to want to understand why people are so interested in the Royals?

[Lludmilla]

OK, I know this kind of thing can be incendiary but I'm honestly not trying to be goady, it's a genuine question. (I'm a longstanding member btw, not a journo.) I see how heated people get in discussions about the Royals on here and elsewhere around the web, and I'm currently parked in front of Jeremy Vine where callers and panellists alike are getting very worked up about a Royals-related topic. And it just bemuses me.

I've never been a Royalist as I don't believe in the concept of some people automatically being more important or of greater worth than others simply by dint of titles they have been born or married into. I wish them no ill whatsoever, I'm just not interested in their lives. It puzzles me why people who aren't personally connected to the Royals find their lives interesting – I mean, I'm not interested in what the people who live down the road from me get up to, so why would I be interested in what the Royals do? Just because they're royal? Or are there other reasons why? I accept that we're all different, and interested in different things, but I'm genuinely curious as to why the Royals mean what they do to a lot of people.

Just to be clear, I'm not asking why people feel the way they do about Harry and Meghan, and this isn't about Prince Philip either. What I'm trying to understand is the more general question of why people find the lives of the Royals interesting.

YABU = I'm interested in them
YANBU = I'm not interested in them

Honestly I think Harry is well out of it.

His charities disagree with you. Odd, don’t you think, if his patronage had no effect?

I think we need to abolish the monarchy so I can't stand them. But I suppose people are interested like they're interested in famous people.

I'm interested in them - but would vote to get rid of them!

I'm interested in the women more than the men. Not sure why. I think it fascinates me to see what a person looks like/chooses to wear/say/do .. or not wear/say/do when they have all the money, privilege and so called guidance in the world.

I like seeing the bling. Lots of the jewels and gems have fascinating histories.

YANBU. The monarchy should be abolished and it's weird how invested people are in the royals' lives. But tbh I think that about people being over-invested in any famous people, and I find it odd when people get really devastated by a famous person's death.

@Annabell80

Because they have a lifestyle very different to the majority. I'm more interested in the younger Royals though. Their weddings are also spectacular, apart from poor Princess Beatrice. Felt a bit sorry for her. Why is anyone interested in anything really?

At least none of her guests announced a pregnancy on the same day.

Because I’m a nosy bugger and love watching documentaries about them and love my royal wedding books.

To some extent the role of the monarch is to be a sort of locus for feelings of togetherness and unity in the population. Like the matriarch (or patriarch) of a very large extended family. It's natural that for many people this includes feelings of affection and a kind of interest. I remember being in Thailand a number of years ago when their king died - it was very much as if the whole nation had lost a relative, a person they all knew and felt the need to mourn together. Many westerners, particularly liberals, are rather sniffy about that sort of thing, at least in relation to their own country, but I think it's probably a useful and fairly healthy tool for unity.
That's very true. In the age of Twitter (how much bile can people put into 140 characters?) where everyone seems to be bitterly divided on political issues, it's great to have something non-political to talk about.

I think it's vulgar that they visit charities and have photo ops with vulnerable people and then go back to their lives of lavishness and luxury. The fact they think having their name or face attached to a charity makes any real difference at a grassroots level demonstrates their ignorance. It's insulting that they parade their wealth to the vulnerable and oppressed. Of course I don't wish anything bad on the individuals, but the institution could disappear tomorrow and I would think it a good riddance.

A certain type of British person — and opinion polls suggest frighteningly high numbers — likes the idea of a class hierarchy with a massively privileged woman who has uttered nothing but infrequent platitudes since her coronation in the top spot.

I'm interested in them in the same sort of way I'd want to know if a conman was working my area, if a relative had become a paedophile sympathiser or if a major public figure was cheating the system - in other words a wanting to stay informed kind of thing

And those examples are no coincidence ...

@DdraigGoch

To some extent the role of the monarch is to be a sort of locus for feelings of togetherness and unity in the population. Like the matriarch (or patriarch) of a very large extended family. It's natural that for many people this includes feelings of affection and a kind of interest. I remember being in Thailand a number of years ago when their king died - it was very much as if the whole nation had lost a relative, a person they all knew and felt the need to mourn together. Many westerners, particularly liberals, are rather sniffy about that sort of thing, at least in relation to their own country, but I think it's probably a useful and fairly healthy tool for unity. That's very true. In the age of Twitter (how much bile can people put into 140 characters?) where everyone seems to be bitterly divided on political issues, it's great to have something non-political to talk about.

