The so-called “unruly tourists” were called all the names under the sun in a media pile-on that entertained and angered New Zealanders in equal measure. Every move these surprise summer celebrities made was monitored by the media, and it also made them targets for anger and abuse.
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Tina Maria Cash (centre) leaves Hamilton District Court. Photo: RNZ / Andrew McRae
“The most entertaining Christmas holiday story we have seen in years,” was the verdict of Sean Plunket, the afternoon host on the new talk radio station Magic Talk.
“Normally we are stuck with some bloody dolphin in Gisborne or seal in Dunedin. They provided way more entertainment value," he said.
The group he dubbed "the not-so-mighty Johnsons" clearly amused many more in the media too.
They hogged the headlines for a more than fortnight as they traveled the North Island leaving a trail of trash, hostile hospitality workers and unpaid bills in their wake - and reporters on their tail.
Or more accurately - reporters scouring social media for other people’s sightings of the group.
They made the news allegedly dining and dashing at restaurants, fouling their food to get it for free, and walking thru a Burger King drive thru.
But it really kicked off when they made that mess at Takapuna beach and a junior member of the clan - or “the youngest feral” as Newstalk ZB's Kerre McIvor put it - threatened a local woman who called them out for it.
“The foul mouthed, thieving, littering family has been making headlines on a daily – nay, hourly – basis since footage of them abusing Takapuna Beach goers was shown on nzherald.co.nz,” Kerre McIvor wrote in the Herald on Sunday, claiming credit for the clickbait cascade for her employers.
Days later, there was an unscheduled holiday stop at the District Court in Hamilton where one tourist admitted shoplifting from a petrol station.
The massed ranks of media at court for her reckoning was topped up with a vigilante squad of locals who’d read all about it in the media.
And they were also watching in the UK. Britain’s top selling tabloid the Sun posted CCTV footage from the Caltex crime scene.
The Sun in the UK joins the pile-on. Photo: screenshot
RNZ lead its news at 5pm on 16 January with that court appearance in Hamilton, claiming the group had “caused mayhem” in the North Island.
Remarkably, it even overshadowed the man accused of killing UK backpacker Grace Millane in December appearing in court the same day and pleading not guilty. His interim name suppression was re-confirmed in that hearing but the media outrage over that seems to have faded.
Who were the tourists under the media microscope?
On The Sun’s website they were condemned as just “average white trash Britons. Or more likely Irish”
Early reports here called them Irish too - prompting an extraordinary outburst from Auckland mayor Phil Goff which was reported all around the world.
But a man calling himself John Johnson told Newshub they were not from Ireland or gypsies.
“Irish Kiwis like myself . . . are mortified at seeing headlines about this supposed 'Irish' family's awful behaviour and the long shadow it casts over Irish people in general,” said the head of digital at Newshub Cathy O’Sullivan under headline: They are not Irish and they are not welcome
But Newshub itself was among those giving readers that impression.
Irish tourists spark outrage over rubbish left on Auckland beach was a headline on the site the day before. Also: 'Bad news': Rowdy Irish tourists allegedly spotted in Northcote bar. Both are still online.
The Honorary Consul-General for Ireland urged the media to reconsider their “labelling” - and they were being called all the names under The Sun.
In the Herald on Sunday Kerre McIvor called them “The world’s biggest bogans” as did drive host Ryan Bridge on Magic Talk last Monday afternoon. his guest Waitakere mayor Sir Bob Harvey who also called them “gypsy celebrities” and “cretins.”
Earlier that day on Magic Talk, Sean Plunket said "don't call them gyspies" but then called them “a bunch of pikeys” - which really is a slur term for both gypsies and travelers in the UK.
Pile-on turn toxic
Media pursue an "unruly tourist" outside the court in Hamilton. Photo: screenshot
That same day the man calling himself John Johnson told Newshub they were fearful of Kiwi vengeance after all the exposure.
And while it’s hard to have sympathy given their conduct, he had reason to be wary.
Outside the court in Hamilton a fortnight ago, the combination of of media scrum and baying mob forced family members - including kids - into a busy road and the Waikato Times reported people shouted “F***ing Gypsies” at them from passing cars.
Kerre McIvor noted in her Herald column the media succeeded in stirring an online mob
“A Facebook page was set up . . . so that New Zealand could keep tabs on the lowlifes. And what fun they've had doing so!” she wrote.
“The reaction to this group was an excellent example of what can happen when the community, the media – both social and mainstream – and the police work together. We should be policing our own trouble-making Kiwis the same way,” she said.
The question of who decides which “trouble-makers” merit such cyber-scrutiny and vigilantism was left unaddressed.
Is this really about ‘us’ - and not ‘them’?
A screengrab from the video posted on social media of a woman challenging the tourists for littering at Takapuna Beach. Photo: Facebook/Krista Curnow
When the Waikato Times asked one Hamilton man why he joined the mob at the court on 16 January, he told the paper Kiwis are most angered about the family "dirtying our country".
“If there's one way to rile the entire country, it's by disrespecting the land, he said.
Though as Ryan Bridge noted on Magic Talk show last Monday, there was no mob at Pan Pac Forest Products over the company’s pipe leaking at Whirinaki Beach - or any other places the water was unsafe for swimmers because of pollution.
In a piece for US-based site Slate, New Zealand freelancer Tess Nichol reckoned we might be a wee bit jealous:
“Would that we all could march aggressively through life with the bolshy swagger of an angry, shirtless 9-year-old, unafraid to pull the finger at anyone who got in our way,” she wrote.
David Slack channeled Blam Blam Blam from the early 1980’s in the Sunday Star Times to point out Kiwis can be “unruly” too:
“There are no obnoxious people in New Zealand; there are no sheep on our farms," he wrote.
"People in yoga pants using the mobility car park because honestly, they're just so BUSY? Property managers who treat their tenants like crap? Don't let us even get started on what people do online . . ." he added.
The Spinoff’s Madeleine Chapman reckoned what began as legitimate news reporting became “news dictated by the emotions of the mob“ and prompted “a form of nationwide stalking.”
“For every person who laughed at the brazenness of this family, there was someone who wanted them punished, and painfully,” she wrote.
Plenty to ponder there about the way the media made the ‘Unruly Tourists’ public enemies and the surprise celebrities of the summer at the same time.