#wags discourse

[tsarinablogs]

Honestly I wished F1 would stop showing WAGs altogether during FPs/quali/race. We're basically back to grid girls (aka the WAGs) when F1 explicitly said that grid girls are out of time years ago.

I still have second hand embarrassment when I think of the moment when Lily Z was forced to go to Oscar and hug him in front of everyone when he won in Miami.

I think it’s extremely frustrating where during the podium, the partners are sometimes shown as much as the podium itself – I’m not watching the podium to see the girlfriend, I want to see the winner celebrating, and to see the top 3. I still don’t get why, for example, after Charles crossed the line in monaco, the first thing you saw was his girlfriend rather than, say, his family or the garage. And this is not to minimise the role the partners have in the drivers’ lives and success, etc., it’s a question of how much should be broadcasted when you’re showing races.

I was looking back on Max’s 2021 championship celebrations and the contrast is staggering – the focus is very much on the driver, the team and the team celebrations – which is presumably what you care about when you watch sports.

The races are obviously extremely stressful for everyone who’s close to the drivers and I personally would hate having the camera being in my face all the time, feeling the need to act a certain way / react a certain way to please the crowds, where no matter how you interact with your partner, it’s going to be perceived as wrong with someone. Especially if these partners are private otherwise.

[valyrfia]

i think sharing a published academic paper on wag pages on the subject of a very niche part of engineering that lily z just happens to be co-author on is incredibly invasive behaviour actually

[valyrfia]

i dont rlly see the problem with people finding lily's paper? if anything i would argue its a good thing that people are interested in her because she's employed and has her own thing going on (unlike some other wags who just promote stay at home influencer girlfriend content)

and if it maybe gets some young girls interested in engineering all the better. i think she's a good icon.

The issue is that Lily hasn't consented to being a public figure. She's not like Alexandra, who started out private then opened her instagram and became a WAG influencer. She hasn't CONSENTED to being this super amazing woman in stem icon and figurehead, she's just a woman who's trying to build a career and I think she should be left in peace to do that. People who are trying to find out this information about her wouldn't know her if not for her boyfriend, and don't know anything about her, so I question their motives for digging for information about her (I observed the weird reaction to everyone hearing her speak for the first time, with loads of people saying it gave them the ick.......maybe because it reminded people that she's her own person in her own relationship, and not a placid self-insert).

[tsarinablogs]

in response to the alex and stay at home girlfriend talk, i can't believe i obsessed ovee her so bad last spring?? she seems like a nice enough person online at least, but there's nothing there personality wise? she's just pretty? her art account isn't even as active as her main one and that was the main draw for me as a "fan" (even though i completely acknowledge now it's ridiculous being a fan of someone for simply being a wag)

i don't want to hate the wags! a lot of them are probably alright people! but it's also really annoying when they're pushed to be the female faces of f1 and when you look into them to see what they do that's so inspiring it's just such a nothingburger except for like maybe 2 people

I just want to emphasise that there’s nothing to be ashamed of to like them / to have liked them before!! Also, a lot of these fans tend to be on the younger side, and it does take time to figure out what social media is like, even though this generation grew up with it. In a way, I think, it makes it even more difficult sometimes to tell apart what’s real and what’s not, since life has always been lived on socials for this group of people. 

But ultimately this is the environment created, and it’s not surprising at all that they’ve become figures with fans, and with girls looking up to them. They receive so much attention, and they’re good at what they do, which is selling that lifestyle. They’re both products and drivers of this environment where they’ll get pushed in the media over non-famous (or less famous) women, as these names get clicks, and that’s how success is measured online. You want the likes, you want the engagement, and if you put the WAGs there, you’ll get it. It’s hardly their fault that they want to capitalise on that.

That said, I will hold them accountable for wasting their platforms. If you’re public enough to run an affiliate link shop grift, you can try and use the platform for other causes, too. Like, I always find that I wish Flavy was more popular for girls to go “I want to be a doctor, too”. But most of them get invited to all these “women in f1” events related to the academy even, but who actually even posts about it beyond a make-up ad, if at all? Who actually encourages any kind of interests and curiosities in the girls following them? As it stands, they receive attention for nothing, and that’s what’s so frustrating. 

Anyway, the art of hobbies and interests has been lost and I so wish for people to find it again ❤️

[tsarinablogs]

people are too comfortable hating on kelly always but now it has reached a new low i think. the hate she gets is absolutely justified 100% but let's not pretend that max is innocent in all this. yes he was barely legal when the "magical night" nonsense happened but he still got into a relationship with her, also took in her child who was an infant at the time. they have been together for four years now and the “she groomed him” talk is irrelevant bc yes she might've had but absolutely no one had a gun to max’s head to still keep being in a relationship with her even after he was old enough to know better. i always try to separate the athlete with their personal relationships and i thought maybe over the years max would be wise enough to see her for the person she really is and end things but alas. to have a child with her was certainly a conscious decision and i'm disappointed that he chose it with her of all people but sure let's just hate on the woman bc it's easy and comfortable.

