For those of you old enough...

[sheworemellowyellow]

...was the Diana/Fergie thing as mental in the media and with the public as MN is mental about Meghan/Kate/everyone else these days?

I was a young teen and paid zero attention to the RF in the 80s. Accounting for a certain amount of frenzy due to the ease of posting on social media versus drumming up chat by way of in-person chatting, and also accounting for the near-total accessibility of online media especially tabloids, did people take these insanely fervently held anti/pro Diana/Fergie sides like they do with Meghan and Kate?

Just done one of my regular name-changes, I've had my arse handed to me on the RF forum plenty of times by the usual suspects. Have been busy with life for a while, just come back to this board and am open-mouthed by how sycophantic/defensive/accusatory/cynical some posts are. Trying to work out WHY people care so much! Is this new? Is this just the royal family wielding its influence? Was it always thus?

I saw it as a kind of referred grief a bit like referred pain. Like when people get upset at the death of a fictional character.

I disagree, Fergie wasn't giving them as much as Meghan gives (gave?) making statements like the royal family doesn't own the word royal, or service isn't just for royals (paraphrasing). Fergie did have her toe sucking scandal but she wasn't generating headlines in newspapers. They had less to work with. Most of Fergie's interviews were after her divorce! And she was still careful what she said! She never got angry with the press either. Not visibly.

The article in the daily mail which said her mother was out of compton (which meant nothing to most brits) was written by an American. But she and Harry blame the UK media for comments made by an American journalist.

Back to Fergie, there's a program on Youtube called "The Duke and Duchess of Disaster" that covers the media slating done on her. It was vicious, just done in different formats to today.

I still like Sarah though. Yes her judgement at times has been woeful- the video of the fake sheik sting is cringe-making but sad too, she was clearly at the end of her rope.

But it seemed clear at the time that Sarah/Diana had bonded and were friends, unlike Kate/Meghan.

The article in the daily mail which said her mother was out of compton (which meant nothing to most brits) was written by an American. But she and Harry blame the UK media for comments made by an American journalist

It was in a very well read paper in the UK whoever wrote it. And it wasn't an isolated piece.

Compton was described in detail in the article for those who hadn't heard of it. Great detail. Plagued by gangs, riddled by street crime, tatty homes, vandalism, drugs, murder robbery. The article contained it all. No one cared who wrote it. They read it and lapped it up though.

I disagree, Fergie wasn't giving them as much as Meghan gives

Youre talking post leaving I assume. Because there’s plenty of evidence of criticisms while still in the family for things Kate was praised for. You’ll note I talked about racism, which wasn’t just a single headline by the way. There’s nothing you ‘give’ for tabloids to resort to that.

I still like Sarah though. Yes her judgement at times has been woeful
I think describing Andrew as honourable and accepting money from Epstein could be described as more than just poor judgement though. That’s a poor moral compass.

Yes, fair point. I forgot about her own connection to Epstein. It does go a bit beyond flawed judgement I suppose.

Fergie was slated every time she moved- princess of pork is what I think she was called. Got slated as a mother when she went to wave Andrew off on one of his trips.

the big Diana/fergie & Kate/Meghan different is that Fergie & Diana were friends and went off in disguise for nights out in London together.

@Dustyblue yeah I mean they continued after he had already been to prison on earlier child abuse charges. Andrew stayed with him after. I wouldn’t publicly declare that honourable. Eew!

If we'd have had social media at the time it would, I think, have been far worse that we have no with Harry and Meghan.
The press alone back than we're bad enough - first all for them, then against, back and forth. And the mania seem regarding Diana's death was bad enough without SM. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we'd had Twitter, etc back then!

My family weren't particularly into the RF but I remember some stories all over the news and papers.

It's only since the advent of social media that I've come across a small group of people who almost seem to define themselves by being Team Meghan or Team Kate and find everything to do with their heroine perfect, and everything to do with their anti-heroine vile.

Very true. There are specific classifications for this emerging and some interesting research. However, it is not by accident or oversight. The infrastructure has been deliberately designed to lead them down one path or the other. Unfortunately, the afflicted cannot easily dig themselves out of their hole.
Linking "proof"/evidence = an algorithm got you there
Counting posts =same
Citing likeminded individuals = same thing, really

I think it was the fact peoples conscious realised life and death were so fragile, if Diana could be killed in a car crash

When Diana died, there was still a public perception that she'd been the wronged one in her marriage, so there was an element of defending the underdog. And a perception the RF didn't care about her.
It was a huge shock - totally out of the blue and a sense of bewilderment as to how something so bad could happen to someone like her. As a pp said, she was a superstar, the most famous woman in the planet.

The press were vicious to both women. And pre Diana's death they were certainly critical of her behaviour re affairs with married men, associating with Dodi (who I think was seen as beneath her, rather in the same way Jackie Kennedy was criticised for marrying Onassis). Once she died, it suited them to forget all that and give her saint status. The press don't want us to remember some of their awful behaviour.

I don't think M or K has been treated worse. The press hasn't really changed, they are just slightly more careful so they don't get their wings clipped. They wouldn't say 'Duchess of Pork' now - they'd leave that level of blunt nastiness to twitter, they would just be a little more subtle and equally cutting.

