Perceptions and realities

what we see and hear is not what it is

Credit: Unsplash.com The Walled “gardens” of Buckingham palace

Over the last few days, there is a lot of noise on the airwaves over the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry. I am not here to talk about the specifics of what they are talking about. I saw bits of the interview and read snippets of what the discussion topics are about.

I am going to talk about perception and realities in the context of those conversations. There is a lot of public visibility to the events that are going on. There is a one-sided (in this case Meghan and Harry’s) perception of reality being presented in the social media as a case of them being disenfranchised in some way from the benefits that they should have enjoyed as “Royals” and about other family bickerings that go on in any dysfunctional family - since all families are dysfunctional in some way.

What I find strange and interesting is the one-sided battle being fought in the court of digital media with the entire world as the audience, judge, and jury. Obviously, Meghan and Harry plan to use the same audience to some utility with their visibility, their Netflix and Spotify contracts in order to monetize it to their advantage in some sort.

It is not as if Harry is going to take a job in Burger King (being the commoner that he is today) while he rides it out, but would rather continue to sustain the lifestyle that he is used to by using his only skill to his advantage - his visibility. You and I, the common folks don’t have a Tyler Perry type billionaire or two hidden around to support us when the going gets tough.

I am also sure that the “firm” is going to wish this problem to go away and we will see IMHO measured responses to pour water over the flames and let the issues die out. What is at stake here is the concept of monarchy itself and the best way the monarchy has been surviving it is by talking about peripheral beliefs around the concept rather than the core beliefs of why monarchy exists. And this time, it is going to be no different.

There is a third party to this - the media (TV and the tabloids) who are going to take full advantage to perpetuate this issue and keep poking at it and fueling the fires to keep them burning so that they can capitalize on our naivety to sing all the way to the bank.

What is interesting is again is that no one will ever know what is perceived and what is the reality in this whole story. And this helps all three players - to continue to keep the myths and the stories in order to stay in the limelight on one side and to perpetuate the royalty and the monarchy on the other side. We will happily consume it, take sides of issues that we don’t fully understand or never will, have #hashtag campaigns of varying arguments, be pro or against, or in a spectrum of opinion.

In a nutshell, we keep ourselves entertained. And a toast “To us, and to wasting our time…”