As I write this, the Kensington Royal Instagram account has 11.8 million followers. The Sussex Royal IG account has 11.1 million. The Sussexes haven’t posted anything to their (old) Instagram since March 30, the day before the Sussexit became official. I still believe – with every fiber of my soul – that part of the Sussexes’ exit deal involved Prince William demanding that Harry and Meghan give up their Sussex Royal account. I still don’t believe that H&M will just change the name of the account, I think they’ll be “required” to start fresh with a new account. That’s what all of the Cambridges’ bot-follower buying was about. William and Kate have done the MOST to compete with Harry & Meghan on social media, because they’re really that f–king petty. So now it’s news that H&M have lost hundreds of thousands of followers since the Sussexit:
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s defunct Instagram account has dropped to 11.1 million followers following their retreat from the limelight. Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 38, performed their final duties in March before stepping down as senior royals to focus on their own charities and build a more private life in LA – losing 200,000 followers as they are no longer able to post from their account.
The couple were forced to drop the Sussex Royal branding as part of their release from The Firm, starting an Archewell Foundation instead, and are thought to be waiting until after the pandemic to announce any further details on their charity or any new social media accounts they may be launching.
At the end of March the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hit 11.4 million followers on Instagram, just beating the Sussexes by 100,000 followers. Prince William, 37, and Kate Middleton, 38, who run the Kensington Palace Royal account only overtook Harry and Meghan, who ran Sussex Royal, in recent months, despite being on the social network considerably longer. The Sussexes had seen their following skyrocket since announcing their retreat from the public eye in January, but were overtaken by the Cambridges when they begun to post less amid their new life – initially started in Canada.
So, this is just a reminder. Several reminders, actually. Whenever the Sussexes start their new Instagram, we all have to hit that follow button en masse. We also have to be on the lookout for the Cambridges to begin their bot-buying again, to compete with the Sussexes’ new account. And in case you cannot believe that William and Kate are that f–king petty… they absolutely are. It is without question. And Will & Kate think they’ve “won” a social media victory by making Harry and Meg start a new Instagram too. The Cambridges think they won because the Sussexes haven’t posted anything since March 30, and have naturally lost followers.
Photos courtesy of Instagram, Backgrid.
I mean yeah of course they’re going to lose followers. They are no longer using it hence its normal people will start unfollowing a defunct account while an active account gains followers
Why are they still worried about that Instagram page? 😂 The stalking and thirst is real. A bunch of bitter exes acting like they’re needed. Those papers and reporters need content badly don’t they? I love how all that big talk about them needing the rota and Royal family to thrive be successful is blowing up in both the establishments faces. It’s been months and they’re still checking for activity, lol.
A lot of those SR followers were Meghan haters too. I also think SR turned off the comments so the haters can’t use their account to spew hate. Can’t spew hate, then what’s the point of following the account.
I actually don’t think H & M will have any social media accounts until after the 1 year review.
The real story is why hasn’t KP instagram account grown in followers? They had this explosion of growth but not anymore. That’s the real story.
good point!
They ran out of budget to buy more followers!
Another component to consider is why KP’s Twitter account never experienced such growth (and still hasn’t).
Will and Kate are just peak Amy Coopers right now. White people (and I say this as a middle aged white woman) are just the worst. And while some of us have been out protesting, and I’ve seen other middle aged moms speaking up for the first time on #BlackLivesMatter and police brutality, which is good, so many other white people are doubling down on their awfulness that I alternate between being depressed and being furious.
every time I read people saying things like ‘white people are the worst’ I become really sad because I see people have learned nothing from the black people’s fight to be seen as equal. nowadays people think it’s helpful to voice their disdain for white people as a group. but how is that different than the people who see black people as ‘less than’? in my eyes, the progress is to see people as individuals and value each one of them equally. also, to give value to MORE people, more groups of people and not just to reverse the story and now instead of attributing bad stereotypes to black people, doing that thing we all know is wrong to another group of people. white people are not the worst. no race is the worst. each race has bad and good people. if people now can see how hurtful and humiliating it is to judge people solely because they have darker skin, how can people not see it’s wrong to do it just because somebody has lighter skin? the goal is to appreciate everybody and not to always have one good race and one bad race. that just produces more hurt and no sense of togetherness and empathy towards other people.
As another middle-aged white woman:
White people are the worst!
@horseandhound- agreed. when people promote more hate and division… all they are doing are promoting more hate and division.
If you are living your life as an ally to people of other races then why does saying “white people are the worst” even bother you?
@Jules – or maybe more white people need to hear it from other white people – as a whole, we are the f’ing worst. Bigots clearly aren’t listening to POC.
@horseandhound- I love how well you said this! This makes so much sense to me.
