Richard Armitage’s Christmas message 2018
A little festive cheer. pic.twitter.com/MJcT2BGeC8
— Richard Armitage (@RCArmitage) December 20, 2017
Me + Richard Armitage
a frequently irreverent and occasionally cerebral feuilleton of richard armitage studies
Charities Richard Armitage has supported [click this photo]
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Me + Richard Armitage 
I like that he is focused on treating others with respect and kindness. Surely a message that I (I can’t speak for others, only myself) need a gentle reminder of on occasion Happy holidays to you, serv, and all your readers
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I hope you had a great Chanukkah!
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same to you
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I should probably keep my humbugs to myself, since these messages never seem to make me happy anymore, but I screen my calls to avoid pitches like this 😉
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There’s so much that one could say, and believe me, it’s chasing its way around my head. I’m just so … tired.
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A Meg Ryan line from “Joe versus the Volcano” keeps going through my head … “I have no response to that.”
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I haven’t seen the movie, but yeah.
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Maybe that was the intention.
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Ähhm, was soll ich sagen??
Ich bin doch kein Teenager mehr, den man über Umgangsformen belehren müsste, wiederholt belehren müsste. Vielleicht hat mich das auf dem falschen Fuß erwischt, aber die Tonlage finde ich äußerst… weiß nicht… väterlich… und väterlich kann ich von RA gar nicht gebrauchen.
Sag mir, wenn ich die Zwischentöne falsch verstanden habe (frau lernt ja gerne dazu).
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no, you’re right. It definitely came off that way.
To which point my sole response is: “feel free to tell me how to speak to you or anyone else in public when you’re not yourself headlining a cartoon directed at youngsters and teens in which your vampire hunter character says ‘fuck’ as every third word.”
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You have a ‘fucking’ point.
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You can take the boy out of the lower middle class, but you can’t take the lower middle class out of the boy, I guess …
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Ich glaube nicht, dass dieses Sendungsbewusstsein mit seiner sozialen Herkunft zu tun hat, jedenfalls nicht hauptsächlich. James McAvoy stammt aus ähnlichen Verhältnissen und ihm würde so etwas nie einfallen. Das scheint einfach ein Teil seiner Persönlichkeit zu sein. damit müssen wir wohl leben, aber wir müssen es nicht gut finden.
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you may be right. He also has an insanely high level of need for harmony in his fandom (and I think these things are related — “just don’t say anything that could upset someone”). The problem at this concrete moment is that, apart from the merits of the attitude expressed in his stance, it’s really the wrong political moment for it.
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Und er weist auch noch auf die politisch schwierigen Zeiten hin. Wahrscheinlich meint er, die tiefen Gräben in der politischen Landschaft (oder auch teilweise in der Gesellschaft) könnten mit einer zur Schau getragenen Harmonie überwunden werden. Ich möchte nicht sagen, dass ich es gut finde, wie in manchen Diskussionen übereinander hergefallen wird. Aber einen Standpunkt klar zu vertreten und jemandem gegebenenfalls zu sagen, dass man keineswegs seiner Meinung ist, das ist zur Zeit besonders geboten. Diejenigen, die sich dabei sehr im Ton vergreifen, werden sich wohl kaum von seinen salbungsvollen Worten beeindrucken lassen.
Andererseits bin ich nicht sehr weitläufig im Fandom unterwegs. Hat er denn unter seinen Fans so viele, denen er glaubt raten zu müssen. Geht es derartig rund?
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I think that’s exactly right — he’s definitely preaching to a (not especially well informed) choir. Also, frankly, it reminded me uncomfortably of the current US president quoting Psalm 133:1 at his inauguration. I think it’s a nice thing to say but I’m waiting to hear exactly what the speaker means by it. (Similarly, the problem with “reporting” isn’t its “negativity,” it’s the fact that it’s inaccurate and/or ideological.) He probably doesn’t realize how chilling what he’s saying sounds. Or maybe he wanted to say something so vague that many on the alt-Right could agree with it. As you note: this is not a time for papering over differences. It’s a time for speaking the truth.
re his fandom — I’m not sure. His fandom is not especially young. I don’t have the impression that this was an especially negative year. But most of his youngest fans are on tumblr or instagram, where I don’t spend a lot of time. But he’s had this attitude from the beginning. He used to express it in a more charming way.
