Anyone other than me remember when “Jamie called Claire ‘babe’ in episode 1 of Season 4” was a thing that was making the rounds on social media during the beginning of this current Who Gives A Shit About Them AnymoreAs A Couple phase last winter? It apparently started on Twitter, and made it’s way over to Tumblr? Remember? Remember there were shippers who got all giddy about it?
Anyone other than me make a total private doofus out of herself listening to that scene more than 4 times, turning up the volume, enlarging the screen for maximum lip reading opportunity, only to come away with a big, fat nothing?
Giving this more daylight because, well, I’m a dog with a bone, and some of you guys seem to be, as well. It’s in response to a reader’s recent comment questioning whether or not SIS Brazil was the coffee photo photographer who is in cahoots with Sam and Cait. The print was too small for a screenshot.
I think I said as much earlier, but I’ll repeat myself. This is my opinion only, based solely on gut and observation.
I don’t think SIS knows who their benefactor is. I think they were contacted anonymously, and fed the information in the same way Purv was. They are the most likely bloggers to accept and disseminate highly charged shipper information. While most bloggers would be thrilled to get an “exclusive”, not every blogger would take the bait, and sell it in the way that SIS would. Same as with the Mauzy stuff. Not every anti would sell anonymously dropped Mauzy, or Hannah James, or Tuna Melt, or New Blonde Girl shit the way Purv did. I don’t think in a million years Sam and Cait’s people/person/McGill would directly approach volatile bloggers like SIS and Purv, and trust them to keep their secrets under wraps. I think the photos are most likely taken by Tony, or another stooge. The juxtaposition of the blogger/photographer’s car against where Sam parked is too on-the-nose. The idea that someone flew 24 hours, bought a privacy screen and staked out a home for days on end over Easter weekend when, as you said is family time, only to come up with blurry photos that prove nothing, is ludicrous. (Not to mention the fact that ‘celebrities getting coffee’ is the classic pap shot.)
There also seems to be an unusual amount of new shippers on Tumblr. That doesn’t make sense. Even if a new shipper was born as a result of watching the show on Netflix, one quick Google search would reveal that Cait is engaged. The majority of people who were inclined to ship, would stop right then and there. I know I would have. My guess is many, most, or all of these new shippers are sock accounts. Just as some of the comments on Sam’s Instagram photo begging for them to get together IRL after he posted a picture of he and Cait, were likely phony. Who does that, anymore? Especially since the fandom knows that Cait is engaged. Same with some of the anons on Tumblr. Wasn’t there just a supposed story of a new sighting of Sam and Cait? That rumor was probably started by them, too, trying to get excitement, speculation, and conversation going. They’ll have to wait a while and find a new distribution system for their photos. Their target market seems to be getting wise to them.
There is a thread that can be pulled on all of the stories here, and it leads to one place. Melissa Hoyer did such a terrible job of revealing Cait’s engagement, she had to go back to the well 6 times for a do-over. ‘Pink Lady’ in Bristol, England did such a terrible job of ‘catching’ Cait and Tony, that she had to go back to the well for a do-over. The coffee photographer did such a bad job of explaining herself the first time, she had to go back to the well for a do-over. There’s a reason these people are so bad. They were orchestrated by an amateur. Professionals are clean, quick, and they know how to tell an airtight story, and manage their narrators. In all of these instances, the narrator was clearly given creative license. Not smart. Once under scrutiny, their stories began to change and fall apart, because they’re not actually their stories. Whoever is behind this (likely Tony who calls himself a ‘media manager’), isn’t up to the task. They underestimate shippers’ Spidey senses. Big mistake. The throughline in all of this is the lack of credibility of the storyteller. If they are paying real pros, they should ask for their money back.
