Well ................I think plenty of people do know who she is even if your friends don't. She appears on National television programmes like Question Time, The Big Debate, This Morning which have large and diverse audiences. I think it disingenuous to claim that she's not that well known.

I think that is a broad generalisation of people with ASD. Some may struggle with empathy, but others can feel it very strongly they just might not be able to read the situation in the moment, i.e body language, social clues etc and so although they may not appear empathetic it may just be misunderstanding. Once it's explained then it can be quite upsetting for some people to realise they might have caused offence to someone. As others have said it's a broad spectrum.

I didn't say my friends; I said people I know (a significantly larger category). And I didn't say she wasn't "that well known" (whatever that means). I said that if it weren't for these forums, I wouldn't even be aware of her existence between the times when she's in 'reality' shows, so she doesn't seem a very significant figure (to me). Remember that I was asking someone what damage they thought she'd done. Then I pointed out, in response to your points, that most people I knew were probably even less aware of her than I was.

If the shows you mention have "large and diverse audiences" -- and the "large", at least, is questionable (see below) -- that doesn't show she's done any damage. Many of the viewers will disagree with her; many who agree will be people who already believed the sort of things she's saying. So far as I can tell (and no one so far has shown otherwise), she does more to discredit the reprehensible views she expresses than to make them more prevalent.

It's even possible that the more that people are exposed to her, the more good it does.

But how large are her platforms anyway?

The Sun's circulation seems to be a bit over 2 million these days. (Example.)

How many times has Katie appeared on Question Time?

Question Time's audience can vary by quite a bit. For example, when Nigel Farage and Russell Brand were on Question Time, it was watched by an average of 3.5 million viewers, with the audience peaking at 4.6 million at the start; and that was a million higher than the week before. (Source)

I can find only one time when Katie was on QT, 27 January 2011. According to the Guardian's ratings article, "BBC1's Question Time was up week on week for viewers, but steady on share – 2.922 million/21.3% v 2.79 million/21.3%, from 10.35pm."

Earlier this year, when the issue of how many viewers This Morning has came up, I looked on the BARB site. This Morning wasn't in the ITV top 30 for any of the weeks I looked at, but the audience size for the towards-30 end was already under 2 million.

Does The Big Debate do any better?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the population of the UK is currently about 64 million. There's penty of room for many people to be at most only marginally aware of Katie's existence, especially if they don't read tabloid newspapers or celeb gossip mags, and don't watch shows like Big Brother. As I already pointed out, to many people, even if they see or hear her name from time to time, it wouldn't have any significance for them, and so they wouldn't remember it.

While my experience as an NHS patient has overall been very good, my experience with specialist consultants has been mixed. Some have been excellent; others seemed to be trying to get rid of me as quickly as possible. (Consultants often have a lot of patients to get through, but giving them only a cursory look and assuming they're a completely standard case can increase the load on the NHS in the longer term.)

I think it's a bit shocking that an endocrinologist would assume that because a drug is the "gold standard" it can't be causing anyone problems, especially since the existence of a test that shows why some don't do well on that drug makes it clear that some don't.

At least the internet makes it easier than before for people to educate themselves, but it's a double-edged sword in some ways as well, since there's a lot of misinformation out there, since people can be misled by things they happen to find even if those things aren't misleading when properly understood, and since doctors have to deal with patients who come in with wrong-headed ideas, as well as ones who know what they're talking about, and may not always realise which category a patient is in.

And of course, some people won't have the skills, or the time and resources, to educate themselves to the point where they can take effective steps.

I tried searching for autism empathy, and one of the first things that came up were articles about a recent theory that "people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others’ emotions too intensely to cope."

Here's a blog post that also links other places where the article's appeared, and has links to other things as well.

Anyway, I was wondering what you thought of the "mind-blindness" / "theory of mind" approach to autism (which seems very widely accepted) and whether you think it is one of the main reasons for the widespread belief that people with ASD lack empathy.

Katie Hopkins makes her living out of making other people's lives a misery, which is OK as long as everybody can see it. But it's disappointing, having watched her being obnoxious and causing trouble, to see the amount of support she has. It's Helen Wood all over again.

The weight issue is a pretty recent one that Katie H had hit upon. People disliked this woman way before that.

Everyone has opinions about all kinds of topics. We all make judgements about particular subjects, but the majority of us don't go around telling anyone and everyone exactly what we think, please or offend.

If we all went around saying exactly what we thought to anyone and everyone we would alienate a lot of people around us, and this is the very reason she has made many enemies.

We may even agree with her many opinions. We may agree with alof of things she has hit upon regarding the weight issue and other topics but she makes her business to tell all and sundry about it, not giving a monkeys who she upsets along the way and let's not forget, imo, she also courts controversy to gain media attention. That, in my book, is a despicable trait.

