Meet the Feeble – Pebbles Hooper on unSocial Media

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When I find myself moved to sit down and write a blog at 8am on a Sunday morning you can guarantee there will be typos. This will not be one of my better blogs as far as structure is concerned. That is because this blog is not a considered piece on a subject I have been pondering but a passionate and angry response.

Last night Pebbles Hooper made an unforgivably stupid and unkind comment on twitter. A comment that is not reflective of the New Zealand public. It is a comment that reflects only the nasty and emotionally void interior of the shallow and ignorant woman who wrote it.

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My intent in writing now is to simply say that these kind of cruel and callous comments should not go unsanctioned. The comment pertained to the absolutely tragic incident that occurred in Ashburton. An event so unpredicted that apart from expressing my most sincere sympathy to the family I find it, as I’m sure most people capable of any empathy would, deeply disturbing that Peebles would utter anything else to the contrary. Where would you begin to pick up the pieces after losing three beautiful babies and their mother? There has been some debate on social media as to whether or not responding is helpful.

My view is simply this. To ignore this kind of comment, or to dismiss it as the utterings of a spoilt child is simply not an adequate response. To allow this to pass with no retaliation is to condone it.

Hooper is not a child.

She is a woman.

She was raised with privilege many can’t imagine and possesses enough social and cultural capital to be aware that what she was writing would draw a response. The family of the victims should not for a single minute be allowed to think that this stupid uttering is anything more than that.

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It is tempting to find excuses.

The truth however is in the tweet itself.

It cannot be dismissed as thoughtless, as she knows by publishing it she will receive ‘slack’.

To excuse it as attention getting is also inadequate. Hooper has made comments in the past that have drawn attention. They all pale in comparison to the revolting nature of this post.

Unfortunately, Hooper is repeatedly given platforms to air her cruel, callous and ignorant musings. I believe the public response should be loud and fast. This is not an off the cuff comment that has been misinterpreted.

It is of an entirely different nature.

Hooper’s view is a not representative. She is an aberration.

The 3rd anniversary of my husband’s death is rapidly approaching. There are days when I am still so incapacitated by his absence that I find it hard to function. The empathy and kindness of others is the one thing that has reliably supported me through this process. People on the whole have surprised me by their kindness. To lose so many loved ones so unexpectedly is unfathomable. I, like most New Zealanders, want to be part of a society where we can openly acknowledge this terrible loss and offer nothing but love and support to the friends and families involved.

60 COMMENTS

  1. Possibly the worst thing anyone has said about this tragedy, & she says it on Twitter probably typing it into her brand spanking iPhone with never a thought to how people who can’t afford to just take their car to the automotive shop go about trying to recharge a battery so they can drive their much loved children to school or the supermarket or many other necessary places.

    Shame, shame on her, but shame on us if we continue to allow her to have a voice through The Herald by not crying out in response to her hateful words.

    • @ Question 3

      We’re pretty normal really but it’s what my family’s done and the things they are into that are different. Mum and Dad didn’t spend money on cars or boats or baches.

      Makes them pretty abnormal then.

    • When I was really ill [with diabetes]. It caused so many different problems it was like it was raining. I was 19 when I found out. You become mentally sick as well as physically sick if you don’t look after yourself and I didn’t for about three years. I wasn’t thinking straight. I weighed about 43kg. My hair fell out. I went to the hospital so many times for not taking my medicine, they sent me to the mental hospital.

      I’ll get major slack for this ( 😉 ), but I wonder if she would have described her own (near) death as “natural selection” also – isn’t that technically more true than the clearly tragic purely accidental death she’s using as her example?

    • I too had never heard of her, but then I deleted all links to The NZ Herald some time ago and am thus a step ahead of the game. I suggest you do the same.

      Personal suffering is acute and very real. I have watched my child slowly die. But one must ask, what is the wider significance of personal loss. Often there is none.

      As Voltaire said: ‘If all you have to tell us’, in his advice to contemporary historians, ‘is that one barbarian succeeded another barbarian on the banks of the Oxus or the Jaxartes, what benefit have you conferred on the public?’

