3 Groups of People Who are Utterly Unbearable in this Coronavirus Crisis

Times of crisis are supposed to bring us all together. That largely rings true for me in this Coronavirus pandemic. I’ve connected with otherwise-forgotten contacts over Zoom; felt affiliation with others who are finding lockdown challenging; and admired the efforts of our keyworkers in more ways than just the weekly claps that bring our whole street out in solidarity.

It has been a very somber time (and I’m aware I haven’t had it anywhere near as bad as some) with a few silver linings.

Instances of bravery, solidarity and concern for others have been truly heartwarming. If I was a better man, I’d have focussed the rest of this article on those virtues.

But instead, I’ve chosen to focus on the few bad eggs that have acted like utter bellends throughout this whole episode. Sometimes you’ve just got to get things off your chest, and this is one of those times. If that makes me a bellend too then I plead guilty. But I ask the jury to refrain the verdict until hearing my case.

So, without further ado, let me tell you about 3 groups of people who’ve got right on my nerves over the last few weeks.

Celebrities and their endless self promotion

We’ve always known that some celebrities live in their own little bubble. But the crisis has truly exposed some of them for not having a clue about what normal people are going through.

All of us are watching massive quantities of streaming services like Netflix, but what are the celebs doing?

The heart of the problem is that their desire to be famous trumps everything else. This whole coronavirus situation seems to have starved a few of them of the air-time that they crave, sending a few of them into desperate territory. This lot will do anything to make sure that they stay in the public eye.

You’ve got to love some of the messages they’ve shared. “Boo hoo, lockdown is so difficult, I feel your pain guys – can’t wait til it’s over”, they’ll claim in an Instagram post designed with one thing in mind: making it all about them!

Are they completely oblivious to the fact that being locked down, with millions in the bank, in the confines of an extravagant 6-bed house with its own gym, swimming pool and two acres of land doesn’t exactly help us feel they’re relating to us?

Frankly, if your biggest worry in lockdown is either that nobody is seeing enough of your face, or that you’ll have to clean your own house because the housemaid is social distancing, then you can keep well away from the rest of us.

Time and again, celebs are misjudging the situation by assuming the thing that’s going to help us through this crisis by seeing their face and being forced to consume more of their rubbish.

A peak moment of the crisis has to be this video of a group of celebs butchering Imagine, by the Beatles. At best, it’s misguided. More realistically, it’s a living monument to narcissism and the production quality – even in lockdown – is just laughably awful. What were they thinking?!

The comments on the video tell a story in themselves:

And if you like your humor on the bleak side, you might also appreciate the efforts of this next comment:

Celebrities, do us a favour: Just sit tight, enjoy the break we’re having with lockdown and don’t assume that we need you or your self promotion to get us through this.

Although there have been many losers, we have had some winners in celeb-land over the past weeks. Where they’ve kept it brief and not made it seem like a desparate cry for attention, some of them have really nailed it:

His name might well be cockney rhyming slang for something rude, but his Twitter game is absolutely excellent.

Your Facebook Communities

If you’re daft enough to be in some local Facebook groups, like I am, then you’ll have noticed that this crisis has brought the worst out in some people. A few particular types of people deserve a mention.

Nosey neighbours

This situation has brought out the very worst in some people who love nothing more than to look out of their window and gripe about others. As self-appointed neighbourhood watch they’re spending most of their time in this crisis worrying about what other people are doing.

“There’s a man near where I live who I’ve seen taking his dog out 3 times a day – AbSoLuTeLy OuTraGeOuS BeHaViOuR”. Whether they’ve got a point or not, they’re making it in exactly the wrong place.

You’ve got to wonder why they think that anyone else cares, or how the situation is going to improve by constantly reporting these misdemeanours on Facebook.

Dogs aren’t the only ones spending all their time looking out of the window these days….

Hypocrites

This is a variation of the last one, but elevated a notch on the scale of annoyingness. These are the sort of people who will post “I was out in the park today and disgusted that there were so many people there when we have a lockdown in place!”. Not a hint of self-awareness that they too were out and about, in the park contributing to so many people being there.

Of course these are the people who are always above reproach. They’re always in the right and seem either to have things very easy, or are flouting the rules themselves but think they are different to everyone else.

Self-appointed experts

I don’t know about you, but until this crisis hit, I had no idea how many experts we had locally on complex topics like infectious diseases, government policy, and the global manufacturing and supply of PPE.