I really wouldn’t view the Thai monarchy as something to aspire to. Quite apart from being propped up by the US in the 40s and 50s, Lèse-majestè is still a crime there, and penalties have been repeatedly strengthened throughout the 20th c— any criticism or satirical comment, not only of the current but all previous monarchs, can get you a lengthy prison sentence, and severely restricts freedom of expression. Amnesty has designated a magazine editor who got 11 years after being held for two years without trial a prisoner of conscience.

So the imperialists on last week's Monarchy thread could produce no logical argument, at all, as to why they were interested in the RF, but they'll defend them to the hilt.

According to them, a royal visit is every hospital consultant's wet dream. Deserved recognition from what certain doctors perceive to be the highest level, which speaks to their God complexes perhaps?

Anyway, the fact that people I've met in RL and online get so riled when you point out the painful truth about the Royals just means they don't like being told that their idols have feet of clay, or having their fantasies shattered.

It seems to be partly escapism, partly a need to belong to and/or identify with something bigger than them, partly ignorance (exacerbated by the royals' lying and secrecy), partly insecurity and partly a fear of change.

Steal from me! Lie to me! Live in 19 obscenely large houses, please, and let us furnish them for you! Abuse our teenage daughters, consort with criminals! Have all our money if we die intestate! Tell us to be grateful! I will ignore the atrocities of the Empire (what atrocities? It was all fine!), wave, smile and buy mugs with your faces on, while I make online shopping systems crash in a frenzy to wear your overpriced dresses so I can look just like you! Actually, let me BE you! Anything, I'll do anything for you. Just don't leave me. Don't force me to look at how grim my reality is. Don't tell me there's no escape.

I've worked somewhere where they got a lot of royal visits due to close proximity to their residences.

Consultants and nursing staff couldn't have been ruder about them! The impression I got was it was a lot of faff, a bit feudal and an annoying intrusion into a very busy day. Also they had to have special loos.

Twas all v entertaining.

@AnnaMagnani Thanks for restoring my faith in the NHS!

Given that this country has a monarchy, you’d be hard pushed to find any imperialists @PersimmonTree. Maybe check out what it actually means?

Your bias is painful - fawning over a poster whose views accord with yours while sneering derisively at one whose experience doesn’t suit you.

Your doctor treats you no differently whether they’re a monarchist or a republican so it’s a touch dramatic for your view of the NHS to be affected by it either way. Personally I’d just want the best doctor even if they were demanding revolution in their spare time.

I am a royal watcher and thoroughly enjoy a lot of it. For me it's definitely the little girl who loved fairy tales and stories about princesses. I love the glamour and the OTT of it all.

But I do agree with you that why people get so over-invested is odd. I find the absolute adoration or hate just weird. The way everything is so black and white. I can't get behind that and while I follow a few royal-watching accounts on social media I have unfollowed or even blocked the ones that are just batshit crazy and obsessive.

For me, it's the fascination of lives that are so different to my own - I love programmes and books that are windows into different worlds - not just the Royals, but also religious orders or communities (convents/monasteries, or groups such as the Amish, for example), or the military, or even the super-rich.

I'm never going to inhabit these worlds, and it's highly unlikely I'll even get to visit them, but I find them fascinating, and love finding out more about them.

@VinylDetective

Given that this country has a monarchy, you’d be hard pushed to find any imperialists *@PersimmonTree*. Maybe check out what it actually means?

Your bias is painful - fawning over a poster whose views accord with yours while sneering derisively at one whose experience doesn’t suit you.

Your doctor treats you no differently whether they’re a monarchist or a republican so it’s a touch dramatic for your view of the NHS to be affected by it either way. Personally I’d just want the best doctor even if they were demanding revolution in their spare time.

@VinylDetective OK I'll check out the dictionary, why on earth didn't I think of that myself.

Thank you for your well-balanced, flawlessly researched, unbiased, non-fawning, credible and thought-provoking contributions on this and other monarchy threads. A fine service to the nation.

