Samantha Brick claims that her good looks are more of a curse than a blessing

Three days ago, had I asked you what you thought of Samantha Brick, you probably would have looked at me with a blank face, willing me to divulge more information about why I had asked about this nobody. Today, you’d probably be able to talk for 20 minutes about how conceited, arrogant and not-really-that-pretty she is. She’s done well; I’m not sure I could put my finger on another name that’s been thrown around the media and internet so much in so little time. She has gone viral and has taken The Daily Mail with her.

Right, just to clarify: I’m not going to focus on her article, here, or her aesthetic properties – pleasing or not – but the real reason behind her words that caused so much outrage and incited some horrendously violent reactions over the last couple of days.

Samantha Brick is a 41 year old woman who lives in a small rural village in the Dordogne region of France with her husband of four years. On the 3^rd April 2012, she partook in one of the most shocking yet successful PR stunts known to the modern world. Samantha dared write an article entitled: ‘There are downsides to looking this pretty’: Why women hate me for being beautiful. Already, people are looking at the headline and thinking “she can’t be serious”. Well, ladies and gentlemen, considering the online storm that has occurred since this article was published, it is safe to say that no, it wasn’t a late April Fool and yes, she dared compared herself to Angelina Jolie. This was no joke.

This viral, now “celebrity”, has taken Twitter, Facebook, topics of conversation and the rest of the media by storm. The overwhelming majority of people, including celebrities such as the illusionist Derren Brown, pointed out to Mrs Brick that actually, she’s not the oil painting she thinks she is, unless she was thinking it was painted by Picasso. According to Samantha’s response to the public’s reactions, the hate and vitriol she endured simply proved her point that society has no place for beautiful women. As you can imagine, this sparked more and more outrage from the public and the beautiful lady herself even appeared on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ to defend herself and her article.

Well, Samantha. I think you succeeded very nicely in your little task. I can just envisage the big guns at The Mail hop, skipping and jumping around the offices with dollar signs in their eyes. This outrageous article has got thousands and thousands of people talking about their newspaper and posting its name and links to their site all over the internet. Her article trended on Twitter for an entire day and her name is still being thrown around the media today.

The article sparked widespread controversy among the public and some celebrities

Some would say that Samantha is a very brave and probably stupid journalist. Her article was so shocking because its content was very personal; it was her own opinion about her appearance. Appearance is always a difficult thing to talk about, especially when it’s very often other people’s place to judge good looks as opposed to your own. I would agree with this on a level. Samantha received some horrifyingly nasty comments about her appearance, her weight, her personality. She was brave to stick her neck out on the line and she could easily have been heartbroken by some of the things people were saying about her. She is, currently, a much disliked woman.  Saying this, however, I expect she’s sitting on a very nice pay rise from The Mail and probably some other impossible-to-refuse bonuses. Although she would have to be thick-skinned and happy enough in her own body to put up with some of the comments made by readers of her article, I am sure The Daily Mail have secured her a nice little package to make it all worthwhile.

Any publicity is good publicity, and any audience is a good audience. Every celebrity that slates her just adds to her already vast audience of people obediently clicking on the link and increasing the number of hits The Daily Mail would be receiving. The original article currently has 5726 comments and has had 171k likes on Facebook; impressive.

Samantha Brick, I have to congratulate you on your epic PR stunt and the way it got The Mail’s name plastered all over the television, the internet and on nearly every other newspaper you could think of. You really took one for the team, girl, now you go enjoy your perks.