I’m assuming that they’re spending most of their lockdown time studying these disciplines (which they all seem to have years of experience in) as they all seem to be getting more and more certain in their chosen subjects day by day.

Whether it’s offering unwanted advice to others, providing their own twisted interpretations on the facts, or simply running around telling everyone else they’re wrong, these people are unbearable.

Don’t forget, in the election before Christmas, many of these same individuals were also self appointed experts in constitutional law.

You’ve spent all night reading Facebook posts about how the government has handled Coronavirus. Congratulations, you’re now a fully-qualified expert in infectious disease management.

Political fanatics

If you had a fanatical political belief before this whole crisis started (like it seems half of Twitter do), then the current situation seems to have provided you with perfect excuse to try to ram your ideology home.

Forget that this is a once-in-a-generation disaster which everyone is still making sense of. Instead, this is the opportunity you’ve been looking for to press your point home.

If you think the Tories are corrupt and Boris is a work-shy incompetent, you’ll likely have spent the entire of lockdown constructing arguments to pad out your strawman.

“Where’s the Prime Minister in this crisis?!”, said so many people angrily – knowing full well they’d be nowhere near their place of work if they’d been in intensive care for days. Clearly, there are things he has done that deserve criticism, but some of it (I’m talking about the sort of people who were making distasteful comments about the possibility of him dying) has merely revealed people’s own political biases and nastiness.

Some people are so worried about ramming their own ideological arguments to everyone else that they’ve gone into overdrive in this crisis.

Like the people who have noticed that the government has spent a fortune so far in trying to stop the economy completely breaking and concluding that a) this is proof that socialism works and b) there is actually a magic money tree:

To use a once-in-a-generation-sized event to prove your case doesn’t really stack up. If you struggled to convince everyone of the argument during normal times, it seems even less credible now.

But there are plenty still giving it a try. Anyone who thinks we’ve found the magic money tree and that this spending is evidence that we can spend whatever we want on anything, whenever we want, should probably hold off until we’ve seen how all of this plays out in the long term. Something tells me there are going to be a few years of arguing about who picks up the tab for all of this.

It’s not just socialists, or Boris haters, or any one particular group who are alone in overcapitalising on this crisis. So many are at it – take a few examples:

• Vegans: “We told you so. None of this would ever have happened if the world didn’t eat meat” (nevermind that it was some lunatic trying to eat a bat)
• Brexiteers: “Just look at the EU – it’s absolutely crumbling with this crisis. It’s good we got out when we did”. (nevermind that much of Europe has been pulling together to help each other through it)
• Remainers: “Hahahaha – we said you shouldn’t leave the EU – now who is going to pick all your fruit?!” (nevermind that very few people, including eastern European fruit pickers, have been travelling anywhere because of the crisis, or that tens of thousands of Brits volunteered to step in)

I’m not here to try to push my own particular case on any of these points. In my experience, the truth usually lies somewhere in between the extremes each side indiscriminately shout at each other.

The point is, however, that using these unusual circumstances (especially as we’re still so relatively early in the crisis) to try to publicise your political case just diminishes your overall arguments and convinces most of us of nothing other than your political biases. At times like this, we need level-headed speakers of sense helping us pull together. Not the shouty lunatics who only seek to divide us.

Conclusion

Perhaps the above people have got on your nerves as well, or maybe another group – which I might have forgotten – have been even worse? I’d love to know in the comments below.

At least for me writing this piece has been cathartic. Although the above groups of people frustrate me, I try to keep in mind that this is a stressful time for all of us. We’re all entitled to react in our different ways – each to their own.

One thing that this has brought out for me is the impact of social media. Were it not for having Twitter of Facebook (I’m too old for TikTok), I probably wouldn’t have encountered anywhere near as much of the bad behavior I’ve mentioned above.

Social media – a blessing as well as a curse through this crisis!

Stepping back, most people in this crisis have been thoroughly decent, kind and helpful. In our local neighborhood, so many people have come together to help each other at this time.

Listening to the shouty voices on social media, you’d be tempted to think our society was splintering apart under the strain of this crisis. But in my experience, at local level, I think communities are coming together more at this time. Even in certain online communities, we’re sharing and bonding in ways that only can only be encouraging for the future.

So, let’s cut out the negative influences at this time – and I acknowledge that means I’ve got to stop moaning about others. Now, more than ever, we need to look after each other as much as we can. Stay safe everyone.