@Nic919 how do you mean ‘why does it bother you?’ it bothers me because it’s untrue and hateful and destructive. what you wouldn’t say about other races you shouldn’t say about white race either. it’s equally pathological and untrue and hateful and destructive to judge people for being white as it is to judge them for being black. don’t you see how it’s the same old racist approach? I am white and I see black people, asian people and all other people as my equals. to me they are all just people, meaning, some individuals of all races I’ll like, some I won’t, some will be my friends, some will annoy the hell out of me. I will treat people of other races as I treat people of my race. individually. I will not hate my race because that’s as terrible as hating the other races. hate is hate. and I will not partake in that.
I think all good people want to know how they can help. I think ZERO tolerance for racist behaviour and promoting people of colour to higher postition is another (and in case of india darker skinned people). Powerful people don’t need to put others down, they lift them up. I am a big fan of the PRice is right, family fued and cityline, all these shows once had a white host, and eventually after retirement or whatever, they seemlessly propped in a black host. These are big shows with big die hard followers, and the new personalities go so well with the shows. That’s why the RF missed such a HUGE opportunity, they could have let a biracial woman become a seemless part of their organization and no one would have bat an eye, instead they let their white supreemsicist fans win, this is such a slap on the face and unforgiveable, even if William shakes hands with a black person, it will always look patronizing to taxpaying black brits that saw what Meghan had to go through, nevermind their history of colonization.
@horseandhound just remember there is also systemic racism that is so ingrained in our society you might not realize. A lot of the people that “annoy” you may not have had the opportunities as the people you like.
LOL. You’re the same poster who tried to excuse Lana Del Rey’s posts and downplayed the racism in them. Now you want to frame white people as victims. Predictable.
Exactly @Beach Dreams! They think we don’t remember who posts what.
I sure do, I always make note of the problematic people.
And as a middle aged white woman : White people are the f*cking worst.
And if that bothers white people to hear that they need to check that privilage and look into themselves and be brutally honest with themselves on why it does.
Because people that have done the work , this wouldn’t bother them at all.
Your race has benefited from centuries of white supremacy and the spoils of colonialism. Your race destroyed the culture of indigenous ancestors—you know, the ones who were left after you were all done with genocide. Then you enslaved my black ancestors, and then white supremacy strive to erase our identities while making a buck on us for centuries. And you want to compare that to the rhetoric that white people suck? You are just proving our point. I mean, thanks for proving our point, but also, please grow some self-awareness.
Talk to Jess. She just explained herself.
@horseandhound has a serious (and serial) case of white fragility… always dropping by with the same grievance.
Keep your head up and keep doing what’s right. We see our allies.
Followers are great but the engagement is where the real influence lies imo. If you have millions of followers but can barely scrape together a couple hundred thousand likes that’s a red flag.
Of course they lost followers. I actually think I may have unfollowed them, i’ll have to go check – just because I knew they weren’t going to be posting anything new. But its interesting that KP isn’t gaining significantly, considering all the kid videos etc we’ve been seeing over the past few months.
I hope Charlotte rebels when she is 14 and starts dressing like Billie Eilish.
Hahahaha! I hope she’s a lesbian haha.
Gawd all this pettiness is exhausting!
Thats okay, Meghan is doing the best she can and to us that’s good enough. Does anyone know other royal tabloids with a comments section besides DM, sometimes I want to check out the feelings of real and intelligent people without skewed opionions of those who specifically hate meghan, why are they so hard to find??
This is pretty much the only good one that isn’t meghan hateful.
kp’s ig growth has slowed soooo much over the last several weeks. i think they may even be losing — which is normal for a less active account like theirs which infrequently posts compelling content (*cough* the children). the bot buying stopped almost immediately after sussexroyal closed down. it’s been so transparent, and makes me think so little of their insecure office.
i hope harry and meghan get their own personal ig accounts, and keep their foundation/nonprofit one as a separate account. conflating business and personal only makes sense when your personal life is business (i.e. you’re a royal). i can easily see a meghan personal account surpassing kp in the first 6 months.
I want them to have a personal IG and a business one as well. And to turn the comments off.
I worried how they would release information with their IG gone and they have done a wonderful job of releasing things through charities.
They may not even launch a social media and continue that way.