Mind you, all of this is strictly taking place on social media. It’s not gone mainstream at all. If it even comes close to kissing the perimeter of mainstream, it’s because something they want discussed is posted on a legitimate media website where it has a content shelf-life of 6-24 hours. Just long enough for the social media blogs to become aware and discuss. The information is posted by only one site at a time, ensuring it doesn’t get too much heft. If something appears on the Elle magazine site, for example, it’s a “one and done” intended for clicks that benefit the site, and conversation starters on social media that benefit Sam and Cait. Anything more than that would risk the narrative getting baked into a more mainstream cake. They have to walk a fine line between pushing their false narratives, and mainstream entertainment media focusing on things like Cait’s engagement. You can tell the stories they want to have more heft. They’re the ones that appear in more than one media outlet (eg., the rugby game in South Africa. That was obviously part of a larger, later aborted effort to sell Cait and Sam as a couple.)
This isn’t my area of marketing expertise, but I’m guessing there has to be some kind of matrix whereby social media engagement is gauged. My best guess is that Sam and Cait have seen theirs plummet in the last 10 months. That’s why all of this is only taking place on social media. SM has become a legitimate factor in not only helping to drive traffic to a show, but illustrating a show’s, and an actor’s worth.
To sum up the collective? The rumors, back story, and photos are coming from inside the house.
This is a really well-thought out comment that I felt deserved more attention than being buried in a days-old post. There are many excellent points made, any of which deserve a discussion. I could unpack any one of them and offer a second thought. However…because I can be like a dog with a bone, I’m going to start mine with the one below, because to me it is the Rosetta Stone. Apologies in advance if I sound like more like Carrie Matheson, without the meds, in front of a bulletin board with push pins and red string, and less like Nancy Drew.
“While I was pleased that they’d been “caught” so to speak, the next question was “why now?” What differentiates now from the past X many years? So, I am now reluctantly on the “this entire thing is a charade orchestrated by the two who have the most to gain from this” bandwagon.”
I can’t shake my suspicions. I find myself involuntarily asking more questions, such as
Why stake out Cait’s house when Cait herself was posting from Ireland the day before? It doesn’t matter if the blogger saw Cait in Glasgow on Friday. By Easter, Cait was full-on screaming that she was in Ireland. Why go to the trouble of putting on a privacy screen, and waiting to take a photo outside the house of someone who said they weren’t home? Why not go to Sam’s to catch a photo? He was the one with the semaphores, signaling to everyone he was in Glasgow that weekend. Unless, of course, catching them at Cait’s house had more of an invasive quality about it.
Also, what about the angle of those photos? Pretty perfect, no? The blogger got a straight shot out the window. Sam parked in the perfect spot to take surreptitious photos through the exact window that had the privacy screen. Not too far in front, and not too far in back. Even if he had a designated parking spot, how would the blogger know where to park and wait?
Between the theatre photo, and the coffee photos, it feels as if their “are the/aren’t they” campaign has moved into the fake ‘gotcha photo’ territory as part of the mix. A little bolder, a little more desperate, but still with the whiff of ambiguity. Bad twitter banter apparently isn’t cutting it, anymore. Neither is Barry Waldo.
Thank you MP, for your thoughtful comments. Sorry to step on your other great points.
This post isn’t about Leslie. But, Leslie should never be forgotten, because she isn’t given enough credit for the photographs she took of Cait in the Savannah airport. Nor was she given enough compassion for the shit storm she had to endure as a result.
The screencap above was a comment I received from the blogger who said she posted the photos of Sam and Cait getting coffee.
Below is a comment I received a few days ago from the same blogger. I didn’t intend to answer her, or call out this comment. I intended to ignore it, because to be completely honest, I don’t know how I feel about these photos, anymore.
Not that I don’t believe that Sam and Cait live together. Not that I don’t believe the entire premise of these photos isn’t legitimate. Beyond that, I’m at a loss.
