{"id":17026,"date":"2024-03-16T00:50:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T00:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/16\/the-princess-of-wales-controversy-has-only-gotten-worse\/"},"modified":"2024-03-16T00:50:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T00:50:29","slug":"the-princess-of-wales-controversy-has-only-gotten-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/16\/the-princess-of-wales-controversy-has-only-gotten-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Princess of Wales controversy has only gotten worse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The public absence of Catherine, Princess of Wales, has grown from a niche royal watcher concern to an international punchline in a matter of weeks. While Kensington Palace said her January abdominal surgery was planned and indicated she would be out of the public eye through March, several unusual details \u2014 grainy photos, an altered image, vague medical information, irregular updates from the British royal family \u2014 have kept the public guessing. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s never a good thing. <\/p>\n

Catherine\u2019s so-called disappearance has led TikTok and X users to swan dive into bizarre conspiracy theories and jokes so thickly intertextual it makes one wonder if social media really does give us brain worms. <\/p>\n

Droves of amateur detectives have crafted timelines and deep dives into the princess\u2019 movements over the last few month\ufeffs, combining real concern with outlandish conspiracy. Regular people moonlighting as photo forensics specialists have suggested recent images of Kate are fabricated, spinning theories on where she actually is and who they think is trying to cover up the \u201ctruth.\u201d <\/p>\n

And yes, there are a lot of jokes. At first, it was just the typical guffaws that arise whenever something socially noteworthy gets passed around the online peanut gallery: Maybe Kate got a Brazilian butt lift! Maybe she got terrible bangs and is hiding away until they grow out! Maybe she\u2019s getting in shape after a long MLB offseason! <\/p>\n

Then, after a Mother\u2019s Day photo of the princess and her three children was believed to have been altered \u2014 and subsequently pulled by news agencies \u2014 things started to get more serious and more unhinged. Typically complimentary British media outlets began to ask more pointed questions. American TV shows openly made fun of what was quickly becoming a royal mess, even trotting out theories that had previously been the exclusive fodder of gossip enthusiasts \u2014 more on that in a bit. <\/p>\n

Oh, and Kate still hasn\u2019t been seen in public since December. <\/p>\n

The uproar, the theories, the analyses, the jokes and, yes, the serious concern \u2014 they all show the multitude of ways people interact with and view the royal family. <\/p>\n

\u2018Everyone loves a mystery\u2019<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not hard to understand why people are so invested in this particular piece of drama. After all, it\u2019s called \u201cpalace intrigue\u201d for a reason. Across social media and on message boards \u2014 and indeed, even before the internet, royal-watchers have gathered to discuss who\u2019s doing what, who\u2019s on the outs, and whose secrets are the juiciest. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey lead these unattainable, unrelatable lives, and yet I\u2019ve been aware of them my entire life,\u201d said Susan Graves. The 40-year-old moved to the US nearly 20 years ago from Birmingham, UK, and keeps up with royal news on sites like Reddit, where the r\/RoyalsGossip subreddit has more than 44,000 subscribers. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like fiction, but it\u2019s not,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just real enough to be real, if that makes sense. Then you throw in stuff like a Photoshopped picture, and you can\u2019t help but be intrigued at what\u2019s going on.\u201d <\/p>\n

She says even friends who usually don\u2019t care about the royal family at all are invested in the drama with the princess. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone loves a mystery. A lot of these people think it\u2019s fun to look for clues, to guess at what\u2019s happening behind the scenes. It\u2019s the same casual stuff people do when they gossip about people they actually know.\u201d <\/p>\n

Both Graves and Wainsworth said shows like \u201cThe Crown\u201d and controversies surrounding various members of the royal family \u2014 from the media treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and the fallout of Harry\u2019s memoir \u201cSpare,\u201d to more serious subjects like allegations surrounding King Charles\u2019 brother Prince Andrew and even enduring interest in the life and death of Princess Diana \u2014 have influenced the way people see the monarchy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because I\u2019m American or what, but I just assume they\u2019re always hiding something,\u201d Wainsworth said. \u201cNot [the royal family] specifically, just anyone in that kind of position.\u201d <\/p>\n

It all sounds very serious, but a majority of Kate truthers are, to borrow from our British friends, just taking the piss. <\/p>\n