I am a royal watcher and thoroughly enjoy a lot of it. For me it's definitely the little girl who loved fairy tales and stories about princesses. I love the glamour and the OTT of it all.

But it seems to me to be so resolutely unglamorous. I mean, sure, a few royal weddings, but most royal stuff seems to involve an elderly woman with serious resting bitch face with 'I'm here because it's my duty' writ large upon it, stumping about uttering platitudes as she cuts ribbons on a new industrial estate or watches people marching or laying wreaths. Or speeches from the younger lot who have been dressed by a committee for general inoffensiveness about some issue they only know basic facts about because a staffer pulled a few bits off the internet. Or circulate Christmas cards aimed at making them look like the Smiths next door, all apple-cheeked and in nice jumpers.

Where is it you see the glamour, genuinely? Is it just the weddings?

I can save you the trouble, PersimmonTree; imperial comes from imperator, which is the latin for emperor ... in other words, one who has an empire

These days it's called the Commonwealth - not the same thing of course, but a nice toy for the Queen to play with to make up for the actual empire which her parents lost

an elderly woman with serious resting bitch face with 'I'm here because it's my duty' writ large upon it, stumping about uttering platitudes as she cuts ribbons on a new industrial estate ...

Not any more; the boring stuff like that gets palmed off on the underlings now, which is actually fair enough at 94

Pity they'll have no more weddings to flog for a while though ...

Thanks @Puzzledandpissedoff. In a non-fawning, totally impartial kind of way, you understand.

I guess that's the same Commonwealth that's just lost Barbados as well. Bummer for Liz and Phil.

@HOkieCOkie you don't care about Megan and Harry but care about Will and Kate? Of course! Qwhite right.

@Tureen

I am a royal watcher and thoroughly enjoy a lot of it. For me it's definitely the little girl who loved fairy tales and stories about princesses. I love the glamour and the OTT of it all.

But it seems to me to be so resolutely unglamorous. I mean, sure, a few royal weddings, but most royal stuff seems to involve an elderly woman with serious resting bitch face with 'I'm here because it's my duty' writ large upon it, stumping about uttering platitudes as she cuts ribbons on a new industrial estate or watches people marching or laying wreaths. Or speeches from the younger lot who have been dressed by a committee for general inoffensiveness about some issue they only know basic facts about because a staffer pulled a few bits off the internet. Or circulate Christmas cards aimed at making them look like the Smiths next door, all apple-cheeked and in nice jumpers.

Where is it you see the glamour, genuinely? Is it just the weddings?

It's totally true that it's the more glamorous stuff - ballgowns and crowns I enjoy more (of which there has been a distinct lack in recent times). Weddings, definitely, but state dinners, formal events etc etc.

Having said that, I actually do see an element of "glamour" in some of the random "old lady cutting ribbon" thing in that there's this odd feeling of being visited by someone in a different world which creates its own sense of excitement.

I've long felt in fact that the younger royals should actually do more of this - I feel the benefits of turning up at the WI's cake sale, cutting the ribbon on a new school library etc in terms of creating a sense of achievement and community is under utlised (and yes, I'm FULLY AWARE that that feeling is 100% ridiculous and bizarre but [shrug] ). The campaigns they run eg on mental health absolutely have their place and I actually think it's great that they're using their status to shine these lights on things. But I won't lie, I would love it if they had turned up when our new school building was opened and I know my elderly aunt, who has been an active member of her church, community, WI etc would have been thrilled to have been able to cut a slice of cake for the queen or offer a jar of marmalade to Princess Ann at some appropriate event. Charles and Camilla actually do this a lot too and I think it really does bring a sense of glamour etc to these events, no matter how ridiculous that sentiment is when you think about it logically.

The extent of my in royalty royalty can be understood by the fact that I went to Sainsbury’s instead of watching Diana’s funeral.

It is farcical that an allegedly democratic country in the 21st century still decides who should be its head of state by accident of birth. Britain is a laughing stock among properly-run countries.

Elizabeth Windsor, an individual for whom I have considerable personal respect, should be the last monarch. When she dies, she should get an appropriate send-off then the monarchy should be abolished and replaced by an elected figurehead president with a mainly ceremonial role, along the German or Irish model. All the royal family’s palaces, castles, estates, art, investments etc etc should become public property, liquidated and the proceeds used to benefit everyone in society.