Can anyone explain to me why some people feel so passionate about hating Harry and Meghan, or vice versa?

[whyptho]

Why do people love Harry and Meghan and Hate William and Catherine so strongly. or the other way round?

I don't mean - what is their stated rationale for it, I mean what kind of psychology is behind this massive investment in total strangers?

The Dianna public grieving was a strange time, but it at least made sense - death of someone in the prime of her life, a huge loss to her family.

But why are some members of the general public so invested in picking sides in a family feud?

From the perspective of someone in the US, I hardly have an opinion on William and Kate, and what little opinion I have is favorable. They seem nice, they have adorable kids and every time I see them in the news it's inevitably a feel-good story of some kind. I'm a firm believer we need more feel good stories so, when I think about it more closely, I can say I like them, the way I like, say, pandas.

I don't hate Harry and Meghan. Hate is a strong word and seems like a waste of emotion, but I do find them immensely annoying, and really wish I never had to hear of them again. If they just stayed on their bazillion dollar compounds doing whatever it is vapid California celebrities do, I would not give them a second thought, but the news involving them get constantly shoved down my throat. I cringe instinctively when I see "Harry and Meghan" flash across my screen because I already know it's going to be another installment of pompous, annoying, self-involved, unaware, pretentious and totally fake whinging. Waaaaah, waaaaah, waaaaah.

I have absolutely no opinion either way apart from thinking that H&M should have been told that you don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Why are people interested in celebrity (or "celebrity" in H&M's case) gossip at all? Your guess is as good as mine. I never saw the point of it personally but I would not have the audacity to tell others how they have to spend their time.

In Harry and meagains case, it's because they are hypocrites, liars and scheming backstabbers.

you tell us, OP, I haven't encountered the love-hate polarisation of which you speak. Have you asked the specific people with such strong opinions, why they feel as they do?

There is a perception that M has deceived & distorted her own story. People dislike being played for fools. That's why M specifically has strong detractors.

I wish them (WCHM) all well, but have no interest in hearing anything particular about them ever again.

Really bored with all this debate about 4 people that I don’t know…..

People don’t hate Harry and Meghan. It’s just a strong disrespect and comic disbelief. It seems that most people struggle to take them seriously because of their antics. Their behaviour is just so odd.

Preaching to people about being kind and being horrid to their families. Neither of them get on with their families while their families all get on with each other. They are the common denominator.

They are the typical private jet flying climate activists that most people roll their eyes at.

Who trashes their granny, gets accused by her about lying (recollections may vary) and then forcibly steal her name for their kids. It’s so odd. I mean, they didn’t they name their kid after Meghan’s grandparents? Might it have something to do with shamelessly trading on Royal connections.

And that ridiculous ‘catastrophic car chase’ story was the final nail.

They are basically shameless grifters. No one likes a grifter.

Some people are really easily manipulated.

I'm in Canada and when it comes to H&M I don't think anyone really cares about them anymore.

I do however think when you stomp all over people on the way up, those same people will enjoy it when you fall down.

I think they are seen more as a cautionary tale at this point.

The media feed a polarised view of normal. Gossip scandal and rivalry sells. Its biblical.
They have no idea what the real RM are like.
Kate is very precious and her voice is so fake and Will is such a moody Minnie like his father. I am sincere but they refused to accept me. Fuck them🖕

H&M are the only Royals I have ever liked or warmed to tbh. The rest can get in the sea.

It’s so weird and I think uniquely British. People think that we own the royal family, and that his efforts to change his life are “disrespectful”, to the royal family and to use - that they owe us their loyalty in return for our money and obsession. He had a horrible life, she helped him, they blame her because she’s an outsider. Anyone setting boundaries with toxic family is labelled a trouble maker. And a touch of racism.

I once heard someone say that having a royal family should be a human rights violation.

They don’t OP, it’s just reality TV style bollocks to fulfil a need for celeb content.

There’s a royal board for this kind of crap caper

No idea really. Both William and Harry seem quite boring men. Catherine and Meghan have great style.

Some people swallowed the media vitriol against H&M so they hate them. As another poster said, sadly people are easily manipulated. Harry hates the press. He thinks paparazzi caused his mother's death and the tabloids have made his whole life a misery (constant lies, ruined his army career, made relationships impossible). He's made it his life's work to take them on and push for accountability. Good for him - he already won against the Mirror and the cases against the Sun and Mail are going to be very interesting.

In this context is anyone surprised that coverage of H&M is so relentlessly negative? I'm just continually gobsmacked that so many people just swallow the tabloid bullshit and take it as gospel.

I read Spare. I disliked the tone (too schmaltzy for me) but the content was nuanced and interesting, with plenty of affection from Harry for his family and I wouldn't be surprised if relations warm over the next decade. I suspect the royal family already realised they made a PR blunder getting into bed with the likes of Dan Wootton and throwing H&M to the wolves and they will quietly build some bridges over the coming years.

