Do you remember the cool girl at primary school who was able to perform cartwheels really well, and she'd just cartwheel and handstand everywhere, casually, nonchalantly? She was probably blonde. You kind of loved her and wanted to be her, but also hated her a bit? That eight-year-old girl is The Happy Pear.
Everyone remembers the day they got the ick from The Happy Pear. Some lone dissenters in the very beginning had it straight away, they tried to tell us; but there really is something very compelling about twins, isn't there? Especially when they seldom wear tops. There was something bracing about the frank self-objectification of these goji-grazing brothers, something of a car crash about their dawn swims and handstands.
Most of us, now, can look ourselves in the mirror and admit it: we kept their first cookbook by the bath. Some of us might still. But all of us love nothing more than having a crack at The Happy Pear. The only thing more gratifying than eating buttery toast alone while scrolling through their 'gram, is laughing foolish at them with thousands of other people. It's just so intuitive. So easy. So Irish.
And last week, for one incredible day, that's what we did. In a true testament to our country, 'Hummus Jedward' trended on Twitter nationwide. It turned out to be a reaction to The Happy Pear's objectively terrible Black Lives Matter Instagram post: because sometimes a patient point-by-point explanation of centring, privilege and anti-racism is appropriate, but sometimes ridiculous name-calling just feels right.
There seemed something so poetically sparse about the term 'Hummus Jedward', that said nothing, really, and everything, that it captured the imagination of a nation in the late stages of lockdown, giddy and on the edge.
The post prompted questions, like: was the photo taken for the purpose, or did they have it already? Did they see images of the world rising up against racism and think: we'd better take our tops off and make a gymnastic heart-shape with our arms while literally bending over backwards? Or did they go through their back catalogue of images searching for the right one to accompany their reflections on Black Lives Matter and see that one and think: yes.
We need your consent to load this Social Media content
We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.
While a lot of high-profile people and brands have missed the mark on Instagram in recent weeks, The Happy Pear just did it so absurdly that all you could do was say, 'Hummus Jedward' - especially after it emerged that the actual Jedward was back, standing on cars in LA chanting No Justice No Peace and holding homemade Black Lives Matter signs. They aren't the revolutionary heroes we wanted, but judging by the state of the Irish internet's comment section, they might be the revolutionary heroes we deserve.
The pair have been staying with bona-fide celebrity Tara Reid - a formative figure in the sexuality of many millennials who came of age in the era of American Pie. She describes them as "my two best friends that I've grown up with" - 44-year-old Reid met the twins on 2011's Celebrity Big Brother.
"Thank God they're with me," she said, knowing that even in the midst of America burning, pop culture enthusiasts would be absolutely obsessed with whatever came out of her mouth next: "It wouldn't have been the same without them."
Video of the Day
If Jedward were thinking of bringing out their own 'No Justice More Chickpeas' hummus, now's the time.
*******
Influential billionaire JK Rowling presumably got bored of watching the world attempt to dismantle racism, and decided to spice things up by further marginalising a minority group who have little more on their agenda other than simply existing.
It's not the first time Rowling has caused a media storm by tweeting, or endorsing the idea that trans-women are men. Last time it was for 'Standing with Maya', whose insistence on referring to people according to their birth gender was described by a judge as "not worthy of respect in a democratic society".
Rowling supported Maya Forstater, who lost her job for a series of tweets, and insisted that 'sex is real.'
This time, Rowling followed it up with a 3,000-word blog (or essay, depending on who you ask) fleshing out her transphobia and justifying it with a patchwork of bad science, abuse disclosure and the derivative sophistry for which we know her so well.
But the post reads as calm, and considered, even when comparing trans people to (murderous) incels and (murderous) Trump. She assures readers she's done her research and reading, while relying on studies and statistics which have been comprehensively debunked by the scientific community. But she will know she has more Twitter followers than there are trans people, so she can say what she likes.
And JK Rowling is an expert at drawing us into her fantasy worlds, and what a fantasy her world is: where trans people are not discriminated against, where violent men need to dress up as women to be violent, where trans activists would do away with the notion of biological sex entirely (indeed, in reality they are desperate for a more scientific, nuanced and detailed understanding of it), where there is currently some kind of forcefield that prevents men accessing ladies' toilets, where the author's own bad experiences with violent men gives her the right to rob trans people of their rights and dignity.
Rowling knows that what she tweets in relation to LGBTQ issues and children matters: because she is the most successful children's author in the world, and because her books of wizardry and transformation and being the odd one out were the imaginative building blocks of an entire generation of queer millennials.
Can you imagine Jacqueline Wilson going around knocking on the doors of child fans and telling them she hates them? You expect your childhood heroes to become embroiled in sex or drug scandals as you grow up; you don't expect them to repeatedly publicly announce that you don't exist, and are probably a violent rapist.
The millennial stars of the films spoke out to politely clarify their own positions on trans-rights, which was characterised as unspeakably ungrateful after JK Rowling 'made' them. But Rowling didn't make Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson - we did (they did). They know what side their bread is buttered on, and that Rowling is on the wrong side of history - if Harry Potter is to have any kind of future, they know they need to reassure fans who found solace in Hogwarts.
Rowling and friends are being held up as defenders of free-speech, 'wrong-think' and brave dissent - as if they aren't simply upholding the status quo.
Society already doesn't like trans people, and the anti-trans cause doesn't need the boost of a powerful billionaire to buoy it up - it's doing absolutely fine on its own.
