It's happened again. In the middle of last week's tragedy at Westminster, a young woman is captured walking past a victim who is on the ground being helped by concerned passers-by. Immediately, nice guy @SouthLoneStar Tweets "Muslim woman pays no mind to the terror attack, casually walks by a dying man while checking phone". Not only does he incorrectly assume that she was "paying no mind" to the carnage, he has no idea what might have transpired only seconds before or after. As the photographer later revealed, the poor woman was visibly horrified and behaving exactly the same as many other people on the bridge.
A few weeks before, we had the hilarious BBC interview where Professor Rob Kelly was talking very seriously about South Korea and in comes little Marion, like a boss! She's swiftly followed by baby James in a walker, to the horror of his wife Jung-a Kim, who launches herself into the room to retrieve them. Personally, I thought Prof Kelly did a great job of keeping a straight face when he was clearly both mortified and about to die laughing. This is the bloody BBC for god's sake. But who could have foreseen the negativity that was about to be unleashed?
He's a terrible father because he "swatted" his child.
He should have pulled her up onto his lap. (Clearly these commenters have never had toddlers -she'd have either grabbed the mouse or taken over the interview.)
That baby shouldn't have been in a walker.
It was the nanny.
No it was his wife.
You need to look at your motives for assuming it was the nanny.
She was so terrified; he must be an abusive husband.
Unbelievable and, as we saw in a follow-up interview, all about as far from the truth as they could be.
The same thing happened a few years ago when we saw Harper Beckham, then aged four, with a dummy in her mouth. Daddy David was moved to comment on his Instagram account,
"Why do people feel they have the right to criticize a parent about their own children without having any facts?"
before explaining that Harper had a fever, wasn't feeling well and the dummy was a comfort. Similarly Katie Price was lambasted last year when a photo showed her youngest child drinking juice from a bottle. The horror! Price responded by reminding her followers (nice followers, by the way) that she knew what she was doing, having had five kids.
And then we have people making a living out of poking their noses in other people's business and opining in the daily rags or, when they get the chance, on TV. Katie Hopkins, you know who you are. Without even knowing much about the Westminster assailant (a Brit, born as Adrian Russell Elms) she laid into immigrants (of course) saying,
"These people may have left their lands. But they have brought every tension, every conflict, every bit of fight here with them".
Hopkins can turn her tongue to any topic however, and is on record as saying owners of mobility scooters are "intolerable", mothers who take more maternity leave than she did are apparently "sitting around drinking coffee" and, most ironically, people with tattoos are attention seekers.
"For me, tattoos are just a way for people to find attention who haven't found it another way in their life to achieve it by conventional means."
So, a bit like slagging people off whenever you get the chance then?
Perhaps we should all adopt the adage "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"? If this sounds a little too saintly, then perhaps just gather a few more facts before passing judgment? Or just don't pick on James Blunt.