Congratulations to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on their engagement! I actually wrote this piece on April 17, 2017, when I found out Meghan shuttered her site and subsequently had a feeling the couple would be announcing their engagement soon...
I was a big fan of Meghan Markle's lifestyle blog, The Tig, which was her personal online diary, community for women and chronicle of her philanthropic efforts. It was like Goop for people who hated Goop. She is also huge on Instagram, where she has 1.6 million followers to date. I will admit that I stumbled upon her blog and IG after it was revealed that she was dating Prince Harry and Vanity Fair profiled her.
About a week ago, Meghan shut down her blog with a farewell message to her followers, and then rumors started spreading that this was a sign Prince Harry was planning to propose. Apparently, the Royal Family didn't approve of her blog. If you keep up with Royal Family gossip, you know that they already disapprove of her because 1) she's American, 2) she's divorced and 3) she's black.
I want to focus on Meghan having to shut down her blog/brand though since it is something that was such a huge part of her identity and into which she poured countless hours of hard work. Since she was a child, she has dedicated her life to helping others. At the age of 11, she wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton, who was the first lady at the time. Meghan wrote in her note that she had seen an advertisement put out by a soap company that suggested women belonged in the kitchen, and it upset her. As a result of her letter, the company ended up adjusting the ad.
If you'll notice, hardly any of the other Royal Family members have personal social media accounts, and none of them post on the official Clarence House or British Monarchy accounts. Why is it such a big deal? The issue is this: blogging and Instagramming aren't classy enough for the Royal Family. To them and many others, there is an element of desperation if you post photos and write about yourself, no matter how tasteful and elegant your brand. And let's be clear, Meghan is the epitome of tasteful and elegant: globally and socially proactive and by all counts, a humanitarian. She is already doing all the things that Royals are required to do. She just chronicles it. Blogging and social media are just vehicles for information. There is nothing unclassy about that. According to the Royal Family, if someone else writes about how amazing you are and posts beautiful photos of you, it's fine. But if you do it yourself, you're seen as thirsty.
I understand that people should be willing to sacrifice things for the people they love. I also get that this was all Meghan's own decision. But how much is too much?
Honestly, the Royal Family can kiss my ass. Judging from how the Queen has managed to control almost every aspect of her children and grandchildren's lives, this is just the first on a long list of things she'll erase from Meghan's identity.
According to this article, things Royals are not allowed to do include voting, working, running for political office, eating shellfish(!), and finishing their meals (once the Queen stops eating, everyone else has to stop eating, even if they're still hungry). Yeah, you read all of that right. I wonder how problematic this is for Meghan who once wrote on her blog, "I've never wanted to be a lady who lunches — I've always wanted to be a woman who works.”
And… let’s definitely not forget about how Princess Diana was treated by the Royal Family after her divorce from Prince Charles. Based on this family’s track record, I don’t think it’s far-fetched at all to theorize that her car accident was planned. Be careful, Meghan.
Meghan, my advice to you is ELOPE. Prince and Princess are just meaningless titles now anyway.
Recent Posts
I usually do a write up of the events I’ve organized or hosted and my most-read articles at the end of the year. This was an unusual year (obviously, there is no need to go into it here) so I didn’t bother. Instead I want to highlight a project of mine that I am particularly proud of — it’s my new podcast show, Unverified Accounts, that I cohost with my frequent collaborators, Chris Jesu Lee and Filip Guo. If you're a big movie/TV/book buff, have leftist sympathies, but can't stand 'wokeness' dumbing down our culture, then we're the podcast for you. So far in our 25 episodes, we’ve covered a range of contentious topics.