Katie Hopkins – Why Rent-a-Gob’s days are numbered

Failed wannabe in just about every sphere she has tried to enter, Katie Hopkins managed to offend practically the whole of the autism community last week by her snide comments about people on the spectrum. It was only a matter of time.  Hopkins – also known in Britain as Rent-a-gob and Professional Troll – makes a living out of insulting people. It is apparently the only area where she can succeed.

Whilst I’d like to think that the many thousand and counting tweets of protest at Hopkins’ crass remarks might lead to a change of media practice – not to mention giving Hopkins her P45 – I’m not optimistic.   It seems that for the scummier side of the British media any insult is fodder for the publicity machine, an opportunity to boost ratings and pockets at someone else’s expense.

Any news, it seems, is better than none, and no doubt Rent-a-gob serves a purpose of sorts: no scandals, no celeb gossip today – no problem, just wheel out rent-a-gob Hopkins to insult migrants, Jews, the elderly, people on the spectrum. There, problem solved, she’s made the headlines.

Hopkins however seems to have taken this to a whole new depth, not so much scraping the barrel as going through it to the dirt beneath. It smacks of desperation, of the same need that drove people to earn a living in days of yore by being professional dung collectors. In a frantic bid to be someone, Hopkins targets those she sees as less than herself, the irony being that in her desperation, Hopkins places herself way below those she seeks to ridicule and commits the ultimate own goal.

Calls for Hopkins to apologise are hardly the solution – after all, exactly how sincere would that be even if it were extorted from her at gunpoint (there’s a thought…?) The solution is for the British media and in particular The Sun newspaper to take a bit of responsibility and sack her.  But so long as she is part of that sad piece of machinery which provides something to fill essentially vacant minds with vacuous comments, she’ll stick around until someone worse comes along.

Ultimately, in a strange sort of way, I feel sorry for her. Hopkins is as much the victim of her own delusions of superiority as those who give her credence. And whilst I would not on a personal level give her the time of day, let alone a column in The Sun in which to generate outrage on demand, I find myself idly speculating how much longer she’s got in her chosen career as National Super Bitch.

I can’t help feeling that her days are numbered and that like everyone else who has been used as a media tool, she will be dropped sooner rather than later.  Perhaps the kindest thing we can all do in the autism community is ease her passage into oblivion by starting to ignore her now.  We’ve all got more important things to think about than stupid ill-informed comments thrown out to raise a few bucks.

Opinions expressed by Autism Daily Newscast Contributors are their own.