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The media comment in particular made me want to pull my hair out. Or smack him. Both, actually.
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Maybe you should get Anne Hathaway’s job. 🙂 And yeah, I agree — that statement was tearing out one’s hair-worthy. Good manners are going to allow us to defy the multi-billion dollar media machine. (In which he is a tiny cog. I wonder if he has any idea of what kind of ads get sold on the stuff he appears in.)
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Sweet nothings – very much in the spirit of the season, I suppose. As usual, I feel like applauding him for his best intentions. But I agree that some of his plea for harmony feels a bit too vague and meek. It’s commendable that he wants to comment on the political situation of the world in 2017. But I don’t really like his suggested recipe for dealing with the hatred that has been sown. In times like these, it is more important than ever to be absolutely clear on what can be tolerated and what can not. Reacting to everything with courtesy – turning the other cheek – is not enough…
But hey, focussing on the positive, I am glad that he is finding the time to send a Christmas message at all, that he is actually acknowledging his well-wishers’ activities on behalf of his chosen charities. The Christmas message is a nice tradition – do other celebs do the same, on this scale?
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Fair enough: good for him, for finally acknowledging the level of charity undertaken on his behalf. I think I said earlier this year I could strike this from my list of criticisms of him.
No idea re: other celebrities.
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This is very much how I feel about this year’s message. The message contains some – rather veiled – political criticism but to me it seems to be mainly about appreciating the donations his fans made to the various charities. Perhaps I haven‘t read it closely enough?
The current political situation is frightening all over the world. The increase of inequality and poverty is a serious threat and our politicians don‘t seem to be able to face (never mind solve) it. If I wrote christmas messages which were read by thousands of people I would perhaps say that but to be honest I don‘t know if I really would. I only write christmas cards to my friends and those cards tned to be just „christmassy“ 😊
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I think part of the problem is the mix of things and the way they are mixed. It would have been easy to thank fans for their donations and talk about his awareness of how they are valued, if that is what he wanted to do. But as you note, there’s other stuff in there: exhortation, prescription, political statements (however vague).
I was thinking today that my problem with almost all of these things is that I expect more thought or consideration to go into them than he probably does. Last year’s seemed to come more or less from the airport departure lounge. This one isn’t as disjointed as that, but it still lacks coherence. Or even the awareness that the most important stuff has to go at the beginning — is it really the case that choice of vocabulary on Twitter is more important to him than the general problem of cyberbullying, for instance? Admittedly, I’ve just finished grading term papers and so my eyes are out for the topic sentence. But I think it’s pretty basic to effective communication that you put the most important thing (or depending on how you understand persuasion, the matter most likely to be agreed upon by your readers) first. This morning I thought — he sat down to write this, wrote it, checked it for grammar and punctuation (or asked someone else to) and didn’t revisit it. I don’t think the personal practice of writing Xmas messages is directly comparable. We’re usually writing either to one person, or perhaps a group of people, whom we know very well and with whom we have a history. I suspect that if you knew you were writing to 200k people you would give it a lot of thought.
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You‘re of right of course – my christmas cards only reach a very small „target group“ 😉
I don‘t think I would want to write a christmas message to 1000s of people. I leave that to the Pope, the Queen and the Bundespräsident (not sure whether the latter actually does that or whether it‘s a New Year‘s speech; you can tell I don‘t listen 😉)
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and presumably all those people have speechwriters.
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Fair point. It must be hard knowing that one’s message is going to reach 220k followers on Twitter. At least for someone who is not a professional writer. (I should know – as I earn my living with writing. And I admittedly prefer to ignore the audience numbers, too…)
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My fundamental disagreement with him is that you just can’t meet bullies with diplomacy. He reads the climate incorrectly, I think, or else he feels this lukewarm “gentlemanly” approach will save the day. I love him as an actor but I don’t believe I’d be as enthralled with him in real life. And I fully agree with you about the hypocrisy re: bad language. Give me a break. You’re 46 and the word “fuck” can’t bother you that much if you don’t have a problem getting paid lots of money to say it every five minutes. For a character that WILL attract a young audience.
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Yeah, the influence on manners is dangerously beside the point. Oppression is old-fashioned, too, although a lot of people are praising it these days.