The social media platform X now supports groups known as \u201ccommunities,\u201d and one called \u201cwhere TF is Kate Middleton\u201d has attracted 4,400 members ready to cram on their sleuthing hats. <\/p>\n

\u201ckate is missing and twitter is on the case! join us, indulge your guilty pleasure,\u201d its description reads. \u201cfriends don\u2019t let friends spiral down the royal rabbit hole alone.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oh, and what a royal rabbit hole it is: Videos and posts in the group outline stories that could trump any fictional mystery-thriller. On the other hand, there are also Photoshop jobs of Kate holding hands with perpetual celebrity boyfriend Pete Davidson and jokes that Kate may be taking a spin on the reality show \u201cThe Masked Singer.\u201d <\/p>\n

People don\u2019t know what to believe<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s one thing for at-home gossip lovers to dive into royal conspiracy theories, but as Catherine\u2019s absence from the public eye wears on, entertainment and media outlets are getting more bold in their speculation. On a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host Stephen Colbert \ufeffeven openly entertained rumors about Kate and William\u2019s personal lives. <\/p>\n

In a single line, he also summed up how so many interested parties feel about the controversy: <\/strong>Concern for Kate as an individual, but a guilty hunger for more details. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart goes out to Kate. Now let\u2019s dish the hot goss!\u201d <\/p>\n

The Daily Show mocked the Mother\u2019s Day photo controversy with a faux London correspondent reading out a list of things that \u201cwere also Kate\u2019s fault,\u201d including \u201ccolonization and the whole Prince Andrew thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even the Dublin Airport got a shot in, tweeting an ironic image of an obviously Photoshopped Cillian Murphy from their \u201csocial media intern Kate.\u201d <\/p>\n

More dire than the growing transatlantic comedy routine is the apparent dissolution of trust between some media outlets and the royal family. After Catherine apologized for the doctored Mother\u2019s Day image, the global director of one of the world\u2019s biggest news and photo agencies said Kensington Palace, which released the photo, was no longer considered a \u201ctrusted source.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cLike with anything, when you\u2019re let down by a source, the bar is raised and we\u2019ve got major issues internally,\u201d AFP head Phil Chetwynd told the BBC in a radio interview. <\/p>\n

The British Press Photographers\u2019 Association released a statement urging Kensington Palace \u201cto make the original images available for inspection so that we can assess what has been done\u201d and \u201cmake sure that it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d <\/p>\n

Members of the British media are also beginning to openly question the official narrative of Kate\u2019s absence. \u201cFeeding frenzy over Kate proves the royals MUST be more transparent,\u201d reads a recent headline from The Daily Mail, an outlet that is generally sympathetic in its royal news coverage. <\/p>\n

The royal response hasn\u2019t calmed things<\/h2>\n

Throughout the whole controversy, official information from Kensington Palace, which is the London residence and office of Prince William and Kate, <\/strong>has been uneven. Royal experts have noted that the palace typically doesn\u2019t respond to rumors about the royal family, yet has made the rare move of responding to unconfirmed reports of Kate\u2019s condition. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the palace hasn\u2019t responded to calls for an unedited version of the Mother\u2019s Day photo, or provided more information on Kate\u2019s whereabouts. <\/p>\n

Mark Borkowski, a London-based public relations and crisis communications expert, told People that the royal family\u2019s long-standing culture of silence is not doing them any favors when it comes to quelling conspiracies about Kate\u2019s absence. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe difficulty now is because there is so little information about what\u2019s happening to Kate, if they were going to project things are all normal in this way \u2014 with a photo that is now deemed to be fake \u2014 it is pretty damning about the floundering and the poor decision making that\u2019s going on,\u201d Borkowski said. <\/p>\n

While some voices have called for speculators to give Kate and the royal family some privacy, and others have suggested completely reasonable explanations for Kate\u2019s disappearance, the fact remains: For one reason or another, people care about the royals. And, as national figureheads, it is part of their duty to be cared about. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The public absence of Catherine, Princess of Wales, has grown from a niche royal watcher concern to an international punchline in a matter of weeks. While Kensington Palace said her January abdominal surgery was planned and indicated she would be out of the public eye through March, several unusual details \u2014 grainy photos, an altered <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}