Alberto Rey
Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-21:51
Opinion Kate Middleton: the noise of the networks is frivolous in the face of cancer
'Royals' Kate Middleton reveals that she has cancer: an unprecedented appearance to fix the crisis that Buckingham did not know how to manage
One of the most maximalist claims about the British royal family is that their existence results in
millions of tourists visiting the UK and spending in pounds.
Given that many of these tourists come from the United States, such an apparently excessive proclamation is not so excessive. Because Americans are obsessed with royalty. In particular, with the British royalty.
Aware of this reality and perhaps ill-advised by another questionable axiom, that which ensures that the customer is always right, the Windsors
run the risk of becoming their own theme park.
With the advent, first of the internet and then of social media, Queen Elizabeth II's be-seen-to-be-believed
policy
could have reached a dangerous precipice: now you have to be seen all the time.
and without rest. The temporary absence of Kate Middleton and what she has unleashed have shown that if the royals do not constantly produce news,
her followers get angry and conspiracy theories fly free.
This is when stability and trust, two of the pillars of modern monarchies (whatever that means), falter.
Another of those pillars is fame. The most absolute fame. The royal families, as the top of the noble class, invented being famous simply for being born in a palace. Celebrities beget celebrities. Until well into the 20th century, this concept belonged almost exclusively to the nobles. Today we can discuss whether the Windsor family is the most famous on the planet or if that honor (honor?)
belongs to a much more recent dynasty: the Kardashians.
If we take this parallel into account, the figure of Meghan Markle acquires a new and tremendously interesting dimension: she is the bridge between both concepts of celebrity-family: the one established through centuries of tradition and the one resulting from a society of the spectacle. hyperaccelerated.
Everything indicates that Meghan knows that, more than a prince, she has married a class A celebrity. With a guy whose fame is independent of anything he does or doesn't do. Harry is also the son of a pioneer who understood that
a modern princess could (and perhaps should) act as a superstar: Diana of Wales.
She single-handedly redefined the celebrity culture of the late 20th century. And who did the same twenty years later? Exactly: Kim Kardashian.
Meghan aspires to be the first but inevitably resembles the second. Miss Markle's is a lost battle: for her (and for anyone) it is impossible to compete with a myth of the category of Lady Di.
On the other hand, Meghan finds it very easy to live like a Kardashian.
Kate Middleton, in the video in which she announced her cancer, was forced to do both at the same time. And she did well. To be seen to be believed and, above all, to assume that the future queen of England, more than an institutional figure, is a very famous girl.
Americans are fascinated by kings and queens. The very idea of monarchy repels them (or should), but the old fashion and tinsel lose them. And the old. In a country that considers almost any inherited furniture to be antique, the fact that in Europe we do not give importance to living or working in buildings built several centuries ago arouses a mixture of admiration and envy.
They love anything that smells of centuries of history.
Much has been said about how well the Kennedys capitalized on that itch of US society. Marketing, capable of translating drives into needs and these into products to satisfy them, did its job well and, for many Americans, the family Kennedy is the closest thing they have to a real family. Or rather "that they had", because after the deaths of Jackie O and John John, the two most glamorous members of the clan, the shine of the Kennedys faded.
And then the internet arrived. And social networks. And the Kardashians.
With the new reconversion of fame, glamor is over because glamor is mystery and when you spend all day broadcasting your life live, the only mystery you maintain is none. The fame of the 20th century required a certain reserve, it celebrated enigmas and enjoyed its morbid and unconfirmable stories.
Today those funny urban legends soon reach the category of crazy rumors.
The temporary media disappearance of Kate Middleton spurred hundreds of them. Her reappearance, however perfect and tragic, managed to appease them. One more week of no-Kate and the possibility of an alien abduction would have begun to be seriously considered on television talk shows. Let's continue complicating the picture: using artificial intelligence, a video could have been made corroborating such nonsense. In fact, it is surprising that no one thought of creating and subsequently leaking images of the duchess ascending towards a mothership, dragged by a beam of light of unknown technology. And be careful, let's not rule out that much of the content ("content": I'm starting to talk like them) that the Kardashians post on their networks is being generated in that way.
To know more
British Royal House.
Harry and Meghan: low profile to avoid making a mistake after Kate's announcement
Editor: LUIS FERNANDO ROMO
Harry and Meghan: low profile to avoid making a mistake after Kate's announcement
There were many photographs of John John Kennedy or Jackie O and we did not doubt any of them. They were different times. John John died in 1999, shortly after the release of two iconic and foreboding films:
The Truman Show
and
The Matrix
. The premises of both were then futuristic, disturbing and Martian. Today the first is our daily television bread and the second lives in the heads of millions of paranoids who really believe that we live in a simulation and that
the Kate who tells about her illness looking at the camera is part of a reptilian plan.
to keep us entertained.
Paranoia aside, the British royal family is entertainment. It is content. The Windsors are learning in fits and starts what it means in 2024 to be "the face of a country." Before it was enough that that face existed, we knew it existed and we believed its photos. Today you have to constantly prove everything. Like Hollywood stars,
royals
spend 5% of their time doing things and 95% of their time showing that they do them. Their job is not to exist, it is to teach that they exist. "Give videos", as the trash
celebrities
of
Big Brother
say . That attitude fits little with the idea that millennial Europe has of its oldest institutions, but the millions of North Americans (and non-North Americans) who consume royal content and travel to London and spend in pounds do not want elegance, seclusion and sobriety.
They want their daily portion of photos and videos, with extra sauce and large potatoes.
The modern monarchy (whatever that is), will either be entertaining or it won't be. Kardashians with crown. Content.