It's A Royal Knockout
Can everyone get a grip please
I’m glad the British Royal Family exists.
It exists to remind us that, despite all propaganda to the contrary, we do not live a meritocracy. Many people are keen to tell us that they are richer and more powerful than everyone else because they are smarter and have worked harder. The Royal Family show us that you can be mediocre, a chronic alcoholic, or a sexual predator; and still ceremonially rule a nation and be adored by millions.
The world is fundamentally not fair. That fact should make us humble. That should mean that we view claims made by the successful about their right to the spoils with some scepticism. It should make us more forgiving of the unsuccessful and the unlucky. But it doesn’t seem to have done that.
The Royal Family should give us pause. But instead it seems to make a lot of people crazy.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II was a thing that happened. I wasn’t especially invested in her as a person. She definitely didn’t seem to have been as bad as, say, Saddam Hussein. I can understand great grief for someone you have known and loved. That’s perfectly human. But the outpouring of grief for the late Queen seemed like something else.
“Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and on online platforms. Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having no or limited interactions with them.”
This may be hard to take for some people but: The Queen had no idea who you were and did not care about you.
Some of this is just British people needing a traditional source of authority to hang onto now we are no longer the global hegemon but are instead a minor power intent on alienating our neighbours because of… blue passports? I think? It is not so much that the Emperor has no clothes as the Emperor’s old clothes were taken from other people who wanted them back and then the Emperor’s new clothes were shared with his continental colleagues but then he left them in a huff while wearing only his Union Jack underpants.
The rest of the world has fewer excuses. Isn’t this what the Kardashians are for? Sure, Kanye definitely seems to have a lot in common with the Duke of Windsor but aren’t there other celebrities to obsess about? Ryan Gosling did a nice turn at the Oscars*. Isn’t that enough for people?
Kate Middleton has a lot on her plate right now. And she wasn’t that interesting in the first place. You mean nothing to her. And that’s OK and normal. So how about everyone finds something else to do?
I suspect that human beings need monarchs or celebrities or someone one to obsess about and gossip about and worship and love and loathe. It’s just the way were are.
It would be nice if we could do this with some modicum of self-awareness and balance. If only we could learn something of value - the role that chance plays in our lives and the foolishness of our obsessions. But that’s probably asking too much.
*Not a patch on the Palm Dog tho - now that’s a movie award.