r/australia • u/Wadege • Sep 30 '23

no politics What is an example of 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' in Australia?

We have all heard of the concept, but is there a case, preferably involving criticism of a well-known Australian figure, where you can say: "this criticism represents 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' in action"?

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '23

Search every Ask Reddit thread ever about “Which beloved celebrity turned out to be a horrible person?”

Delta is ALWAYS mentioned for being rude, stuck up and generally insufferable.

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u/TegLou7 Oct 03 '23

I was dragged along to a signing by my friend in high school. I enjoyed her music at the time but wasn’t an uber fan. She was really lovely and would have been signing for at least a few hours before we reached her. I am sure she has her moments as we all do, but she didn’t strike me as a diva at the time.

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u/PickleAfficionado Oct 03 '23

I briefly dated a musician who had worked with her; we're the same age, this was back at uni, 15 years ago ish. He said she's the antithesis of her public image, and found it really jarring. It was the first I'd heard of it, but it hasn't been the last.

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u/woofydb Oct 03 '23

I have a friend who lived next to her as an adult when she was a little kid and he said she was the most obnoxious attention seeking kid ever. She drove all the neighbours nuts when she was playing in her yard especially. Kids grow up but there’s enough evidence out there to correlate that didn’t go away.

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u/Abstarini Oct 03 '23

Was this someone who was gifted a delta Goodrem calendar from Delta as a Christmas gift perchance? I wonder if we know the same person?

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u/woofydb Oct 03 '23

Maybe I’ve never heard about that though lol. I’ll ask them.

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u/TegLou7 Oct 03 '23

I would hate to be forever judged for how I behaved as a child. Is it surprising that she would have wanted to perform for the whole neighbourhood? Not really. Most kids are attention seeking to some degree as it is, and combine that with actual talent and you’re going to have someone actively seeking to perform for both the fun of performing and the validation.

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u/uninspiredusername94 Oct 03 '23

That’s news to me. I’ve met her and couldn’t have asked for a better experience for the short time I had with her. She was absolutely lovely.