To find 'Royal Superfans' completely baffling?

[Nancery]

I mean, why? according to this DM link there are people dressed in Union Jacks, with posters, balloons etc outside the Lindo Wing already! The Royal wedding seemed to bring them out in force too!
I have nothing against the royals as such, if anything I feel a bit sorry for them, but cannot comprehend that kind of adoration considering what they do. Surely I can't be alone in this?

Sorry, a friend and I! ...

No no no, you were right the first time. "My mum took I" doesn't work. Should have been "a friend and me" to be polite though.

Well at least she doesn't have to have a senior Government official in the room any more to make sure nobody switches the baby. Can't remember when that stopped, I think maybe when the Queen gave birth to Charles?

Exactly like that bogey!

Annie, my grammar has really gone to pot lately! ..i think the press intrusion is a bit much, i know some people are really interested, but i feel for her having to deal with it - even if your forewarned, it still must be hard. Am no royalist by the way, but its what we have so i try not to think too deeply of any alternatives!

Nomore strange than football fans? They pay a fortune for a season ticket and stand in all weathers to try and watch the overpaid idols.

If a football fan camped outside a hospital waiting for a birth, then that crosses into strange territory.

My two DSs are massive football fans but they don't do any of that jeans.

Jeans, i dont get the whole football thing either but millions do! My mum once stood at a london theatre door to try to get Bob Hope's autograph ( was in the 1940s i think?) and he shunned the fans and drove off.. She washed her hands of all celebs after that! ( off topic i know, but probably the reason i dont understand the whole royal, celeb, footy thing!) each to,their own though. ( i have never met Anthony Head either) ..

I think there's a line between fandom and obsessiveness. Some people cross that line in a spectacular fashion.

Orlando, yes, your right. I suppose its because i dont tend to be this way that i find it hard to understand why people would! When i saw the crowds for the royal weddings over the years on tv etc my only thought was ''wheres the nearest loos, what do they do...'? ! Just dont have the commitment obviously.

I'm a foreigner who very much likes living here, but the forelock-tugging to the royals never fails to baffle me.

I don't get 'super fandom' stuff in general, but I suppose with most other forms of it, you get something back - if you're obsessive about Lord of the Rings you get a sense of community dressing up as an Elf at cons or writing fanfic about Aragorn and Ents, or if you're an obsessive Leyton Orient supporter, you get to feel part of the crowd at matches (and presumably they win sometimes?) Or you get to enjoy an actor/singer's performances.

But what do the royal super fans get for waiting outside a hospital dressed in a Union Jack for three weeks???

Can't remember who the PP was, but I did see the end of that documentary Tom Felton made about superfans, and while in the abstract his own superfan sounded scary - she followed him around internationally and stood outside his hotel - when he interviewed her in her home, she came across as very lonely and vulnerable, with a rather sad life. She put her obsession with the HP child actors down to not having had children herself, and having come to think of the HP actors as her family. Her house was crammed with memorabilia.

BabyTuckoo when he was telling Jo Rowling about his superfan she was visibly worried for him, and I would have been too, she did come across as quite creepy. But my heart went out to her when she said about not having a family of her own, and you could see the realisation on his face that this was just her way of dealing with what was clearly a very painful subject.

I thought he handled it very well.

Yes I found that documentary really interesting. What I don't get is the leaving your family at Christmas to camp outside a hospital to wave a flag. Maybe its the cameraderie of being in a like minded group. My DS loves Doctor Who and I've had to go with him to a few cinema showings and exhibitions with him dressed as Doctor Who or a Cyberman and you do get a bit of a thrill when people come up to you and say 'great outfit' or whatever!

It is baffling, but each to their own. Although you do wonder what impact it has on work and domestic life of those that are camping out for weeks on end in anticipation of the birth. It's nice that the weather has been kind to them though.

One of the companies I visit for work has a security guard that is clearly obsessed with Princess Diana. His cabin is completely papered with pictures of her and stuffed full of trinkets.

She had already died the first time I saw it and I was a bit but he was equally obsessive before her death, his grief when she died was probably unimaginable.

I don't get the obsession of any superfans and that includes my SIL who used to camp out for the best westlife tickets

I do wonder though, do you think a DD or DDIL would have anything like the same attention from them if they were giving birth or would their babies not be royal and therefore not as interesting to them?

knittingirl Plus, the way the media report due dates drives me up the wall, like if only we knew the actual due date, we'd know the actual date the baby is going to pop out.

Which is odd, really. Apart from Macbeth, basically everyone is born. The fact that normal pregnancy is roughly nine months is not like an aspect of a rare, hardly understood medical condition, is it? So how come due dates are reported like this, and how come we, as a country, don't laugh reporters out of a job when they do it? I mean, at any one time, about half the men and women watching much know first-hand that due dates don't work like that. And all we do is sigh a bit.

I think people miss the Diana hysteria and are trying to recreate that myself. There isnt the same back story of beautiful, charismatic but rejected and vulnerable.

Sazzle, you have a point. However, (just my opinion) i dont think that Diana would have approved of Kate! Not sure why, i just think there would have been a lot of long faces and jealousy.. Lots of fodder for readers of OK and Hello etc.

The80s But instead we get loads of guff about 'what a wonderful grandmother she'd have been' when I suspect that it would have been wall to wall resentment of anyone who kept her out of the limelight and daggers drawn with Kate Middleton as the Royal family's newer prettier brood mare.

YANBU. The serf mentality is still strong in some people.

Compo, well put. Diana was blue blood and a lineage like that would have come tothe fore i am sure of it. She would have been jealous. We will never know of course, but i think it could have been really horrible.

Did people hang outside the hospital when William was born?

The queen works hard? She never has, even when younger, have you ever counted up how many weeks holiday they have always had? And if she'd done a better job of bringing up Charles, he'd be fit to be king ( which he isn't and never will be whatever that means anyway) and she could have abdicated - the Dutch seem to manage well like that and without the sycophanty. Andrew's a disgrace as well - I'd be ashamed of either of them were my sons. And our bloated number of royals - think Andrews two- just adds to the sheer lunacy of it all. And FWIW I think the presence of a royal family does incredible harm, promoting the principle of inherited privilege in a supposedly modern democracy - and don't tell me they help the economy with all those tourists - Paris anyone? And don't start on about the nightmare of elected head of states - Germany anyone ? And I can't stand the just like us - the fuck they are. What I'm worried about is the danger thst this baby will impact on the election results - people are stupid enough

I wish I could leave the country but I'm too busy working hard