The Duke and Duchess finally have Instagram!
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle joined the social media world on April 2nd, and they already have over 4 million followers.
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There’s just one catch, though — the username they’re using actually belongs to someone else.
Here’s the tale of @sussexroyal.
Meghan Markle used to have Instagram.
Before she was a member of the royal family, she had an active Instagram presence.
In it, she documented her time on the TV show Suits, as well as her fashion choices, and her daily life. All in all, a regular celebrity Instagram account.
Then came royal life.
With her engagement to Prince Harry came the deletion of not only her Instagram account, but Twitter and Facebook, too.
No one member of the royal family has their own social media account.
Fans archived what they could.
In order to preserve the accounts she used to have, fans saved and re-uploaded everything from her former Instagram account.
Users like @thetigunofficial serve as online archives for the time when Meghan was simply a TV star.
Her social media is nonexistent.
Meghan is only present on social media through official, palace-approved accounts.
She doesn’t get to post, but she is featured on pages like @kensingtonroyal, which is the palace’s official Instagram account.
She gets to take pictures every once in a while.
While she’s cut off from having a mass audience, Meghan has found ways around avoiding social media.
You’ll notice that the photo credit on this Tweet goes to “The Duchess of Sussex.”
All of that changed recently.
Please join me and welcoming the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to Instagram. Hope they like memes.
This is the first sort-of personal account of the royal family. Harry and Meghan will share it, obviously.
You can find it at @sussexroyal.
It’s already full of carefully chosen shots.
The couple intends to use their Instagram account as an extension of their outreach efforts.
For instance, Harry’s first pictures include his support for mental health initiatives, especially for young people.
There’s also a post addressing a surprise baby shower.
The couple thanked the people of Sussex for a surprise shower thrown for them.
They also took the opportunity to ask that all presents meant for the next royal baby be put towards charitable donations, instead.
So far, the account is pretty Harry heavy.
It focuses greatly on the charities and causes he cares about.
Emphasis has been placed on his work with veterans and members of the armed forces, mental health programs, and environmental science.
There’s only one problem with the account…
Well, other than the fact that everything is in the third person, because it looks like all of their captions have to go through a PR department first.
Royal life is weird.
Well, they kind of stole it.
That’s according to Kevin Keiley, anyway.
Before the Duke and Duchess owned the account, Keiley had the handle @sussexroyals.
And no, it wasn’t a royal fan account. He used it to support his favorite football (soccer) team.
That account was his for a while.
See, Keily is a fan of Reading Football Club, nicknamed the Royals.
And he lives in West Sussex. So…one and one equal @sussexroyal.
To make matters more awkward, he’d had that account for three years before it was nabbed from under his nose.
He only found out his name was taken after his son contacted him.
He told Radio 1 that his son texted him laughing at the situation.
“I got a jokey text from my son, which said, ‘Ha ha, I see your handle has gone then’.
I thought ‘What’s that all about?’”
He still has an account, but a different name.
His previous handle is clearly gone. It seems Instagram renamed his account to @ sussexroyal , which he’s not thrilled with.
“I didn’t ask for this. I’ve had the account for years – it’s not very pleasant.”
I would be mad, too!
Instagram is being evasive about it, as well.
They cited that their terms of service allows them to make changes to an account if it’s been inactive for a long time.
It all seems a little weird to me.