      The real sad truth is that by forever stopping to consider this sort of nonsense response and the myriad of piffle-prattle posts that choke the e-media, and by keeping on with business-as-usual forever burning carbon, we will all be gone by around 2080 anyway.

      In face of this, how many more distractions from reality can we invent or sustain?

      Unless we all understand how the Arctic methane time-bomb is doing us in right now and that there is no known way of stopping it, we will never focus on finding a way out of the hell on earth we are creating. We have maybe 10 years to act. We need to consider our predilection for mass-suicide, not that of odd individuals.

      Go to, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdOTyGQOso

      • Go to, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdOTyGQOso

        That’s off topic, but an excellent interview!*.

        Most scientists publish only in the scientific literature and have a natural reticence to speak out in public. This sort of interview shows that quiet authority on the subject makes for powerful delivery.

        They need to be heard like this more often. It also deflates the conspiracy nonsense that the deniers excrete.

        [* except for the eulogy involving the moral authority of that man in Rome who wears the big magic hat, as expressed in the last couple of minutes of the interview.]

        • In reply to,
          [* except for the eulogy involving the moral authority of that man in Rome who wears the big magic hat, as expressed in the last couple of minutes of the interview.]

          Normally I would agree, as normally the RCC stays outside discussions of science; even with a vengeance, as Galileo learned the hard way. Its collaboration with the Nazis and its position on abortion, contraception, pederasty, homosexuality and its treatment of women in general, has so destroyed its overall moral authority it is not taken seriously by anyone, including vast numbers of its once mind-bent, indoctrinated devotees.

          But this is different. This pope has sent a very clear statement that he is prepared to walk the path of rational scientific inquiry. He is seriously engaging with the almost impossible question of creating a viable purely knowledge-based bridgehead into the future for all mankind. He is addressing our mass-suicidal rush to drive ourselves into extinction, together with virtually all other forms of life on earth, by doing nothing about the fatal compounding heating of the planet which we have inadvertently kick-started. To this end, he invited Peter Wadhams to Rome to speak about the fact that we have less than a decade to do a U-turn. He knows how close we are to the runaway spiral that will end life on earth by 2080 if we let it.

          In siding with science, he has kicked the whole mad, rambling, decayed and irrelevant edifice of faith-based doctrine into the ditch forever. The American RC Republican right grasped the significance of this immediately and came out with all guns blazing even before he published his encyclical. He has thus adroitly forced them into becoming more catholic than the pope; but their arguments, like their minds, are dead in the water. They can blather on about the need to keep science and faith apart all they like, but he has sidestepped this false dichotomy and left them out in the cold. You wait, in the dark night of their soul they will soon be putting up Madam Palin for Pope!

          • Most assuredly.

            It’s not the power of his statement that I dispute, I object to acquiescence to the myth that he is any “moral authority” because he is the chief hand-waver for an organised superstition.

        • “That’s off topic, but an excellent interview!*.” Indeed it is. And a damn sight more important than what some silly bitch says

  2. Disgraceful!

    However to be expected (albeit far from acceptable) comments from such a shallow, parasitic creature! The utterances of a gutter snipe!

    I take in the NZH will be initiating a dismissal here for the despicable Tweet!

    A case for the new HDC legislation, for sure!

    • I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the NZ H to remove this imbecile from sending out more inane comments. These comments sell more papers.

      • You see I wasn’t wrong – did the NZ Herald sack this so called journalist – no they let her resign instead. Gotta keep her reputation nice and clean – she is from the privileged class of this country. Grrrrrrr.

  3. The cake brained have problems understanding anything let alone Darwin. Perhaps Pebbles Hooper forgot to take her meds. Only a hundred years ago people died like flies from diseases which present day forms of medication manages to regulate and control. I once heard a natural remedies promotor describe the cause of these diseases as ‘ancestral taint.’ Who knows?
    We do know that Darwin was talking about adaptation to circumstance. If circumstances change dramatically an entirely successful form will disappear and a new successful type will emerge. the obvious example is the demise of the great lizzards and the emergence of the mammal.
    Spontaneous mutation is going on all the time though and some mutations will proove successful in certain circumstances.