There is no doubt anymore, nearly 5 years on, that Sam and Cait are guilty of manipulating their fans for their own personal gain. It’s a sad, pathetic state of affairs when one’s thinking about them always defaults to mistrust. That’s where I landed the day Melissa Hoyer reported Cait’s engagement 7 times on her Instagram account, Cait never announced it herself, and Sam never congratulated her. They earned my skepticism with every pap walk; C-list ribbon cutting; fake first day of work; unacknowledged engagements; coincidental airport photos; mysterious and unidentified photographers catching Mauzy and Sam, and Cait and Tony; remote island sightings; and phony hashtag campaigns — to name only a few. At the height of Mauzy Mania, it was impossible to look for any article, or video about Outlander, the show, without being confronted with yet another story about Sam and his inexplicable taste in girlfriends. If seeing Sam shame himself for reasons known only to him (and his confidants) wasn’t your cup of tea, you were shit out of luck.
We’ve been so outmaneuvered, and so duped over the last 4 years, that frankly, anyone who claims to think they know what is going on bts with either Sam and Cait, or the show itself, is hoodwinking themself. I’ve a vivid imagination. I can imagine a lot. I can’t imagine what would ever cause two people who literally had been given the golden ticket, to toss it all aside in order to refashion themselves in the most pedestrian of ways.
Snooze.
(Someone get her an Advil. She looks like she has cramps, as well as bloating.)
No, that isn’t normal. It isn’t normal to start out with such unabashed affection, only to end up as cootie cousins. But, then again, nothing about this fandom is normal.
Which brings me back to this.
This looks normal, right? Sam and Cait in street clothes, getting out of his car with coffee cups, and walking into what was described as Cait’s house together? It’s not.
Neither is this.
(Dude does love himself a good indoor hat, doesn’t he?)
Which brings me back to this.
Hon — you’re trying too hard. I think I said this to you the first time you commented after I posted your photos — I don’t care if you were hiding in a sewer with night vision equipment. Your ethics are not what concern me. As long as you don’t post a photo of a minor, of the actual exterior of their house, their elderly grandparents, or any kind of medical condition or treatment, I say “good for you!”. They have been more than asking to be caught for years now. They obviously don’t have a problem getting photographed in “private moments”.
I don’t see any difference in the invasion of “privacy” between the above orchestrated pap walks, and these photos.
If someone can tell me how the photos of Sam and Cait with coffee cups is any more invasive than Cait and Tony out shopping, or Sam and Mauzy enjoying a day out in NYC, I’m all ears. The license plate was blacked out, and the front of the house was never shown. The particulars of their private life were never shown.
If anyone is ashamed that a “shipper” took what you think are invasive photos, just ask yourself if either Sam or Cait is ashamed they participated in pap walks wearing sunglasses and white tennis shoes (how else is the photographer supposed to recognize their mark?). At least the photos taken by the supposed shipper above wasn’t distributed to tabloids, or Just Jared. And for the record, anyone who thinks the coffee photos have besmirched the integrity of the ‘shipper brand’ — news flash — the ‘shipper brand’ ain’t so hot outside of the shipper community anyway, so no harm/no foul on that one, as far as I’m concerned.
Nope, if I had been strolling by Cait’s house, the location of which she, herself, has apparently let out, and she and Sam pulled up, got out of their car, and headed into her house — him ahead of her — you bet your ass I’d be snapping, and zooming, and skeedattling, and skipping, and hopping, and posting with more exclamation points than should be allowed by any sane person. There would be zero shame in my lucky game.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened here, and that’s why there is still a cloud hanging over these photos. I wasn’t going to call out any of the questions I have, beyond the post I made a few weeks ago, or mention my concerns about these photos again. I didn’t want another Leslie-in-Savannah-eat-your-young situation to happen here. I’m a fan of these photos.
Unfortunately, my curiosity caused me to question them, as well as the theatre photo, as well as the airport photos of Cait and Tony, and Cait and Sam. As I said, Sam and Cait’s own behavior is the reason I have become so critical and circumspect.
I understand this fandom as well as any, which is why I get why the blogger would post this
It’s very frustrating for anyone when their credibility is in doubt. I understand her frustration. Still, I’m mentioned in her latest blog post, and I have questions, so here goes.
First question. Why was there a rumor that the photos were stills from a video? I’m asking that question non-rhetorically. I’m genuinely curious how that rumor began.
