As I tucked into BBC One’s must-watch psychological thriller Chloe the other night, I was swept away by Erin Doherty’s portrayal of young temp Becky and her obsessional drive to inhabit the picture-perfect lives of the people she follows on Instagram
She, like all of us, sees only the finely curated version of characters on social media, but — unlike you or me — is going the extra mile to infiltrate their ranks, one deflated tyre at a time. It’s all very Single White Female, or indeed the Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried film which oddly was also called Chloe.
But as intensely riveting as all of Becky’s highly planned “chance” encounters with one grieving friendship group were, I kept returning to details which reminded me of the chilling court reports coming from Claire Foy’s stalker case yesterday. After a reported campaign of sexually violent threats about her to her entire team, the man found out where she lived and began a campaign of doorstep intimidation.
Foy’s scenario took me back to my own fear-inducing encounters at university with a middle-aged man who would ride his bicycle and sit under my (thankfully third-floor) halls’ window every night for a whole term.
At the time, my curtains didn’t draw fully — and it took me a while to notice that I was giving him a very well-lit view into my student life at the same time every single night from the gloomy alley that was the only route to and from my dorm.
It was only when a guy I was seeing noticed we were being watched and shouted out of the window, sending the man scarpering, that I started to see a pattern. He came back. And then again. And again. Every night at the same time. Stopped dead under my window, always looking up at me. Mostly with a neutral stare, but sometimes as if he knew me, watching as I watched him, peeping from behind my now bulldog-clipped window-dressing.
I called security regularly — he’d ride off calmly as they approached, knowing he’d be back the same time tomorrow. Similarly, the police were no use: 2001 was a far less CCTV-focused age in the backwaters of Manchester’s Fallowfield. He was just a passer-by on his bike; there was a whole city of drug-dealers to be caught. Thankfully his stop-and-stare stakeouts were as far as it went, although I spent the entire academic year walking in packs down that alley, too afraid to venture out alone.
For Foy, in the glare of the public eye, these threats show how easily a famous person can be tracked down. But as Chloe illustrates with startling realism, we’re all giving away far too much detail with our geo-tagged gadding-about and complex web of friendships, helpfully @-ed for ease of access. Gone are the days of simply bull-dog clipping the curtains shut. We’re all being watched, and do we even know who by?
In other news...
Exactly one week ago, we lost our darling cat Bella. She was a treasured member of our family and, although she was 16, we fought hard to save her.
So, I was appalled and saddened to see West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma kicking, slapping and throwing shoes at his Bengal cat — all with a young child watching and in front of a camera.
The video was uploaded to Snapchat and was reported. His club say this is being dealt with internally and Zouma has since issued an apology. It’s not enough.
A man in his position of power over impressionable young fans needs to be shown the weight of the law (the maximum sentence for animal cruelty was last year raised from six months to five years). And please let those cats find a new, loving home.