I think that working in the entertainment industry, he may be living in a cocoon. He probably doesn’t have friends and family members of friends who’ve been deported, he doesn’t have to deal with Islamophobia on a regular basis in the places he lives. And it’s not that I would wish that on anyone. But he really seems to think the rules of the world he lives in actually should apply to the rest of us.
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“A Little Festive Cheer”? I would say, “A VERY Little Festive Cheer.”
I am too soon to be 67 (that’s in people-years) and for my first read of this missive, I just find it a little too preachy as to where MY money is best spent, or, let’s say it, allocated by someone else to where it should be spent.
I am looking very forward to having a relatively good life in retirement because I earned and saved, and yes, gave along the way, and I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. I know what resources I have for that…not being a burden. And I don’t know what he means by “There is enough to go round, it just needs to be shared equally.” Well, actually I have a clue and that remark scares me.
And having said that, since he is into accounting for what I have done/should do/will do, where is his accounting for what he has done/should do/will do? Got some poor people living in your Manhattan condo, there, Richard?
From my viewpoint, his fans are economically handling what they can, and they give when he feels the urge (in his eyes). But, gotta say, when I read this, I saw and heard Bernie Sanders. NOT my vision of an actor I want to enjoy for what he is and what he can portray when both his and our imaginations meet. Hopefully for joyful things, sometimes deep, meaningful things, but not so much political things, y’know, Bernie…I mean, Richard?
Merry Christmas to you. I hope your dreams are fulfilled, your Christmas is white (well, I always wish for snow!) And hope and health for a very merry New Year.
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I imagine there’s a certain amount of culture conflict for a UK citizen living in the US as the attitudes toward these questions are strikingly different. I think on the whole he’s essentially UK center-left, which I’d put on our spectrum somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. As a UK citizen he certainly sees universal health care as a positive. OTOH he does follow Sanders on Twitter; I think it’s likely he votes Labour, which at the moment means Jeremy Corbyn, who’s almost the equivalent of Bernie Sanders. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s hard to be precise and that we have to apply a cultural filter in interpreting what he says.
I’m glad that people have backed off from pressuring other fans to give in his name. Frankly, this year, many people I know are tapped out due to all the weather disasters. Our family charitable contribution for the holidays went to the local volunteer fire department, which lost a bunch of money due to the state budget situation. With so many hurting here, I can’t justify giving charitably in the UK at present. I went to pick up our grocery order tonight and I had a real lesson in just how much people are suffering. I was picking up our approximately monthly buy, which is food for my father, his girlfriend, and me, in the cold and wind, and someone came out to my car with the stuff and put it in the trunk, gave me a small mince pie, and wished me a happy holiday, even as the police were rounding up people who were panhandling on the grounds of the store, including a double amputee in a wheelchair. I don’t think most people would choose to stand outside for hours in this weather, begging, if they had good alternatives. But Armitage’s birthday will roll around again faster than we think.
I hope you have a good holiday, too! There’s definitely snow on the ground here.
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I had no problem with the last paragraph. Maybe his holiday missives should be shorter.
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This is where Twitter went wrong generally — too many words! LOL.
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My basic reaction to this was:
Before reading: Joy that he still does this and thanked everyone who donated money in his name
While reading: lots of head-shaking and some hearty swear words
After reading: calming down with help from the latest RA-Hathaway-gif – I watched it in an continuous loop for two or three minutes, veeeeeery helpful!
And then I closed every social media platform for the night before I could read any other (praiseful) reactions and feel like a total grinch sigh
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Yeah, just don’t look at Twitter.
What’s sort of bizarre is that I realized yesterday — and this would be worth some more thought — is that the Gruppendynamik on Twitter has become so much more automatically policing than the fan discussion boards ever were. Even though there’s no censorship at all.
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Vielleicht hätte ich das auch machen sollen. Heute bin ich schon viel nachsichtiger gestimmt, aber gestern habe ich mich sehr geärgert (aus oben vielfach genannten Gründen).
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I think it’s fatigue — we’re all tired. I am as exhausted as I’ve ever been, and I know there are many, many people whose lives are much more difficult than mine. What I didn’t need to read yesterday was a sermon on good behavior and a weird, passive-aggressive pride statement about being “old-fashioned.” Whatever that means.