Second, why did the blogger originally say this?
only to later say this
I’m sorry, but the “admission” of deliberately blurring the photos threw the first monkey wrench into the mix. If they were blurred deliberately, that should have been stated from the outset. This crowd is tired of half-truths trickling out. They’ll (I’ll) not sit back and absorb that information without questioning “why?”. Saying that fans can’t handle the truth because they’ll believe what they want to believe, has nothing to do with answering the question — why were the photos deliberately blurred?
That’s the first questionable fact. In this fandom, if you offer a controversial opinion or photo, be prepared to defend it. Just ask Leslie. If Leslie’s photo and observations of Cait in the Savannah airport, and subsequent evisceration of her character, and intelligence wasn’t enough to teach anyone the lesson of how to post a one-in-a-million photo, nothing will. I’m sure if she had to do it all over again, Leslie would have shared the photos much differently, if at all. Hindsight is a magical thing.
By now, it should be an unwritten rule that you get your airtight story out there the first time, with as many details as possible, or don’t bother. Forget about the haters. They’ll come, regardless. They’ll challenge you. If your story is real, fuck ’em. Who cares? Changing your story is never a good thing. It makes you look ‘untruthworthy’. Just ask Melissa Hoyer, and Pink Lady McDrunkerson, the “eyewitness” from the No Way Would Cait Ever Reveal Where She Was Getting Married Inn.
Unfortunately, you can’t tell people you’ve deliberately blurred the photos, only to say later that they weren’t “pixelated”, and that they were shared exactly as they were taken. That’s not going to give anyone credibility. They weren’t pixelated. They were blurred. (For the record, the word pixelate is incorrect. This is pixelation, below.Pixelation is generally done to disguise someone’s identity.)
If the blogger said they were “blurred deliberately”, yet she “shared [them] the way they were taken”, and the blogger further says “I haven’t in any way digitally manipulated the photos…”, then it doesn’t sound like she is the one who actually took them, does it? Whether she realizes it or not, or intended to or not, her story changed.
My second question is a little more dicey. This is from the blogger’s own post.
As requested, I did look up privacy screens. I found this on Amazon.
If the photographer took the photos through a privacy screen like this, and the photographer doesn’t live in Glasgow, but was visiting, that must mean either a) her rental car came with a privacy screen, or b) she bought the privacy screen in Glasgow. (I’m taking c) she brought it with her from Australia out of the equation.) Why would a rental car come with a privacy screen? It wouldn’t. That means she bought a privacy screen in Glasgow. If she bought one in Glasgow, and it wasn’t already in the car, she had to have made it a point to purchase one for a specific reason — she was going to sit in front of Cait’s house, wanted to take photographs, and didn’t want to be seen. She “owns” her curiosity, but she doesn’t “own” the obvious effort it took to satisfy that curiosity. “Pure luck” seems doubtful. It also sounds like planning, and logistics were involved. Whoever took the photos (and at this point I’m not at all sure who), took them from the back seat of a car. How could she possibly be staring out the back seat window, see Sam’s car pull up, take out the screen, attach it properly, and then have enough time to take photos? She couldn’t. That means the shade was already in place, which means there was both preparation and waiting involved.
“Pure luck”? What do they say about luck? It’s when opportunity meets preparation. It was a stakeout. Or, meant to look like a stakeout. I don’t know, anymore. Does anyone?
Third question/concern, the blogger keeps referring to “Easter Monday”, yet the photos are watermarked April 23, which was a Tuesday. Again, if you’re going to tell a story as big as this one, get your dates straight. It’s the little things that trip people up all the time.
Fourth question. If the photos were taken over Easter weekend, why in the every lovin’ world would the blogger wait over three weeks to post them? Even if they were filtered through a second, or third party — why the heck wait? What benefits did waiting inure? Girlfriend had a smoking uzi, and she waited 3 weeks to share? Like I said, I’d be shooting, and zooming and bebopping, and skittlydotting all over the place if I had just gotten the money shots that were 5 years in the making. Most people would. I can’t conceive of any reason to hold onto those photos for over 3 weeks. I also wouldn’t wait another 4 weeks to straighten out any rumors that may have arisen as a result of my photos. I’d be on top of that shit like white on rice. If you’re schooled enough in this fandom to know that fans “can’t handle the truth”, then you’re schooled enough not to let “real life” get in the way of periodically checking the reaction to the first photos ever posted of the Loch Ness Lovers.