I was going back and forth on whether to even answer this, and I’ll make this the last post about the news: I agree. Look, grooming isn’t something you grow out of, because it does have long term implications.

But it’s true that he’s a grown man and he’s making his own decisions. It takes two to tango. With all the parasocial babying of him we should remember that he made his own bed there and they made the choice to have a child, whether we like her or not. Whatever the reason, they're together and this is a decision they made for their lives.

[tsarinablogs]

i don't know if you engage in wags discourse but if you do, what are your thoughts on oscar fans posting about lily's co-authorship of a scientific paper?

people need to stop being so invasive and get a life

[tsarinablogs]

Im not sure how comfortable you are talking about the wags because I get that there are legitimate reasons to criticise some of them but sometimes the criticisms go beyond what is reasonable but I wanted to come to you because of your PR knowledge. I  wanted to ask do you think Kelly has a PR team that she works with or does she run her social media primarily by herself? I am not an expert at marketing yourself etc etc but to me she seems to do it so poorly that I would be surprised if she had people working with her but then again she has enough money that surely she employs people to help? Compared to some of the other wags her attempt at being an influencer falls so short and it's like she doesn't know where to position herself in the market. Most of the interest in her seems linked to Max still unlike some other wags who seem to at least separate themselves a little.

Fair play to her for tagging all the ads but the last few posts with the baby seem so odd to me. I understand not wanting to show Lily’s face but then why does she use P so prominently in her posts. I just found it strange that she would post photos of Lily from the neck down, like it just feels so bizarre to me and I don’t get why you would post photos like that at all. Nobody is making her post photos of lily. I don’t get the strategy, maybe she is trying to build interest up until she posts a photo with Lily’s face? Maybe she is trying to seem like she isn’t using the children for social media so is hiding Lily’s face (but again P is more recognisable than a baby and is in all the shots). More cynically maybe the reveal of Lily’s face will be with a big collaboration brand that she is building to.

I don’t really get what angle she is going for but the post did not seem to work at all much like her previous attempts at trying to build a brand. I think she has a lot of attention because of Max but doesn't know how to use it unlike someone like Alex who seems to have been able to use the attention being with Charles brings her quite well.

Sorry for the long ask.

My ultimate gripe with almost all of the WAGs in f1 right now is their inability / unwillingness to build a brand. It's lazy. And I'm talking about the women who have fully embraced being a public figure. Not one has actually so far managed to build something truly sustainble, despite the platform and attention given. I think Rebecca and Carmen are the only two that are actually working to build something on their own (I'm talking about the ones who didn't have their own big presence prior to dating a driver). Alex has an incredible amount of followers and attention, but then doesn't really do anything with it. None of her cooperations are sustainable, or long-term, and I've spoken at length before about her shocking pr / influencer etiquette and somehow, this has gotten even worse.

Just having a large following on social media doesn't mean anything anymore if you can't convert it. It's all about having the right followers and target audience. Ultimately, all of these things on social media boil down to one thing – selling something. Which makes having the right audience so important. It doesn't matter how many millions follow you if they can't buy whatever you're selling. You can have less followers and still build strong relationships with brands, and get significantly more valuable deals and invitations. But this requires work, and putting in effort with these brands. And I'm sorry, but not tagging brands, not engaging with brands or followers, not disclosing anything will not do the job. In the end, it's also about showing basic gratitude to people willing to support you and do things for you – and there's only so many times you can get away with that.

Everyone's free to choose their own role models; I just wish that young girls had bigger dreams and ambitions than this. I suppose it's one of those things you need to figure out for yourself, but while it's nice to have nice things, I do wish people realised how superficial and hollow these lives so often are, and that alone should not be the dream, or the goal. Trust me, I know.

Anyway. I think KP is running her socials herself, the captions are either Chat GPT or the brand's copy writers can't do their job, and my guess is that Max doesn't want to show his daughter's face, while he has no influence over what happens to the other child. Who knows, maybe a "happy family" image is still upon us, and she's hoping to generate attention by not posting Max for now. I don't really care. Max doesn't want to talk or publicise that child himself.

To be honest, I'd rather not talk about it as well. It's gross to me to turn your child into one big ad (just one after the other while talking about how great motherhood is – but only in the context of selling something), and everything that's come out of her mouth ever since giving birth just has been honestly awful – not that anyone is surprised she's acting this way. She doesn't deserve the attention of being talked about.

[tsarinablogs]

My my that’s some serious PR damage control posting from Charles. Make it even more obvious why don’t you //

he would have done it anyway tho? it’s clear the holiday was planned and he always likes to take pictures.

there’s pictures, and there’s suddenly interacting with each other on social media for the first time ever since they went public. funny timing, that.