I would agree. I am old enough to remember the press coverage of Diana & Sarah.

And Sarah's negative press was relentless, vicious, petty and highly highly personal.

I'm not saying Meghan hasn't gotten some pretty nasty articles written about her, but nothing compared to the sheer number of in your face, front page, every paper, daily, that went on for months and months.

If SM had been about it would have been exponentially worse.

This.

I remember the coverage of Diana changed literally overnight. It had been pretty critical: constant holidaying, not seeing the boys, her affairs.

It suited the Press to change the narrative and deflect criticism away from them.
The public grieving seemed like some kind of contagious mass hysteria. People sobbing in the street.

Diana had been front page news since she was 18, and she died tragically young, still beautiful and (despite the negative media in the months before her death) with her reputation intact.

Were she to still be alive today I don't think she'd be as popular. She'd have aged (well or badly), would likely have remarried, made bad decisions (like us all). She would have faded into that obscurity older women do...remember XXX? She used to be really beautiful...

i do think some people try to minimise what Meghan has to deal with. yes Sarah and Diana had it bad especially Sarah. but compared to the unrelenting hate that Meghan gets, plus the racism, I think its a lot different.

I Liked Sarah back in the day. I think she seemed more "normal"
Diana became much like Kate now all about the dress.

Were she to still be alive today I don't think she'd be as popular. She'd have aged (well or badly), would likely have remarried, made bad decisions (like us all). She would have faded into that obscurity older women do...remember XXX? She used to be really beautiful...

Quite likely. A comparison is Princess Margaret - by all accounts the 'Diana' of her day when young; after her divorce in 1978, by which time she was firmly middle-aged, rarely mentioned in the news other than occasional observations on her declining health.

Margaret was in the news a lot, she had a relationship with a "toy boy~" gardener.

I think the issue is definitely with social media. All the hundreds of articles about Meghan only appear because of the online editions of the tabloids ,particularly the Express and the Mail.

At the time the papers were vicious about Fergie. Initially she was a breath of fresh air but that soon disappeared which sounds very familiar. There also wasn't the additional issue of Fergie and Diana not getting on. I remember the photo that was published of the two of them poking someone in the bum with an umbrella at some horse race event and also mucking about on the slopes when they were doing a skiing photocall.

I do also remember when the toe sucking pictures appeared in the tabloids. It was a massive thing at the time.

I imagine if social media had been around it would have been much worse.

There definitely wasn't a "Diana camp" and a "Fergie camp". This is absolutely a social media phenomenon.

I can remember Fergie & Di being on the front page of every newspaper most days back in the 1980’s - either together or individually. They clearly sold papers! I was in my teens and I thought they were super glam.. Definitely royal celebrities.

I don’t see anything wrong with these threads. Some of us love these kinds of conversations.

It's interesting that this thread has now got some posters into a Fergie v. Meghan battle! Maybe it's the public, needing to have a villain and a hero? Maybe it's like following a football team (but lacking in humor!) - cheering for your underdog, to the death!

Joking aside, evidently the fact that Diana and Fergie largely got along meant the press couldn't amplify any in-fighting. My original question was to do with whether either woman incited the kind of fervour that we see now. And it sounds like Diana certainly did, despite the lack of social media. Maybe I'm lacking in perspective, but it seems to me that the '90s - Tony Blair, New Labour, a time of huge social and cultural democratisation (or at least re-balancing) - were pivotal for the RF, coming hot on the heels of two tawdry divorces, toe-sucking, Camilla the mistress, tampon gate etc. They bowed to the public, rather than set the standard for what is acceptable. They themselves had proved they were just like (worse than!) most of the public and in no position to set any example.

Fast forward to today, post-Brexit, post-Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg and ultra Conservatism, austerity, picketing and strikes, the landscape is very different. Many Commonwealth members are wanting out, Australia can be quite vocal at times about wanting to renounce its ties. Social media has made it easier to say things (although Harry seems to be saying an awful lot via TV and print alone!). Maybe times are no different. Maybe the RF has brought itself down in superiority, made itself more accessible, and thus open to comment. It does feel as though the pomp and ceremony are all they have to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

So you just wanted an anti RF rant. Wish I hadn't posted

Yes there was no social media but Fergie and Diana were always in the papers, especially the gutter press, hardly a day went by that there wasn't some nonsense or other printed about them.

Re the comments about the public wanting to see the boys after Dis death, do you think that really was the public or was that newspaper editors wanting photos to sell papers?

I genuinely don't think any right thinking person wanted to see those boys ordinary people though Charles ,& HMQ did the right thing keeping them out of sight at Balmoral

I didn’t get a sense that people “wanted to see them” in a horrible way. Wanted to express sympathy and horror to them directly in a completely unsuitable, inappropriate and inadequate way that was a huge overstepping of a boundary. So it was horrible for them obviously which essentially amounts to the same thing. Tony Blair’s interference to make the Queen bow to the public with a private tragedy was wrong IMO.

there is no comparing the Diana thing to anything happening now. There is no royal or even straightforward celeb or any woman or man I can think of that is the epicentre of all those convergent and unique circs the way she was.

I find the public exposure of their private grief pretty horrible even now. Even when the people who died in question are in their 90s. It’s so raw and invasive to the relatives.