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Ich kann das wirklich fürs nächste Mal empfehlen, mir hat es zumindest geholfen 🙂
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There’s something really transfixing about that GIF.
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“Our younger followers”.
Poor kitten.
As a boy he was bored by the Queen’s speech. Now he write it.
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LMAO!
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No, don’t laugh! I’m mean… but he looks like a shepherd dog overwhelmed by a bunch of wild cats! So funny… poor puppy.
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[…] fandom have been preserved on richardarmitagenet.com, and his 2017 message is below. (Thanks to Servetus for bringing the message to our attention and for providing a forum for some interesting […]
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Call Me Shallow… or What I’d ReAlly Like from a Message | I'm Feeling This said this on December 21, 2017 at 8:56 am |
Thanks for the link love!
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Reading RA’s message, I feel like a schoolgirl (again) being admonished by the Principal!
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You know — that’s an interesting point and it makes me understand the reaction I had yesterday (and suppressed), which was to begin tweeting Bible verses at him. Seriously, Mr. Armitage, I’m an adult and I’ve got my own conscience.
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I have the impression that he tried to avoid saying anything wrong. Didn´t work out it seems.
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It’s possible.
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I know I’ve posted already, but I have this big thought that has popped into my head and can’t get rid of: does he have ANY clue who his fans really are? Is he directing his missives at young twenty-somethings who he thinks say fuck too often and aren’t “old fashioned?” Does he realize that some of us are older than he is and …. dare I say this … at least as smart as he is, if not more so? Does he not realize that many of us are donating to charities all over the place, but not necessarily in the UK where he happens to have his ties?
Do I sound grumpy? I guess the more I thought about his “message” the more irritated I became. I rather like it when he is silent, to be honest. I know many fans would completely disagree with me on that, but I prefer to watch him disappear into a role than pontificate about things which are a lot more complex than he makes them out to be.
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I think there’s are complex, sort of unaddressed questions around the charity issue, and I doubt he’s really thought much about it (at least the history of his statements about charity doesn’t suggest that he has).
Assuming “charity begins at home,” one might want to donate to something local in his honor. However, the only really international charities he’s endorsed are Cybersmile and Salvation Army, each of which is problematic in his own way. My resolution on this is that given my current bank balance, my donation to the charities of his that I can square with my conscience (pretty much: Childline, Young Minds, or Anthony Nolan) comes on his birthday, primarily as a present to him. I used to sometimes make a bigger gift when I saw a piece of his work for the first time that really moved me, but at present finances don’t permit that (although they will again in future and I’m not disinclined).
Another piece of it — and this can only be exacerbated now — is whether a fan receives any attention from him for donating, i.e., you can donate almost any place to honor him, but in the past you’d have had to have his email at least, or his mailing address, to notify him that that was happening. But now he’s made clear that he gets a message on his phone when you donate via JustGiving. So it’s pretty clear now — if you want immediate attention, donate to a JustGiving charity. My position on that is that it doesn’t affect my giving pattern. But …
it raises problem #3, which I go back and forth about — what about the various rationales for doing charity? Should you “do your charity in secret”? Or should you be like the Pharisees? — to put it in Christian terms. I was raised with the Christian ideal, but as an adult my position on this has generally been the Jewish one, that there’s more merit in secret charity than in public charity, but that all charity is valuable and if you need to have your name recognized in order to get the charity done, in the end that’s okay, as the point of charity is that people get helped, however that happens. But situations like this challenge me, I have to admit. On the one hand you could say, there are probably some people who wouldn’t make a charitable contribution of any kind but if they have the information that he will notice it, they might do it for that reason, i.e., you’re not taking money from any other charities because they wouldn’t have gotten it anyway. So if those people aren’t charitably inclined for any other reason except Armitage’s attention, at least in this case the charities involved benefit and they’re not taking money away from anyone else. But as you say, odds are most of his fandom who would respond to charitable appeals are already doing so anyway.
He used to be a bit more explicit about this — he’d say (paraphrased) that a donation would help so much but that charitable actions are also important. That’s in this message, but it’s backgrounded as he spends so much time talking about the donation aspect.
I honestly don’t know why he’s riding the “old fashioned” hobby horse here. I also don’t think the virtues he mentions, assuming we agree that they are virtues, are either old fashioned or unfashionable. They are the same virtues with which many families and religion raise children today.