  4. She said, eyes wide, dropping each word one at a time, like pebbles into a cow shed effluent pond, “natural selection”
    Did the NZ version of a Kardashian mean to say
    “National Selection.”

    More dross from the slack and uncaring
    Well Pebbles we are, not like you,
    We Care, and when someone you love has died through a terrible misfortunate-misunderstanding-devastating mistake
    Will that be natural selection or a soul wrenching travesty to you?.

    It’s like some people have 2 brains
    1 is lost and the other one is out looking for it

    • More like “The eyes move, the mouth opens – but Mr Brain has long-since departed!” Sadly, Peebles seemed such a nice young girl when she was in Ponsonby Brownies with my daughter, oh so many years ago!

  5. I think she is a regular panellist on Paul Henry too. Say’s everything you need to know, really.
    CO (carbon monoxide) is odourless, and you will get no head’s up you’re about die from exposure to it. So it’s isn’t a stretch to think that IF you’d forgotten to turn off the car you had running in a garage that something like this could happen.

  6. “… Hooper’s view is a not representative. She is an aberration,” says Kate Dickie-Davis, the Blog’s author, and — “a comment that is not reflective of the New Zealand public.”

    Sadly, I will disagree with her summation of what New Zulanders think — around one third of the general populace will nod their sorry heads in agreement with that offensive tweet.

    • I am more optimistic than that. The comment was unconscionable even for the rightwng benifit bashers, surely?

      Hooper has issued a half hearted apology. The most one could expect for someone so obviously lacking in empathy.

  7. Pooples Scooper isn’t capable of raising one child let alone three which completely voids her existence in any discussion on this matter – & not surprisingly it seems her depth of humanity hasn’t expanded at all since she answered Herald’s 12 questions – heaping piles of poop evacuate through her mouth every time she opens it

    • No issue with what Anne has said, but I would like to advise this is a different ‘Anne’ to the one who used to comment here from time to time. I haven’t done so for a while which is probably why there is a double up.

  8. Granted, it is quite a bizarre scenario in these tragic deaths, but calling it “natural selection” is simply the godspeak of the arrogant selfish political right – the people who determine societal value In terms of dollars, but not sense. What sort of people derive a smug satisfaction with deaths of a family – in any circumstances?

  9. You get flak, but you cut slack. To use them both in a sentence: “The vacuous Auckland socialite sensed her poorly-thought-out opinion would attract some flak, but she hoped her equally pointless and hollow-skulled Twitter followers would cut her some slack.”

  10. Could it be that this deranged tweet has racist connotations?

    Considering the background of the victims of this tragedy, and considering how those from a privileged background with a deranged sense of superiority are often keen on espousing a warped interpretation of Darwin to justify their views often with a racist component.

    This event also demonstrates very well the nature of inequality in this country. A talented person from a humble background often struggles to attain an opportunity to further their talents or attain a career. Yet here we have someone because of their parents is readily given opportunities even though they demonstrate no discernible talents; some role in media which is becoming increasingly disconnected from the reality of most.

  11. [Offensive comment deleted. – ScarletMod]

    (Obviously this post will get moderated out of existence ASAP)>

    [You must be prescient, Kala, how did you know? We’ve already read your comments from Ms Hooper’s mouth, so there’s no need for repetition from an anonymous troll. At least Ms Hooper made her comments under her real name. – ScarletMod]

    • Her replies to 5,6 & 7 are pretty revealing .
      Not surprised to find out she – and her family – are tories

      • 5. Are you conservative?

        I’m pretty old fashioned. I’m very conservative in terms of what I think when I watch the news. With the synthetic marijuana stories and the guy who was hooked on it and wanted the Government to help him … I don’t want to pay my taxes because you made a really stupid choice. Heroin addicts I’ve got no sympathy for either.

