I am a lurker on social media, nowadays mostly Reddit. X seems to be self-destructing, TikTok is only good for BookTok (I cannot stand the algorithm), Instagram is dull, and Threads is floundering as no one knows how to navigate the mobile app and create viral content on it. However, Meta is introducing a desktop version soon, which might allow the new space to flourish.
Reddit remains my favourite as it allows me to read rather than just scroll past pics and hashtags. Mostly, I can control what I engage in. I’m in charge of the bubbles I choose to live in and I think that is why the app is still so popular. But as I say, I am a lurker. I don’t contribute. I have several subreddits I dive into. One is Am I the a**hole, known by its acronym, AITA. Oh the joy of reading whether people think the poster is in the wrong. If so, it is shortened to YTA (You are the a**hole), if not, it’s simply NTA (Not the a**hole). Or if all parties involved are wrong, it's ESH (Everyone sucks here). The subreddit is now mostly populated by teenagers' dodgy opinions, but it’s still satisfying schadenfreude to read about people’s silly and sometimes serious dilemmas.
The other subreddit I dive into regularly is on The Real Housewives. I enjoy reading the comments and getting some juicy information on the characters. I know it's trashy reality TV, but I do enjoy most iterations of the show, which bewilders Gman, who skedaddles out of the room when I watch, saying: “All I hear are people screaming at each other.”
The Reddit thread is mostly about the Richards sisters. Kyle Richards has been the mainstay of the Beverly Hills version and her sisters Kim and Kathy have featured at different stages in the series. They have a dysfunctional relationship to say the least. One of the books posters always suggests reading to understand their fraught sisterhood is House of Hilton: From Conrad to Paris by Jerry Oppenheimer. Why Hilton? Because sister Kathy is Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris.
Published in 2006, it's more of an unauthorised biography of Paris’s paternal and maternal roots than a takedown of her — at the time, Paris was fodder for the tabloids and known as being “famous for nothing”. Sigh, we didn’t have a clue what was coming.
One of the main characters Oppenheimer focuses on is Big Kathy, mother of Kathy and grandmother of Paris, who is described as a materialistic “stage mother from hell”. According to the book, Big Kathy was heinous. She pitted her three daughters against each other, instructed them (and later Paris and her sister Nicky) to become stars, marry rich and secure the bag by having lots of babies with rich men. (Big Kathy married four times.) Her daughters mostly followed this advice. She was once heard boasting: “My daughters are married to men who have a total net worth of $13bn.”
It’s a snarky, silly, gossipy book, just like the show, unearthing as it does, family secrets, embarrassments and sexual peccadilloes. Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and Natalie Wood all make appearances.
It is clear though that not one Hilton or Richards in this book is innocent. In fact, if I was judging them on AITA, it would definitely be that everyone sucks here.
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