Fifth question, multiple parts, some repeats. Loose ends that need answers. How could the blogger know that Sam had come home two hours earlier than Cait on Good Friday, other than if she had been waiting outside their apartment for that length of time, or longer? If the blogger saw Sam first, then Cait, where are the photos from that sighting? If there are no photos, why not?
My point is, I don’t doubt that the photos are real. I don’t doubt that they’re of Sam and Cait. And, I don’t fault anyone who is fed up with them lying about their relationship, who goes to Glasgow and tries to get a “gotcha” shot. What I do doubt is nearly every single piece of information surrounding the “how” of these photos. If your story keeps changing, and some of your facts have holes, it’s disingenuous to get offended if people start to doubt you. Especially if you’ve waited 4 weeks to address those doubts.
Someone took those photos. Someone dropped those photos. Who, and why is what people want to know. I doubt we’ll ever get answers, or at least not for a while, but a “shipper fan went to Glasgow, innocently checked out Cait’s house, and got lucky,” isn’t what happened. That privacy screen says otherwise. The delay in posting the photos highlights that. The changing story seals the deal.
One last thing. Celebrities getting coffee? It’s the classic “non-pap/pap” shot.
Think about that one while you’re trying to figure out the who, why, and how of these photos.
Well worth the 5:39 seconds to watch. The hearing was to consider funding for 9/11 first responders who have, or may suffer illnesses, or death as a result of the toxic fumes they inhaled at Ground Zero. In a nutshell, Congress only extends funding every 5 years, which precipitates the need, every five years, for first responders to lobby for an extension. No guarantees. This hearing was to consider funding in perpetuity, something for which Jon Stewart has been a long-time champion.
Jon Stewart slams Congress over health care for 9/11 first responders: "I'm awfully tired of hearing that it's a 9/11 New York issue. Al-Qaeda didn't shout death to Tribeca. They attacked America and these men and women … brought our country back" https://t.co/CFdzczE0fEpic.twitter.com/CDbolZs1wB
Thank you, to samuab for sharing this. It’s good to see I’m not the only one out there flailing around with the same conclusion. I hope the Tumblr author is ok with me posting this.
So well said! Thank you, loveislove.
The problem with Caitriona’s opportunistic use of her bully pulpit is, it’s a one-off. She talks the talk, but somehow over the years, stopped walking the walk. What happened to the ‘Girl on Top’, who celebrated with a donation to her favorite charities? What happened to the woman who flew to Africa with World Child Cancer, or marched for the resistance in 2017? As far as I can see, she turned a decision not to wear Spanx into a exploitive moment in order to bolster a semi-prosaic career and anemic name recognition. She’s become so unapproachable lately, that she can’t even tread water next to Christian Bale and Matt Damon in the pr department. In Hollywood the next best thing is to create a reason for an actor’s name to go viral. I doubt it’s a coincidence that this all went down at the same time the early promo for her movie began. I would bet a week’s income that the “support” she received from her fellow ‘big-gutted women’, was instigated, and likely supplemented by her own “PR” efforts.
Look at her Instagram follow numbers versus her Twitter follow numbers. Twitter has cracked down on fake follows, banning even high-profile Tweeters for violating the rules. Instagram has not. There is a huge, not insignificant discrepancy between Cait’s follower numbers on the two platforms. An actress who has to purchase 600,000+ followers on Instagram in order to look popular, is not actually popular. A multiple Golden Globe nominee for Best Actress who can’t crack 400,000 followers on Twitter after 5 years in the public eye, is not popular enough for a hashtag campaign about her bloated stomach to go viral. The world is full of people who’ve been unintentionally offended. No one is starting a charity drive for a former model with a belly problem. We have a climate that is melting.