        6. Are you an Act Party voter?

        Practically. I’ve already voted National now and I can’t be a politically out there person on Facebook because I would be killed.

        Yet again, another right-wing prat shows their peculiar style of “empathy” for their fellow human-being…

        Thank the gods she’s not a left-wing voter.

        • But this bit is classic…

          7. Were you ever rebellious as a teenager?

          … I could be a feminist, hippie, left-wing, John-Key-hating, never-washing person that lives off the Government and as much as that would make my Dad unhappy, he wouldn’t care as long as I was good to people and trustworthy.

          “Good to people”…

          Yeah, riiiiight…

          • And here, we have the person who labelled another human being as dying due to “natural selection” with her own little human foible…

            9. When have you been at your lowest?

            When I was really ill [with diabetes]. It caused so many different problems it was like it was raining….. I went to the hospital so many times for not taking my medicine…

            Riiiight…

            ‘Cos not taking your medication is such a clever, life-enhancing choice, eh, Ms Hooper?

            And here’s the thing; if Ms Hooper had died because she had not taken her medication, I doubt if anyone from the Left would’ve labelled her fate due to “natural selection”.

            Instead of insulin, someone should prescribe 10ml of compassion; 10 ml humility; and as much empathy as she can be given.

            Might do her some good.

            • Plus some community work for Ms Hooper helping out the poor or solo mums with three children or at an addiction clinic. Except I think it would be unfair on the addicts, the poor and solo mums to subject them to her.

          • that gives a lot of insight
            so a lot of keys voters are voting without processing any data?
            thats concerning

          • Apparently, anyone in receipt of a benefit is an angry lesbian pot-smoker who hates John Key and reeks of sardines and dung.

  12. I wonder what Hooper’s parents must be thinking of their beloved offspring at this point?

    I know I wrote some fairly gormless things in my more right-wing, naive youth (teens and twenties), but I can’t recall anything quite so anti-social as Hooper’s.

    Mind you, the benefit of having letters-to-the editor vetted and edited by newspaper staff probably saved some of my more ill-considered comments from reaching the public arena.

    So much for my youthful stupidity. Saved by those who had greater wisdom than me, at the time.

    That, plus no internet, where moronic impulses can be shared with thousands; hundreds of thousands; with just one click.

    One wonders though, what life experience Hooper has to share with us, through the pages of the Herald?

    Or is her role to remind us how thoughtless we once were at her tender age? She succeeded with me, this morning.

    • I’d say her parents will be proud of her ( ” I could be a feminist, hippie, left-wing, John-Key-hating, never-washing person that lives off the Government and as much as that would make my Dad unhappy ….”)

      I dare say they’re consoling her and counseling her to just ignore all those nasty leftie tall-poppy haters.

    • You were right wing at one stage Frank???

      Really?

      Never mind. We all transgress sometime in our lives. You are forgiven for your temporary dabble in the dark side 🙂

  13. Evolution is also driven by peril. Ever since some primitive organism somehow became the possessor of an alimentary canal it has been all on. Billions of years later we have a rather weird, one might say, disfunctional society in which there is huge, unprecedented focus on the alimentary canal. What goes into it, how it is prepared, the seasonings, the presentation, the whole pathetic bullshit of commercialised cuisine with its high priests, its cultural hysteria, all emphasise, not only the importance, but the end point of the alimentary canal in bipedal evolutionary terms.
    Recent studies suggest that the size of the brain in birds and some mammals is the result of creatures congregating and assisting each other in groups. So with a bit of luck the improved brain might be next step for bipeds and the peebles or cake brain might evolve to the hearty daub or rich cassesrole brain in which everything is included or all available ingredients are put to imaginative use.

  14. There seems to be an increasing trend towards giving a vile and inhumane response to tragedy. People are making a career out of it. In the UK it’s Katie Hopkins, but I have also noticed a creeping influx of this disgusting ‘let’s blame the victims’ mentality in everyday conversations. This really is down to a lack of empathy and the prevailing competitive me me me culture which is wildly out of control. These characters are the henchmen and women of sink or swim neo-liberalism.

