend has died.
Only problem is he barely knew the girl and only hooked up with her a couple of times. But off he goes…and you think it’s going to be a sort of rollicking comedy, but it turns out to be a lot deeper than that and I found the twist at the end quite surprising. Watch it.
Book recommendation: Happy Place. I eventually got to read this, and it doesn’t disappoint. Emily Henry knows how to craft the perfect romcom. This one concerns Wyn and Harriet as they navigate their on-again, off-again relationship.
Although the love story is compelling (and filled with sex scenes), what I did find interesting was what it had to say about the things in life we find most fulfilling and the pressure parents put on their kids to succeed. Sometimes it’s not getting the degree from the best university and the big, fat job that makes us happy.
And no, the characters don’t go bake muffins on a farm somewhere and instantly become billionaires, it’s a lot more prosaic than that which is what I enjoyed. Read it.
The holidays are over, but we have two fabulous book fairs coming up. Don’t forget the Franschhoek Literary Festival from 19-21 May and the Kingsmead Book Fair on 27th May.
You can book your tickets for #FLF23 HERE.
Go forth and book!
