Why Harry & Meghan Fans Can't Take a Joke
...and for good reason. The Baby Mama Dance vid from BP and the shocking Palace IG response.
When Meghan shared a never-before-seen video of her and Prince Harry in the hospital doing the “Baby Mama Dance” to induce labor before Lilibet’s birth, thousands of pieces were written about “Meghan Markle’s twerking”.
Royal reporters and tabloids in Britain were overwhelmingly aghast delighted to share their ‘horror’ over, what one editor referred to, as her “slut drop”. There were accusations that Meghan’s “cringeworthy” video copied other influencers.
But what happens when influencers copy Meghan at Buckingham Palace?
(Incredible headline that negates itself 3 paragraphs down when the editor writes: “It is unclear whether it was a dig at the former royals.” Unclear to whom, exactly?)
While it shouldn’t be tolerated, this kind of media spin is expected. It was the response from officials on Instagram that was shocking.
Were they scanning for content to comment on, or did they have a heads-up on the reel? Were they in on the stunt?
This was reminiscent of Buckingham Palace Shop's response to Meghan’s infamous 50 strawberry jams she sent to famous friends last year. They released a reel—a cheeky swipe!—on Instagram, promoting their strawberry preserves.
What’s likely to occur after the media gleefully sucks the life out of this story are follow-up pieces about how ‘furious’ Meghan and Harry are and how their fans can’t take a joke.
They can’t, and I’m not sure why they should when the “ribbing” comes from the same media ecosystem that has a documented history of writing overwhelmingly negative, one-sided, at times, completely made-up stories about a member of the monarchy. Plus, the overtly racist pieces about the Duchess of Sussex or the “polite prejudice”—coined by Afua Hirsch—that’s often found in stories about Meghan. Or accept the participation from the institution—family— they have a very public estrangement from. The institution Harry & Meghan accused of not defending them from the media and, at times, actively colluding with them.
When Meghan “broke protocol”, real or imagined, the media wrote that she didn’t know her place. She was disrespecting the British Monarchy. Silence from The Firm. When Sophie Habboo and Jamie Laing, former reality TV stars and guests at The King’s Trust reception at Buckingham Palace, “cheekily” (see, it’s all in good fun!) admit to breaking the rules around filming in BP while mocking Meghan’s video for a viral moment, the Royal Family and King’s Trust Instagram accounts publicly respond, giving it the all-clear. This signals to the media to have fun with the story, hypocrisy notwithstanding. No hard feelings here.
Funny how things like comment moderation were inconceivable on social posts involving the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when they were working royals, but the Comms. Teams are more than agile in this publicity stunt for influencers.
See, I wrote funny, but it’s not funny. You know that I mean funny in the odd, satirical sense. The media will use cutesy words to disguise their tormenting of Meghan, but humor as a cover for cruelty is not a joke.
It’s even shittier when your family gets involved.
I anticipate we’ll see a follow-up video from Sophie and Jamie, capitalizing on the influx of engagement and new followers, that this had nothing to do with Meghan. The dance moves are just different enough to allow for plausible deniability. The Palace won’t respond to their baffling social media comments because the media won’t press them for answers. The media will deride fans of The Sussexes for making the BP video all about H&M while making it all about H&M. They’ll complain that no one can take a joke anymore, while working on story #4823575285 of “Meghan’s mocking curtsy”, which, in reality, was a moment of self-deprication from Meghan in the Harry and Meghan documentary 3.5 years ago.
Talk about people who can’t take a joke.
-Meredith
It’s also “funny” how the media wants to claim that H&M are “irrelevant” and the royals supposedly ignore them and don’t think about them… while it’s made very clear how relevant they are to both the media and the royals, and the royals can’t help but take swipes and try to “best” them.