One Week Later
The uncomfortable truth is that what many people deeply crave in a young and beautiful royal wife and mother isn’t competence, but a crack-up.
Hello Dear Readers,
I hope you’re all doing well. Thank you all for your messages and patience this past week. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve written, erased and then repeated the process anew. When the Princess Kate’s video message was broadcasted exactly one week ago, like many of you, I was shocked, sad and vexed on her behalf. My first draft of this newsletter had many expletives, sentences in all caps and so many exclamation points. So I scrapped it and told myself to take the time I needed. Which turned out to be the correct choice leading into Easter Break with my family. So without any further ado, lets discuss this past week and our thoughts going forward.
In the week I’ve spent collecting my thoughts, I’ve exasperatingly had to listen to and read paragraphs from people online attempting to give an explanation for why they decided to abandon all reason and dive head first into the world of “Katespiracy” theories. It’s been both captivating and challenging watching strangers online justify why reveling in the most capricious and improbable of tales seemed like a good idea (at the time).
Some explanations’ve been eye-opening. There’s compelling chatter groups with ties to the Kremlin took full advantage of the panic on social media and used it to whip up the furor and conspiracy theories about Catherine. NBC News makes plain that they didn’t start the rumors themselves (the US gets that medal) but these accounts jumped on the story and set off replying and amplifying the messages. Why? This was an effort to sow distrust in institutions; disheartening yet not totally surprising knowing what we’ve learned about the role disinformation plays in elections the world over.
Some explanations have been disingenuous: Blaming friends, censure being laid at the feet of the British royal family, its communications staff being at fault for everything, saying this all could’ve been avoided if Catherine had “been honest” and faxed over press releases after every doctor’s appointment. With the hindmost excuses, there’s remarkably little candid self-reflection, though this is to be expected. The “#WheresKate” syndicate are nothing if not stubborn. They will they ever admit they simply got things wrong. So I see no value in trying to convince them otherwise. As Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times stated:
“Just as no facts are ever enough to satisfy conspiracy theorists, no amount of information is ever enough to quench the online gossipy thirst about the royal family”.
The fact of the matter is
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to HRH Royal Tea to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.