As everyone has pointed out, losing followers is completely normal for a defunct account. However, I do not for a second believe that the Fail published this out of their own journalistic curiosity; instead, I think this reeks of KP desperately reaching for a win over the Sussexes to gloat about. And, given what we know about KP’s bot purchasing, the fact that this article even ran indicates that (1) yes, the Keens ARE that petty and it WAS burning them up that the Sussexes ran an account with such high engagement, (2) yes, as a result of that pettiness the Keens purchased bots to (try to) remain competitive, and (3) either Will or Kate (or both) are clinging to the fact that they now have more (paid for) followers than a defunct account, and actually thought that would be an impactful positive story for them. Wow, impressive win guys. Great job. Meanwhile, Meghan wrote the forward to the Mayhew’s 2019 year-end review, that powerful video for her alma mater’s commencement… and KP has more followers than a defunct account. We already know there’s no competition, but the fact that they’re pushing this WE HAVE MORE FOLLOWERS THAN THEM, HAHAHAHA narrative is really, truly pathetic.
After meghans speech gained global attention, the cambridges should be worried. Once her and Harry can start their charity work, not even bot buying will help William and Kate.
Have the Cambridges ever been trending? In the UK , the US, or in an other country? Don’t think so. Meghan has been numerous times, yesterday in the US, for instances. The Cambridges are fighting a losing (social) media game with Meghan (and Harry).
Maybe the only time would have been over the rose bush 😀
Whatever the number of followers the Sussex get from now on, remember what was the Cambridges’ number before Harry presented his fiancee Meghan and married her? I could bet they went up greatly by association to the Sussexes before they went their own way. Half or less are due to them only, and many of those are bots now, or accounts created to spite the Sussexes.
And reminder SussexRoyal IG was the first account EVER to set a Guinness World Record. “Set up on Tuesday 2 April 2019, it reached the 1 million milestone in just 5 hours and 45 minutes”.
(PS: In Oct. 2019 Jennifer Aniston overtook that 1 mill milestone with 5 hours and 16 minutes).
Meghan and Harry will wipe the floor with the Cambridges once the pandemic is under control, with or without IG. We saw how Meghan’s graduation video rocketed into the stratosphere – that’s just one short video – can you imagine the attention they’ll get when they do the big Foundation reveal? I wait for that wonderful day with bated breath!
It’s pretty telling that the Cambridges care about something so stupid and inconsequential, especially right now. M&H don’t care, because they have bigger things to worry about and try to help with.
The youngest Cambridge, Louis?, looks exactly like his brother! They are really cute kids. I hope they have good nannies and don’t become too much like their parents.
If they knew anything about media, they would be embarrassed to be so little “ahead” of an account that hasn’t posted since March and has made it clear they will not post again!
Absolutely love that pic of Harry & Megan with Megan in that red dress!! It’s a stunner.
Cain and Unable can keep their magic Instagram account and their inflated numbers. Who is actually getting more engagement? How many people have watched their zoom chats and their bingo games compared to how many people watched the Archie book read and the graduation speech? This is their high-school mentality rearing its ugly head.
Huh. I wonder how much that cost Camp Cambridge.
The bots/fake accounts, and the haters and trolls have left the SussexRoyal IG account. So, no real loss there.
I do believe that H&M will start a new IG, probably even 2 new IG accounts: one for their new charitable work under Archewell, or any other name they give their charitable entity, and the second one for their business and/or private activities.
This is (probably) why:
1) As a statement to express their newly fond independence from the RF.
2) To disconnect their new work/life from their pre April 1th, 2020 royal work/life. That will make it easier to highlight their new charitable work on the one hand, and on the other hand to separate this from their private income generating businesses and endorsement.
3). Simple because it won’t go well with critics and the royals if their new non-royal activities will be seen together with the ”old’ royal stuff on the current IG, even with a new (non-royally connected) name.
4) Probable because that’s what has been agreed with the queen/other senior royal.
Yet, I do believe that they will keep SussexRoyal in the air (at least for some years), because they obviously don’t want the memory of all their senior royal working life (and private life) and efforts to get lost and forgotten. It will stay there as reference material (and for old times sake).
No, white people are NOT the worst, racist white people are the worst, privileged white people who bury their heads in the sand are the worst. White people who refuse to acknowledge their history of racism and make changes are the worst. I am black and I think it’s important that we think about how we use our words when labelling other races. It’s counter productive. We have terrible people in all races that let us down but let’s not use one brush to paint all. I am proud to say I have seen a lot of white people stand up the right way, their is a lot of performance pieces too, but let’s not overlook the fact that a lot of white people are doing their part.
It’s very likely that all the nasty bots/trolls with burner accounts are now deactivating/unfollowing. I agree Kaiser that alot of people are anticipating the Sussexs new accounts. I predict that they’ll follow in the Obamas footsteps and get individual accounts +a joint foundation one.
Now the Cambridges no longer have the IG Meghan haters to prop them up.
Who cares about IG, really? Perhaps they are just taking a break from all the crazy. They have a young child so maybe they are teaching him how to walk or reading to him or something normal.