I don’t think he has a solid handle on who his fandom is, but how could he? I think what became clear in this round, though, is that he is in big danger of thinking of his fandom in terms of the vocal people on Twitter, and that tendency will only be reinforced after this week, unfortunately.
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The old 33 rpm is scratched. When will he overcome his trauma as child or teenager … and move on to another more positive fight? It is not a funeral oration, sermons but wishes for a happy new year which he would share with his fans.
Every day I fight to give hope to sick people and help them fighting, regardless of age or social status. (It is not in RA’s words that I will find comfort for the future mother who is expecting twins, one of whom is diagnosed with Down Syndrome and who does not know how to tell her two older children that they will only see one born baby when 2 were announced or for the leukemic father under last chance experimental treatments (more then 6000 Euros per week) who will leave town with his children and his wife to celebrate Christmas at the seaside) … Money does not solve everything. A smile, bearing consideration can do a lot more.
To want to probe too much the thought of crazy kings, cannibals, bloodthirsty fighters, double spies, troubled personalities, right-wing extremists … to seek the good, I’m afraid he will lose the sense of reality and that it makes them sympathetically frequent, particulary in the eyes of the innocent people he wants to protect …
The spectacle of the monstrosities of the present world must engender their denunciation and the expression of positivity.
Without holidays except the 25/12 and the 1 of January I WISH all fans merry holidays and fun for the end of the year.
Le vieux 33 tours est rayé. Quand va t-il surmonter ses traumatismes d’enfant, d’adolescent, … et passer à un autre combat plus positif? Ce n’est pas une oraison funèbre, des sermons mais des souhaits de bonne et heureuse année, qu’il doit partager avec ses fans.
Tous les jours je me bats pour donner de l’espoir aux personnes malades et les aider à combattre, quelles que soient leur âge ou leur condition sociale. ( Ce n’est pas dans les propos de R A que je vais trouver du réconfort pour la future maman qui attend des jumeaux dont l’un est diagnostiqué trisomique et qui ne sait comment annoncer la nouvelle aux 2 grands ainés qui ne verront naître qu’un bébé sur les deux annoncés ou pour le père leucémique sous traitements expérimentaux de dernière chance (6000 Euros par semaine) qui part avec ses enfants et son épouse fêter Noel à la mer)… L’ argent ne résout pas tout. Un sourire, porter de la considération peuvent faire beaucoup plus.
A vouloir trop sonder la pensée des rois fous, des cannibales, des combattants sanguinaires, des espions doubles, des personnalités troubles, des extrémistes de droite … pour y chercher le bien, j’ai peur qu’il perde le sens de la réalité et qu’il les rende sympathiquement fréquentables, particulièrement aux yeux des personnes innocentes qu’il veut protéger…
Le spectacle des monstruosités du monde actuel doit engendrer leur dénonciation et l’expression de la positivité.
Sans vacances excepté le 25/12 et le 1er janvier JE VOUS SOUHAITE de bonnes fêtes de fin d’année.
( Ce n’est pas dans les propos de R A que je vais trouver du réconfort pour la future maman qui attend des jumeaux dont l’un est diagnostiqué trisomique et qui ne sait comment annoncer la nouvelle aux 2 grands ainés qui ne verront naître qu’un bébé sur les deux annoncés ou pour le père leucémique sous traitements expérimentaux de dernière chance (6000 Euros par semaine) qui part avec ses enfants et son épouse fêter Noel à la mer)…
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I think it’s a solid point that none of what he writes really addresses acute problems in the way that people might do, face to face. Although to be fair, that is not the point of the kind of charity he endorses, or mostly not; the point of supporting a homeless charity is a mass effort toward solving the problem, not a response on a case to case basis, and I suspect that this isn’t all bad — most people, confronted with the sort of problems that homeless people often have, would prefer to retreat and leave it to the professionals, and I don’t know that it’s terrible. I definitely agree that there’s some text from his childhood or youth playing out here, although without knowing more, it’s hard to say exactly which. I’ve wondered for a long time if he was precariously housed or temporarily homeless at some point during his youth in London, or knew people who became homeless. It’s been a pretty intense concern of his more or less from the beginning of his messages to fans.
