Mail Online’s Underage Obsession

For those who believed that Martin Clarke and his hard-pressed gofers may have been shamed by all the adverse comment into going easy on the constant stream of features about children – because their parents are slebs – and under-age teens, today has shown that Mail Online’s head man is clearly made of sterner stuff. The site is chock full of them.

What's f***ing wrong with Mail Online, c***?!?

Not content with the usual wall-to-wall self publicity machine that is the Kardashian family and its diet of free copy (featuring Themselves Personally Now), the site has branched out from asking if Kim Kardashian has had the scaffolders in (nowt gets past the Mail) to creepily intrusive shots of her daughter North West (ho ho ho). Little North is just 20 weeks old.

How many photos? Just the 14, including the one where Ms Kardashian clearly spots the long lens looking at her. This is truly shudder-inducing stuff, but what the heck, Mail Online has the USA to crack, and snappers hanging about outside sleb houses, the places they shop, and anywhere else they may be seen is part of that Stateside Stuff That Happens.

Meanwhile, back in the wet and windy UK, the snaps of children continue, with “Like mother like daughter: Chantelle Houghton wears brown fur stole as daughter Dolly wraps up in a cream fur coat”. Ms Houghton, who is famous for not being famous before she was sent on to Celebrity Big Brother, and then became famous as the one who was not famous, has a toddler called Dolly.

And Dolly can clearly clock a lurking pap with his long lens out (kersnick kersnick) before her mum. The event, where “Houghton and Dolly spent the day together, where they headed to various shops and places throughout the day” was clearly news of the highest import, as well as deserving the attention of a budding Pulitzer winner to pen the copy (OK, I made the last one up).

Another one to spot the snapper was Sarah Michelle Gellar’s four year old daughter Charlotte, who, according to Mail Online, “is a doppelganger for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' little girl”. She doesn’t look even a little like Suri Cruise. But she and her mother went shopping in downtown Los Angeles, and that’s enough reason to dash off another trashy article to generate clicks. Ker-ching!

And the tally would not be complete without a “Growing up so fast!” moment. Yes, “Sophie Nelisse, 13, wears an intricate earring chain and four inch heels to promote new movie The Book Thief”. Just the five photos this time. Paul Dacre says he’s proud of Mail Online. So it has to be assumed that he approves of this constant stream of child clickbait. He’d make a good creepy uncle, too.

As for Martin Clarke, best not go there. Truly he is beyond creepy.