Schrödinger's Princess
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Schrödinger's Princess: From #FreeBritney to #KateGate, what is it about a woman in (perceived) distress that captivates us so?
Schrödinger's Princess
As you may be aware, the internet is currently convinced that Catherine, Princess of Wales, is missing. She has not been seen publicly since December, having retreated from the public eye to undergo abdominal surgery earlier this year. Her ‘disappearance’ has prompted considerable outrage, with much of the internet refusing to believe the Palace’s established timeline of events. Questions abound over whether Kate has been institutionalized, kidnapped, or even worse, killed. “I wasn’t convinced before,” users comment on 20-part TikTok videos dedicated to Kate’s alleged disappearance, “but I definitely am now.”
Listen, I could care less about re-litigating any of the forensic timelines established by CSI: TikTok. What does fascinate me is the outpouring of (alleged) support for the Princess, with one TikTok user saying, “I pray this is not true, but I cannot leave a stone unturned in our search for Kate.” Not surprising, considering it was her 16th video in a series that had already earned her millions and millions of views, but alas.
In a famous thought experiment, Erwin Schrödinger hypothesized that if a cat was left sealed in a box with both poison and radioactive materials, it could be considered both alive and dead at the same time; it is only through looking into the box that the cat’s fate is determined. But if a Princess goes missing in a castle and no one is around to film a conspiracy video about it, did she even really go missing?
In Vulture, Kathryn VanArendonk argues much too rationally, writing that “Two things can be true at the same time: Something weird seems to be going on with Catherine, Princess of Wales, and the internet has entirely broken our collective ability to see perfectly plausible explanations as likely scenarios.”
Gone are the days when we would have been willing to accept the simplest explanation, placated by the sight of a cheery Queen and her chummy grandkids. Instead, as one Twitter user wrote, the scandal is a “masterclass in how the collective jumps to the absolute wildest conclusions despite information to the contrary being easily accessible.” It doesn’t help that the Palace seems woefully unprepared to deal with communications in the TikTok Age. Would her sister-in-law Meghan be launching an overpriced lifestyle brand if Kate was truly in dire straits? It doesn’t matter.
“The internet has broken everyone’s ability to assess what’s a supervillain-level cover-up and what’s more likely to be something sad and mundane.” — Vulture
But just how did we get here?
In 2014, an online harassment campaign known as GamerGate began targeting women in the video game industry. From conspiracy theories and doxxing to threats of extreme violence, GamerGate laid bare the signs of the anti-feminist backlash to come. Ten years later, not only do we “refuse to stand up to far-right trolls,” we’ve uncritically adopted all of their same tactics and repackaged it through the moralized lens of an equally disturbing new subfield: online sleuthing.
On TikTok, these sleuths are building massive ‘true crime’ platforms by speculating on real life cold cases. Building off the early success of podcasts like Serial and My Favourite Murder, some creators are going so far as to charge families of victims just for the opportunity to meet, in the hopes that the creators will cover their stories on their 1M+ follower accounts. While researching this piece I stumbled across an American mother’s blog in which she gleefully recounts her obsession with criminal justice and forensics. She writes,
“I am regularly tasked with finding information for friends that are looking for the scoop or background on someone. And you better believe I know all of the tips and tricks an average person can access to help them find what they’re looking for. Google Earth, police scanners, flight trackers, arrest logs, background checks – there is so much information available out there that it has started to make me rethink my own online presence at times.”
She lists all the different Reddit, Facebook, and TikTok groups of which she is apart, each dedicated to speculating on crime and justice. “I can see part of myself in them,” she writes about the victims in the cases, “Mix that with being a nosy empath and I am compelled to help, even if from behind a computer screen across the country.” At the end of the post, she admits that the community does have its faults: “Known for outlandish theories, doxxing people that are not actually involved…and flooding tip lines with things they see on TikTok; there is definitely a line that should not be crossed in these nationwide cases.” And while she notes that you should only believe “about 5%” of what you read online about any of these cases, by her own admission she spends most of her free time speculating on them anyway.
This frenzy is not just specific to true crime communities, either. Last year, two women were doxxed by TikTok users after they were recorded in the background of another user’s video making fun of her. And remember Couch Guy? It was only two years ago that he went public after his doxxing, writing: “I was the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my ‘bad vibes.” As Rayne Fisher-Quann wrote in 2022, “trying to seek and destroy the lives of real people for a perceived moral fault that’s more posthumous justification than actual instigator is the choose-your-own-adventure for the 21st century.”
As Caitlin Dewey writes, our hyper-paranoia has intersected directly with the destabilization caused by the pandemic, in which we are all suddenly faced with constant threats of danger, real or imagined. In 2021, Emma Berquist wrote an article called “True Crime is Rotting Our Brains,” in which she argued that the proliferation of true crime podcasts was making us all a lot more paranoid.
Berquist, herself a survivor of a violent attack, is not flippant about the reality of violence against women. Yet she argues that the rarity of such an attack did not quell the tabloid magazines that hounded her for interviews while splashing their covers with headlines meant to convey that “danger is all around.” In trying to heal from her own PTSD, Berquist notes that she had to learn to recognize her own hyper-vigilance as a trauma response in order to ignore the constant messaging of a society telling her she needed to stay afraid.
“All these things—constantly looking backing behind you, carrying a safety device, always being hyper-aware—these aren’t normal ways to live,” Berquist writes, “And yet I see women proclaiming that this is necessary, that this is the way you need to move through the world as a woman.” In fact, it’s alt-right grifters like Sen. Katie Britt who peddle these vast conspiracies as a way to further entrap (and radicalize) fellow ‘concerned’ moms. The line between concern and radicalization is a very financially lucrative place to stake your claim, Caro Claire Burke argues, noting that it’s a content strategy that certain writers on this platform know very well.
