Introduction : a brief history of the Royal Fandom
Before the fandom
Before the fandom began in circa 2010, royal “fans” or “watchers” were concentrated on the royal forums (eg royal dish, royal gossip and royal insight). The demographic of these forums were 20-30 something year old women. The prevailing theme of all the forums was gossip and trashing the royals.
The beginning of the fandom as we know it
At the end of 2010, Prince Willy and Kate got engaged resulting in the start of the tumblr (and other social media eg twitter and Facebook) fandom. This blog will mainly focus on the tumblr fandom with occasional mentions of twitter. During the engagement there weren’t a huge number of royal blogs (and tbh I wasn’t here until after the wedding) but there aren’t a lot of stories that go around from that time. One person I know was there was @theblogtini who may know more.
The wedding
And then came the wedding. It sprinkled its magic over many many teenage girls who flocked to tumblr to pledge allegiance to Kate. It’s hard to estimate just how many Willy and Kate blogs there were after the wedding but let’s just say there were A LOT. Like so many that every good url was taken. There were 20 somethings in here too but it’s fair to say the teens ruled tumblr during 2011-2012. They called themselves mini-middletons.
Hate comes knocking
With great love comes great hate and it wasn’t long before some of the forum members decided to make blogs (and twitter accounts). This caused a lot of shit on a daily basis. Mixing hormonal teenage girls with disgruntled 20 something forum members creating drama and arguments constantly. The mini middletons did send hate and death threats to people who disliked Kate - including fellow fans who dared to question her work ethic.
The rise of Harry
Harry was always popular in the fandom but he was somewhat of a side character to the Cambridges and almost always objectified bc of his looks - that is to say not many people were blogging about his work. His popularity changed in 2012. In my OPINION the moment that changed it from Harry was when he got naked in Vegas. Bc Kate went topless not long after, it sparked a lotta debate in the fandom and exposed the misogyny of some bloggers. After this there became a divide between the 2 sets of fans mainly stoked on by Harry’s fans who despised the Cambridges. This saw the rise of what I call Santa Henri (Saint Harry) where his fans saw no wrong in him and painted him as the innocent loveable troubled underdog that was a victim of his scheming brother, and should be king instead. It was difficult to find active Henri blogs that liked the Cambridges after this point. This continued up until 2016 when Meg came on the scene. In a completely unprecedented 180, Henri fans, disgusted at his choice of wife have turned against him in droves and are now using the Cambridges as examples of good royals. It’s now pretty hard to find a Henri blog that hasn’t turned on him or turned into a Sussex/Meg blog. He’s the golden child no more.
Catfish
For such a small fandom, we’ve had our fair share of catfish and it’s one of the defining characteristics of our early years. Most of the catfishing was young women pretending they had some amazing bf/husband and then a baby. We’ve also had fake phds, fake aristocrats, fake lunch dates with harry, and fake Pippa Middleton profiles. The catfish page gives the list of them, but I’m pretty certain that there’ve been more lower level catfish that lied about smaller shit. I think this bc I was one of them and I know first hand how easy it is to do it. We havent had a good catfish for a good few years but that period in time was one we all look on fondly.
Non British royals
After the initial influx of Kate blogs started in 2011, some people started to become interested in non British royal families, especially since there were a lot of weddings/babies within the European royals. There are a small number of blogs dedicated to other royals, especially the Swedes. On the whole those blogs are pretty undramatic.
Enter stage left, Meghan
The single biggest change in the fandom has been Meghan. She’s been like a rocket up the ass of this fandom. As I mentioned before, a lot of Harry fans turned on him after Meg arrived which totally changed the dynamic of the arguments. She has also bought with her the dumbass Kate vs Meghan rivalry the stans like to play. Then there’s the new-wave meg fans who have bought some diversity into what was primarily a Western-white-female demographic. But with the good of that comes the bad. We’ve also have a crazy number of Meg haters arrive in the fandom, who we call ‘tinhatters’. These are mainly older women who lay out their conspiracy theories about all the ways Meg is the worst thing to happen to the BRF.
Current relations (Sept 2018)
The fandom right now is more divided than ever before. A lot of those OG mini middletons have left and so the demo is largely 20 something females. The meg and kate stans dont mix that much but there are a few who stan them both. The main issue since the wedding is kate fans getting mad that for all the shit she was given by the tumblr haters in the early years (about protocol breaks, not working enough), meg isnt being given the same criticism (apart from by the tinhatter whose opinions no one cares about). The new meg fans are now mad that the kate fans do this everytime she steps out.
