Thailand’s Big Brother UK hopeful
There is one Thai overseas who is single-handedly flying her country’s flag for her brothers and sisters. She is a 1.5-meter tall bundle of platform-boot-wearing character. She is currently the 13/8 favourite, according to Ladbrokes, to win the UK’s ninth series of Big Brother.
I don’t want to say that Kathreya “Kat” Kasisopa is weird or anything, but she is perhaps a few cookies short of a jar — literally. Big Brother UK’s first Thai housemate has a kind of obsession with cookies, as she demonstrates here in this rather terrifying dialog with Big Brother.
I feel exhausted just from watching her speak. I haven’t been following Big Brother in great detail, but I’ve been keeping up with Kat’s antics from time to time. Here she is getting lost in the Big Brother house — a feat no mere mortal could achieve. This may explain her desire to be reincarnated as Pokemon. Is she real?
There are more clips of Kat on YouTube than I could ever sit through. She is something of a phenomenon in the UK. I find her a bit awkward to watch, but evidently she has captured the hearts of the UK’s television-watching general public.
Thais: are you proud? Brits: can you watch for more than five minutes without starting to twitch nervously?
July 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I can tell you that the Thai I know here are not proud at all and are even ashamed that this is the new image of Thailand in the UK. After Little Britain’s Ting Tong from Tooting and not from Patpong, this is the final drop!
July 14th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Well, people don’t really take BB contestants seriously anyway. They’re gonna be on The Sun’s front page for a couple of months then disappear into obscurity. It’d actually be great if she won it, though. :)
July 15th, 2008 at 12:16 am
No, she’s acting, this can’t be real.
Note the subtleties in how she’s ‘resisting’ the power of Big Brother — while ludicrously begging for ‘cookie,’ she is pointing the soles of her feet at the Big Brother camera!
July 15th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Definitely acting. They always do in Big Brother and all the other ‘reality’ shows; hence, why nobody should take them seriously. After all, they’re there to get on TV, so acting is definitely a factor.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:12 am
No comment here. I think she’s overacting to stand out and it works. She doesn’t have to act so dumb though it’s obviously she’s not.
Heck I like cookies too. What’s wrong with that?
July 15th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Looks like a comment to me.
There’s nothing wrong with liking cookies, but you’re not on national TV crying and singing about them.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:26 am
13/8 ? I know gambling is illegal here but I asked a friend in the UK to put 5 quid on her for me at the start when she was 16/1.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:36 am
I reckon you’re in for a windfall.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I’d just like to say I have never watched Big Brother. I can think of a thousand better things to do.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
In the amount of time it would take you to think of 1,000 better things to do, it would probably be time to go to bed anyway.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Can just imagine all the research team of BB in the pub after the auditions.
We got ourselves a winner!
For a witty insight into all that is Stardom & Reality TV try Ben Elton’s book ‘Dead Famous’
This week we have mostly been reading ‘The Naming of the Dead’ by Ian Rankin.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Oh My God…. With so many people who don’t watch BB or are even critical and disdainful of it, your post has attracted quite a lot of comments!!!
July 16th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Exactly! This is the sort of stuff that gets people talking.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Regardless of being Thai on trashy reality shows, she seems to have too big of the heart to be real, close to the point of annoyance but that makes me laugh.
Reality shows are casting games. To balance the blondes, there has to be fat, loud and maybe intelligent chick in the group, minority is a plus. Kat fits the bill even though she acts like a dumb.
To answer your question, I’m more embarrassed than anything else. But that is because I see she and the producers using herself to stereotype Thais.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Ok, living in the UK (and having lived in Bangkok, so I know what Thais are like!) I have been watching BB (I ask myself why everyday) and actually Kat isn’t as bad as she comes across on those clips. She was way over the top in the first couple of weeks which was embarassing to watch, but she’s now much, MUCH more ‘normal’ and not quite so cookie obsessed ;)