In 2002, the late queer theorist Eve Sedgwick published an essay on the state of critical theory in which she lamented the rise of paranoia amongst other public intellectuals. We are convinced that the more paranoid we are, the more likely that we won’t ever be taken for suckers, and so we must wake others up to their own false consciousness by bringing them in to the conspirational fray. Recalling a conversation with a friend that took place at the start of the AIDS epidemic in which Sedgwick speculated as to whether the virus had been deliberately engineered, she remarks that her friend argued that it didn’t matter; even if it was proven to be deliberate, “What would we know then that we don’t already know?”
I’ve been thinking about that question a lot in the past few weeks. Even if all of the most horrible theories about Kate were true—from William’s alleged ‘role’ in her ‘disappearance,’ to her mental stability following resurfaced allegations of infidelity, to a vast network of murder cover-ups and conspiracies—what would we know then that we don’t already know? That interpersonal violence is a real threat for women? That if given the chance, grown adults who have never cared about the Royal Family in their entire lives are willing to go full Swiftie if it means being the first to solve a case?
Now consider the opposite. Imagine it turns out to all be false, and Kate turns up at an event in a few months having fully recovered. We’ll all say we’re glad she’s okay, that we always knew she was probably fine, that it was all just for fun. But how many people, even though they would never admit it, would feel just a little bit disappointed, too, at the absence of scandal?
The decision to disclose private health information to the public is a loaded one. I’ve seen little mention of how Kate has struggled with a pretty severe pregnancy complication known as hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition characterized by nausea and vomiting so severe that it is alleged to have been the cause of Charlotte Brontë’s death in 1855. Instead, the fervour focuses on how she’d appeared publicly just days after given birth all three times, as though that’s a standard anyone should be expected to uphold. And while sharing one’s health battles can have a positive public health effect, it also comes with a lifelong stigmata that can be used against you at any time. For celebrities like John Mulaney and Ben Affleck who disclose a struggle with drugs and alcohol, all future appearances will be scrutinized against the accusation that they are off the wagon. Not only that, but their partners will be scrutinized too, as evidenced by the very weird reaction to Olivia Munn’s recent cancer diagnosis.
Consider Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991 from pneumonia after living with HIV/AIDS privately for over four years. Having been hounded for years over his sexuality and health status, Mercury asked his manager to release a public statement confirming his HIV/AIDS diagnosis and acknowledging that he’d preferred to keep it private to protect the privacy of his loved ones. He died twenty-four hours later. Conversely, when Chadwick Boseman died in 2020 from a cancer no one knew he’d had, fans rushed to argue that we should all think twice before commenting on a celebrity’s appearance. Of course, that’s going really well!
Twenty years ago, Eve Sedgwick argued that the paranoid cycle would always continue, spreading outwards, infecting every interaction by relying on an absence of trust. It’s a self-reinforcing prophecy; by constantly trying to anticipate pain, we rarely seek to mitigate it. Yet no amount of paranoia can ever truly insulate us from harm, not entirely; and while paranoia tells us that we must stay vigilant against bad surprises, it leaves little room for good ones. Hope can be fracturing and traumatic, Sedgwick argues, but at least it offers instructions to rebuild. Can paranoia say the same?
I’m well aware that the landscape of clickbait and SEO, paranoia sells. There is nothing an algorithm loves more than the chance to get you hooked on a conspiracy, especially if it starts as a joke. Our brains are so wired to seek approval and connection that we ignore all other signs pointing towards Occam’s razor and choose instead to believe information that is not just false, but actively counterfactual. The ‘video evidence’ of an ambulance leaving Sandringham in December that the Nieman Lab calls “a smoking gun”? It was posted by a royal-watcher whose only tweets since have been spent mocking Meghan and Harry and spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine. Forgive me if I’m not exactly compelled by his ironclad testimony.
In the infamous Mother’s Day photo, Kate sits with her three children, one of whom will succeed her after she (presumably) becomes Queen. That’s two future monarchs in one photo, expected to maintain a dreadfully-antiquated institution for generations to come. What a weight to carry. Now listen: I know we’re all waiting for Taylor Swift to save us from AI, Trump, and the existence of winter, but I’m choosing to believe the totally unsubstantiated rumours that she may “have already recorded 2 music videos for her upcoming album,” as a sign that she is on her way to end KateGate once and for all. Just one more easter egg-loaded music video, Taylor. Just one more and I promise: it’ll fix everything.
Post-Oscars Thoughts, and an Update to #JusticeforMessi
Despite awards seasons that feel longer and longer every year, this year’s Oscars weekend seemed relatively quiet (helped along by the Mother’s Day snafu heard around the world). As for the actual show:
Martin Scorsese had fun (and that’s all that matters)!
Carey Mulligan’s husband carried her around backstage (as he should)!
Despite my concerns, Messi still made it (pre-taped, but still)!
And last but not least, we all learned valuable lessons about typography and how the smoking section makes you hotter.
On My Reading List This Weekend
What’s the price of a childhood turned into content? (Cosmopolitan)
House passes bill that could lead to TikTok ban (AP)
Catherine Lacey looks back on an interview with Renata Adler (Untitled Thought Project)
Olivia Rodrigo’s team reportedly tells abortion funds to stop handing out emergency contraceptives at her shows (Jezebel)
Kate Wagner goes “behind F1’s velvet curtain” (Escape) in a story F1 apparently doesn’t want you to read, thereby becoming part of the story itself.
Andrea Long Chu on Judith Butler and the moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies (Intelligencer)
Big animal news: scientists are throwing a sex party to save the conchs! (Vox)