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Natalie Murray | Why We Still Love to Follow the British Royals (and Write About Them)
Author Guest / June 14, 2019

When I worked as an entertainment reporter for a television news channel, we weren’t allowed to file stories about the Windsors under ‘entertainment’. Instead, they were to go beneath the banner of ‘world’ news, besides elections in India and China trade tensions. There’s a reason that felt misplaced: because the British royals are unquestionably a source of entertainment, once described by a psychology professor as “one of the longest-running reality TV shows in history” (which means we’re currently on season nine-hundred-and-fifty-something). At the time of writing, Princes William and Harry are jousting for the highest number of Instagram followers (William has 9.1 million and Harry has 8.4 million—that’s around the same number as Walt Disney and Game of Thrones). Nearly 23 million US viewers watched Prince William marry Kate Middleton in 2011, with viewers tuning in from more than 180 countries. The acceleration of technology has handily turned the British royals into a global brand, with millions following them by choice rather than decree. Plenty of fans worship the Windsors to connect with their past and preserve British tradition, but why are the rest of us still so captivated by the Elizabeths, the Williams, the Henrys, the Georges, and the…