Strap in, kids. It’s late in the day, and Nancy Drew just had her 3rd cup of coffee.
Question for you all. What do the photographs below, all of which were ostensibly taken on a standard, everyday cell phone, have in common?
If you answered, ‘they’re all blurry’, then you’ve already gotten the gist of Nancy Drew’s Mystery Theatre.
When was the last time you took a blurry photo on your cell phone? Nevermind, we all know the answer. It only happens by accident.
There are only a few ways that these photos could be blurry: 1) if they were motion photos. The only photos in this batch that could qualify as motion photos would be the coffee photos. They were stills taken from a video that for some reason, wasn’t released. However, those photos were not blurred because of motion. They are blurred in a different manner. This is what the motion blur feature in Photoshop looks like.
These photos would also be blurry if
2) the lighting was really awful; 3) the subjects in the photo were so tiny to begin with, that cropping them diminished the detail because they were taken from a long range; or 4) someone intentionally blurred them.
The lighting didn’t seem to be an issue with any of the photos. Even in the theatre, you can see there was light coming through the windows above, and shining on people in the background. The only images in which they are moving are the coffee videos. They’re not blurred as one would expect in a motion shot, they’re blurred in an entirely different way. They’re not so small as to have been cropped and enlarged, because the photographer’s perspective is seen in each frame. Which, brings me to the real mystery behind these photos — the range.
They are all taken at close range, yet they are all blurry.
One could make an argument that the first photo of Cait at the Glasgow airport from Easter was taken from a long range. I confess, I never saw the original. Something tells me it wasn’t, though. Then, there’s the theatre pic. Ever since that photo was released, I’ve wondered why it was blurry. It was clearly taken at close range, because no one is obstructing the photographer’s view. It’s nearly impossible to believe that if it was taken from far away, there was not a single body obstructing the view in a crowded theatre lobby. Plus, we see their feet. The photographer had a straight shot of his subjects. Yet, it’s a fuzzy photo. Then, of course, the coffee run photo, which if those were going to be blurry, they’d be blurry from motion. That video was taken from the back of a car, across the street from where they parked. Still not far enough away to make those photos as blurry as they were. The same is true with the airport photo of Sam and Cait the other day. Why is it fuzzy? You can see perspective from the woman’s hair to the left of the frame. They’re not that far away. Their feet are showing. It was an unobstructed view.
The photo above is what most photos look like, whether they’re taken on a cell phone, an SLR, a point-and-click, etc.
This is more or less what all of the “gotcha” photos of Sam and Cait have looked like.They look that way, because blurring them, and monkeying with the color is what makes them look “gotcha”.
It’s almost as if the same person is responsible for orchestrating all of these photos. Almost as if they’re trying to fabricate their own buzz, which of course those two open books would never do.
Are they, or aren’t they, they were both on the same island on Hawaii? No, they’re not, Tonya Harding asked Cait if she was taking an early honeymoon. Are they or aren’t they, Sam’s hand photobombed Cait at a party in NYC? No, they’re not. She’s wearing her engagement ring. Are they, or aren’t they, they got caught at the theatre? No, they’re not, Sam’s with a new blonde. Are they or aren’t they, they got caught going for coffee? No, they’re not, she’s planning her wedding at an inn in England. Are they or aren’t they, they were spotted flying together? No, she flew back alone, just ask the random dude who took his picture with her. Is she pregnant or isn’t she? She’s not, Just ask Jared.
Let’s face it. The only thing that is consistently interesting about Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe is whether or not they’re banging each other. Stupidly short-sighted of them, they managed to kill that beast a long time ago. Now, when they need it for their careers, and to sell a new Netflix audience, they’ve dusted off the Season 1 playbook, ratcheted up the buzz, and sold Sam as the man who one day hopes to find a love like Jamie and Claire’s (“ladies??? He’s sinnnnngllle.“).
Now, where my Bess Marvins at?
P.S. — Cait’s over-sized trench coat has been photographed so much, it should have it’s own ‘coats of Instagram’ moment.
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