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En tout cas pour la troisième année, je verse un montant d’argent dont le nombre est composé des chiffres 4 et 6 en faveur d’une association locale française qui s’occupe des Sans Domicile Fixe, des réfugiés, des femmes et des jeunes rejetés par leur famille ou tombés à la rue…
Pour rester fidèle aux associations qu’il soutient , je préfère donner aux professionnels dans le domaine social et éducatif. Là l’esprit DU DON est conservé.
Ses propos de considération envers ses fans font chaud au coeur.
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I personally think professionals are best equipped to deal with this problem.
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“Winter is coming” today december the 22th, to refer to the Game of Throne ‘s quote.. Happy day for all of you with or without snow!
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🙂
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As ever: beautiful intentions, awkward piece of writing; there is a naivité and a generalizaton there that doesn’t appeal to me… So, I’ll just cherry pick the nice things and politely ignore the rest. 🙂
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So well put, Esther. I had a larger piece prepared. Don’t know where it went. Maybe I accidentally deleted it 🙂
In brief, I like the message with all its good intentions, but I think there’s an underlying sadness to it. It reminds me of something Armitage wrote earlier.
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Hmm, did not pick up sadness.
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that’s not the easiest thing for me to do — but as with many things I learned about this year, if they repeat, I’m going to have to deal with them differently.
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I didn´t had any expectations about that message so no expectations could be disappointed. I can´t understand the praises the message received on twitter (actually reactions there seemed really weird to me) but I also don´t understand why some seem somehow take offence at it. Maybe it´s because I´m new in fandom, maybe it´s because of the language barrier, maybe it´s just because I feel too exhausted at the moment to find some energy for being upset.
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I think reactions are complex because a lot of people have history with these messages. (I didn’t take offense at it apart from the ongoing comment about speech, which I have always found offensive.) The person who was really angry at him on Twitter has met him, has donated a lot of money to a charity in his behalf, and has some kind of personal quarrel with him; I won’t bother to get into the details here.
I often think this isn’t really the best place for a new fan to land — my phase of total enchantment with Richard Armitage lasted a comparatively long time, from 2010-2015, but I’m not there now. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that after he got Twitter we heard a lot more from him. This blog has always been more critical of him than the average fan blog, but my writing as well as my feelings about him made a significant shift at that point. It’s probably also important to note that Twitter really changed the overall tone of the fandom.
In other words, there are a lot of things at work here 🙂
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I understand, of course, that people have a different view on things when they have a history with them.
re taking offence: I didn’t refer to you actually.
I neither have a twitter account nor do I follow anyone. I only have a look there when I get directed from another site (e.g. yours). This said I had only a brief look on his twitter after I saw your entry about his message. At this time all reactions there were, well, overwhelming positive and, in my opinion, totally exaggerated (I wonder what influence reading all these praises has on him). Anyway, I had another look after your reply and I probably saw the message you were refering to. I don’t think I can judge about it but I can see the hurt behind it.
Well, I don’t know whether this blog is a good place for new fans in general but I’d say it is for me because I get in touch with various interesting topics here and that’s what I’m looking for.
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Well, as the official answer to the question of “how does Richard Armitage react to irrationally effusive praise?” is “Richard Armitage is the most modest, humble man ever to walk on Planet Earth,” officially, we can assume he does not believe a word of it. Seriously, though, I don’t know what he does with that. I know I couldn’t handle reading that.
I’m not asking you to go 🙂 however, I think this blog is a bit of an acquired taste. I’m happy that the people who show up to comment are so interesting and well-informed.
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This message should have been title “very little festive cheer”.
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I used to really look forward to these messages and thinking about them could cheer me up for several days. To the point that I wanted to fight for independent custody of them in 2014. Not so much now. I was tired before I read what he said and now I’m tireder.
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So maybe he’s getting more coherent about this:
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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uch …. and I just logged on to Twitter. The attack on Kellie begins. I don’t get why people who are such ardent Cybersmilers do this time … after time … after time …
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The more famous, the less interesting.
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apparently so.
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[…] “Richard Armitage’s Christmas message 2018,” December 20, 2017. Tweets reposted without commentary, but fairly extensive discussion in comments. Interesting that a post that’s been there for ten days has gotten almost as much attention as some from January. […]
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2017 at “me + richard armitage” in review | Me + Richard Armitage said this on December 28, 2017 at 10:44 pm |