And thats where we are.Always Never a dull day in the royal fandom!
Before the fandom began in circa 2010, royal “fans” or “watchers” were concentrated on the royal forums (eg royal dish, royal gossip and royal insight). The demographic of these forums were 20-30 something year old women. The prevailing theme of all the forums was gossip and trashing the royals.
The beginning of the fandom as we know it
At the end of 2010, Prince Willy and Kate got engaged resulting in the start of the tumblr (and other social media eg twitter and Facebook) fandom. This blog will mainly focus on the tumblr fandom with occasional mentions of twitter. During the engagement there weren’t a huge number of royal blogs (and tbh I wasn’t here until after the wedding) but there aren’t a lot of stories that go around from that time. One person I know was there was @theblogtini who may know more.
The wedding
And then came the wedding. It sprinkled its magic over many many teenage girls who flocked to tumblr to pledge allegiance to Kate. It’s hard to estimate just how many Willy and Kate blogs there were after the wedding but let’s just say there were A LOT. Like so many that every good url was taken. There were 20 somethings in here too but it’s fair to say the teens ruled tumblr during 2011-2012. They called themselves mini-middletons.
Hate comes knocking
With great love comes great hate and it wasn’t long before some of the forum members decided to make blogs (and twitter accounts). This caused a lot of shit on a daily basis. Mixing hormonal teenage girls with disgruntled 20 something forum members creating drama and arguments constantly. The mini middletons did send hate and death threats to people who disliked Kate - including fellow fans who dared to question her work ethic.
The rise of Harry
Harry was always popular in the fandom but he was somewhat of a side character to the Cambridges and almost always objectified bc of his looks - that is to say not many people were blogging about his work. His popularity changed in 2012. In my OPINION the moment that changed it from Harry was when he got naked in Vegas. Bc Kate went topless not long after, it sparked a lotta debate in the fandom and exposed the misogyny of some bloggers. After this there became a divide between the 2 sets of fans mainly stoked on by Harry’s fans who despised the Cambridges. This saw the rise of what I call Santa Henri (Saint Harry) where his fans saw no wrong in him and painted him as the innocent loveable troubled underdog that was a victim of his scheming brother, and should be king instead. It was difficult to find active Henri blogs that liked the Cambridges after this point. This continued up until 2016 when Meg came on the scene. In a completely unprecedented 180, Henri fans, disgusted at his choice of wife have turned against him in droves and are now using the Cambridges as examples of good royals. It’s now pretty hard to find a Henri blog that hasn’t turned on him or turned into a Sussex/Meg blog. He’s the golden child no more.
Catfish
For such a small fandom, we’ve had our fair share of catfish and it’s one of the defining characteristics of our early years. Most of the catfishing was young women pretending they had some amazing bf/husband and then a baby. We’ve also had fake phds, fake aristocrats, fake lunch dates with harry, and fake Pippa Middleton profiles. The catfish page gives the list of them, but I’m pretty certain that there’ve been more lower level catfish that lied about smaller shit. I think this bc I was one of them and I know first hand how easy it is to do it. We havent had a good catfish for a good few years but that period in time was one we all look on fondly.
Non British royals
After the initial influx of Kate blogs started in 2011, some people started to become interested in non British royal families, especially since there were a lot of weddings/babies within the European royals. There are a small number of blogs dedicated to other royals, especially the Swedes. On the whole those blogs are pretty undramatic.
Enter stage left, Meghan
The single biggest change in the fandom has been Meghan. She’s been like a rocket up the ass of this fandom. As I mentioned before, a lot of Harry fans turned on him after Meg arrived which totally changed the dynamic of the arguments. She has also bought with her the dumbass Kate vs Meghan rivalry the stans like to play. Then there’s the new-wave meg fans who have bought some diversity into what was primarily a Western-white-female demographic. But with the good of that comes the bad. We’ve also have a crazy number of Meg haters arrive in the fandom, who we call ‘tinhatters’. These are mainly older women who lay out their conspiracy theories about all the ways Meg is the worst thing to happen to the BRF.
Current relations (Sept 2018)
The fandom right now is more divided than ever before. A lot of those OG mini middletons have left and so the demo is largely 20 something females. The meg and kate stans dont mix that much but there are a few who stan them both. The main issue since the wedding is kate fans getting mad that for all the shit she was given by the tumblr haters in the early years (about protocol breaks, not working enough), meg isnt being given the same criticism (apart from by the tinhatter whose opinions no one cares about). The new meg fans are now mad that the kate fans do this everytime she steps out.
And thats where we are.
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