I personally, was brought up to respect other people's feelings and I would always do my best to live by that rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I think you make some good points about Hopkin's influence namely she's not going to convert people to her way of thinking about issues but her role is to act as a lightning rod of outrage. So basically she massages unpopular rightwing demogoguery on the issues of the day. EG the tweets about Palestine were despicable at a time when people were horrified by Israel's bombardment of Gaza and led to people calling for her arrest and a campaign to get her banned from appearing on tv. That kind of thing has reach globally as people will discuss what she's saying and retweet it to their followers. I think it's simplistic to look at viewing figures for a programme or readership and assume that is the extent of her reach. I don't read the tabloids or get to see mags like OK but when KH goes off on one, twitter erupts and whether I want to know what she's said or not, that is going to be amplified by social media inevitably followed up by television appearances and reactions from columnists across the media. She's certainly adept at using the media to keep her brand visible and at creating talking points. It'd be interesting to see what her media footprint is.

In my opinion, the only people who think that people dislike Katie Hokins because of her opinions and outcry about weight issues, are indeed people with weight problems themselves. It's obvious that you are taking it personally. I think you've got it all wrong.

Exactly. If she tried saying half the things she says on twitter to people in real life I think she would find herself becoming a regular visitor to A&E. During the filming of My Fat Story she was thrown out of the home of a woman she had offended & the police were called. I mean manners cost nothing but there's no mileage in being nice if you have no talent and want to carve out a career in the media.

So let me guess you think I'm fat? Wrong.

I should add I seriously have tried to look beyond what I imagine is her media personality and wondered whether I could put aside the things she has said in the past but when she started treating Alicia like a simpleton I was left with the impression that either she's playing the game by maintaining that front or to believe her when she says that she speaks what she thinks. So it's a case of being hoisted by her own petard.

When "Twitter erupts", I would still be unaware of her, because I don't follow her, don't search for her tweets, and don't follow the sort of people who would retweet her. I think it's easy to assume that Twitter spreads things a lot more than it does; but if you have some evidence that she regularly reaches, say, 20 million people in a way that does more harm than good, let's have it.

I haven't assumed that the viewing figures are the full extent of her 'reach', but I really don't think Katie has had any significant effect on the conflict in Palestine; and if people choose to spread her tweets around, they they are to blame for that. (We're presumably not going to abandon the idea that everyone is responsible for their own behaviour, just because KH happens to be involved.)

Besides, as I've said, I think she does more to discredit the reprehensible views she expresses than to make them more prevalent.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there and not just about the weight issues.

I'm overweight and know that it is due to what I eat and lack of exercise - she's not saying anything I don't know so I don't feel offended by her comments.

I have to go to work (1 full time and 1 part time job) to make ends meet and it does annoy me that people can get the same (or more) money than me for sitting on their backsides and claiming benefits - her comments don't offend me because I agree with them.

I'm not generalising and saying that everyone who is overweight is so because of their lifestyle and I'm not saying everybody who claims benefits is workshy but there are a lot of people who are overweight because they eat too much and don't exercise and there are lot of people on benefits who could work but choose not too. Anyone who believes this isn't true does not live in the real world.

Seems she is anyway, since when she has a fit at night, it can dislocate her arms. Last February, she said it had happened 26 times in the previous nine months.

I think she has a point about people choosing to take offence, though.

You missed my point. Of course she is not going to have any effect on the Palestinian issue. Are you serious or are you being sarcastic? Her objective is to be obnoxious in order to create outrage. And I agreed with you on your final point with one caveat which is she puts into circulation and legitimises a set of ideas about the working class that most people would think twice about before saying.

But fair enough. If people denied her the oxygen of publicity by ignoring her trolling she'd be forgotten in a day. Sadly, not going to happen until she finds another way to use her intellect.

[quote=Devon;76747961]The weight issue is a pretty recent one that Katie H had hit upon. People disliked this woman way before that.

Everyone has opinions about all kinds of topics. We all make judgements about particular subjects, but the majority of us don't go around telling anyone and everyone exactly what we think, please or offend.

If we all went around saying exactly what we thought to anyone and everyone we would alienate a lot of people around us, and this is the very reason she has made many enemies.

We may even agree with her many opinions. We may agree with alof of things she has hit upon regarding the weight issue and other topics but she makes her business to tell all and sundry about it, not giving a monkeys who she upsets along the way and let's not forget, imo, she also courts controversy to gain media attention. That, in my book, is a despicable trait.

I personally, was brought up to respect other people's feelings and I would always do my best to live by that rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you


Well said

Then what were you thinking when saying "that kind of thing has reach globally"? An inconsequential reach?


I'm serious. Most of your post was about how much more reach you thought she had than the viewing and circulation figures, and that's what I addressed.

Nah ,people dislike Katie, because she lacks empathy and sees everything in black and White ,and reasonable people know the world isn't like that