  15. Conservationists in a sealed tent cooking noodles, fit trampers in a snug hut with damped down fire- hardly the usual Darwin awards candidates and yet they have succumbed in NZ to the insidious odourless gas that is CO. All we can do is share these stories as cautionary tales and hope more will know of the danger.

    • C02 may be odourless in it’s natural state, but as a constituent of exhaust fumes it has un unmistakable stench.

  16. It’s a pity “natural selection” doesn’t eliminate sociopaths, such as the author of this appalling tweet, as they are a parasitic burden to actual human beings. The world would be a much better place.

  17. Someone (I forget just who) on Twitter summed it up brilliantly by saying they knew someone whose nickname was Pebbles, as she wasn’t a Smartie.

  18. Someone mentioned the new HDC legislation would probably bite the unsympathetic, uncaring Tories on the a**e!
    Well here’s the start of it…I hope the immediate family involved in this tragedy, take miss Hooper to court for the ‘harm’ she has caused them.

  19. Oh look her twitter account is closed, her website has been attacked.

    I wonder how smug she is – is she a smell her own farts, smug – or believing her own bull, smug. Time will tell.

    Pebbles Hooper has reminded everyone in a timely manner – that the Tory Scum in this country detest working people.

  20. Pebbles Hooper lives in a world in which the attitude she expressed has been consistently nurtured. The demonisation of the working class is intrinsic to the neo-liberal project – they constitute the main “cost” to be endlessly reduced. In fact they no longer count as the working class but instead the underclass – chavs if they happen to live in Britain. A conceptual space for directing contempt their way is maintained in the media through ongoing examples of non-middle-class people depicted as too silly, too wretched, too dodgy, etc, to be taken seriously. Pebbles expressed an attitude she has been encouraged to hold in response to a deeply tragic event. And the media people who are currently distancing themselves will be back tomorrow with another round of negative examples. Thank God they have not done their job so successfully that almost everyone is beyond being shocked at Pebbles’ tweet.

  21. Got sick of reading all the comments bashing her… She deservedly needs a good bashing…

    This lady Pebbles Hooper has never actually done anything worth anything…

    I am the same age as her, I myself can tell that she is bonkers. Completely bonkers… She lives off her parents esteem and continues to take their money…

    This my friends is a clear sign that we have a ‘spoilt brat’ here…

    “”The issue I regrettably tried to raise was about parental negligence and the precautions needed to ensure the safety of those who are unable to care for themselves.”

    This quote from her supposed apology… clearly shows how she isn’t sorry for what she wrote… She never tried to raise this issue… She is a big fat liar…

    This is another case of people growing up in a privileged society different from the rest of us, judging the way which we have to survive…

  22. Further more. If she doesn’t get fired from the herald. I say a petition should be started….

    • Yeah… if Granny Herald pays scant notice to a reprimand (albeit weak and largely ineffectual) from the Press Council, not even deigning to issue an apology, I doubt they’re going to give much of a toss about a petition.

      They’re a partisan rag and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

  23. Not sure how to broach this without it sounding crass, but did anyone notice what Ms Hooper posted about a certain other unfortunate incident that resulted in the loss of young life?
    That is about as broadly as I can ask that question, wondering what it was she may have thought it was that brought that to pass.

  24. I’m imagining Pebbles with Sara Chatwin on her speed dial right now… (Chatwin being that annoying Auckland psychologist who NZ telly consults every time they need an amazingly obvious soundbite.)

    I guess we should expect the herald interview with Pebbles, where she talks about her internet pile-on induced break down, near death health scare and subsequent redemption as a nice person (and probably a quiet cheque to the deceased family to prevent a lawsuit).

    • I wish her well in all future endeavours & hope that in this tumultuous time she is surrounded by friends that can demonstrate what it means to be empathetic.

  25. I remember contacting her regarding her continual comments about adoptees being “retarded”. No answer obviously. Gives you and awful idea of what ideas she’s been brought up with.

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