Should say “and to us” not use. Wouldn’t let me edit again.

I don’t know anyone in real life who has strong feelings either way about any of those 4. It’s only on mumsnet that I see the love and hate. I presume they’re trolls as it’s so weird how involved they get about people they don’t know.

It's the self indulgent, pity-me, attention seeking that I find so distasteful.

We all have good things and bad things in our lives. Most of us cope with them, on a great deal less income, and while actually working for a living.

I can't say I hate H&M, or think about them from one month to the next, but they are pretty embarrassing.

I tend to think it's the kind of people who get invested in celebrities in general.

In some cases the Meghan and Harry fans seem to be using them as a sort of signal for having certain values. They defend them because they see them as oppressed by the man for evil reasons.

I don't see many so attached to William and Kate, more like they like them because they hate Meghan and Harry.

Meghan-hate is essentially a cult. People find belonging and communitas, and a sense of purpose. If you look at some of the stuff on Twitter and Tumblr, the more extreme elements act like they're fighting some kind of righteous war against a dangerous enemy, and that one day they'll 'win' and prove that Meghan is evil or whatever and Harry will renounce her and come home with his tail between his legs, and Meghan will be destroyed either lose her children or be exposed as having faked her pregnancies and the children aren't real. Some of the Meghan haters are even convinced that their campaigns will result in Meghan going to prison for treason! Just delusion and mental illness. It's very similar to the Benedict Cumberbatch "truthers" who obsessively stalk and hate his wife, and are convinced that they'll out her as a pregnancy-faking famewhore and that their Tumblr blogs will result in her going to prison.

It's some deep rooted psychological problem that causes women to become fixated on the wives and girlfriends of famous men.

It says everything that a thread asking why people are so obsessed with hating celebs immediately fills up with posters ranting about how terrible and awful Meghan is and attempting to justify the hate against her. (Which clearly isn't true, as the hate on Mumsnet was at its height during their engagement, before any of her supposed sins even happened.)

Most of the posters who have defended her in the past her aren't even fans of Meghan, just horrified by the extreme obsessive hate (and the frequent overt racial abuse) that has been aimed at Meghan on this forum ever since they first started dating. It's not a two-way thing, lovers and haters. It's entirely one-sided, hate and people horrified by hate.

I bet anything that within 24 hours this thread will be 20 pages of posters ranting about dreadful Meghan is and listing everything she's ever done wrong while simultaneously claiming not to hate her.

Yeah, I agree. I think most of the Meghan hate is just a small number of mentally ill people using dozens if not hundreds of different accounts and usernames, which is being unfortunately ramped up and amplified by racists.

There was some study or survey that showed that several hundred anti-Meghan Twitter accounts were all owned by the same small handful of obsessed fans.

There was one poster on Mumsnet who bragged about having been banned more than dozen times for racially abusing Meghan, and bragged that she kept creating new email accounts so she could keep registering new accounts, because she was so determined to keep proselytising Meghan-hate. It really is like a religion to them.

There've been a few times when someone has started a Meghan thread at 1am or something and within minutes a dozen different usernames will all post identically worded rants about how terrible she is, making personal attacks on anyone who defends her. It's really obvious that there's a lot of sockpuppeting going on.

I remember back when Meghan was pregnant with Archie, there was an interesting thread here where someone had discovered that many of the same anti-Meghan threads had been copy pasted to a bunch of other forums. I don't mean that posters on those other forums had copy and pasted a thread from Mumsnet, I mean the OP had written some screed about why they didn't like Meghan, or the latest negative thing about Meghan, then spammed the same post to every forum and blog they could find. That's not someone who happens to find her a bit annoying, that's Mark David Chapman like levels of obsession.

I don't understand what they hope to achieve.

I think some people who were pro H&M at the time of the wedding now feel hoodwinked.

They are often the same people who still defend Andrew. That I find truly baffling. If anyone brought the royal family into disrepute...,.,

I think most people are idiots and can’t believe anyone actually thinks they know anything about the situation enough to have any sort of opinion. They are complete strangers. We are only given biased, inaccurate information from press with a vested interest. How anyone forms an opinion based on that is beyond me.

My interest started out as purely academic from a historical point of view. I'm interested in the current RF because I'm fascinated by Royal history. I actually spent a lot of time defending Meghan on the DM comment section right up until Oprah. I was sympathetic towards them both, but especially towards Meghan and how difficult it must be to fit in to an institution like the RF. Oprah just showed me they had no respect for the UK, the RF or the public. Had no appreciation for the massively privileged position they had, no respect for those who continue to do what they found so difficult. These were words from their own mouths that changed my opinion.

Catherine and William I quite like, they seem, humble, polite and respectful. I'm not a huge fan but I don't think they have done anything wrong.