The anti-monarchy site (now deleted) listed Will Not as a "source of information". "Read the story of a man who was sent emails by people who thought his email address belonged to Prince William"

FunJunkie is an "off-beat, irreverent UK weblog". On 10 October 2002 under the heading Prince William's Admirers, they wrote about about the excellent Tony Blair's e-mails project at Bloggerheads. They went on "Meanwhile, its not only Manic who's been getting e-mails for important people. Will Not kept getting e-mails to his fake Prince William address, all of which he gloriously publishes for your delight."

Republi-Canada is a Yahoo group for discussing the abolition of the Canadian monarchy and the creation of a republic". Moderator Jonathan Makepeace recommended Will Not in a message to the 50 members on 1 November 2001, and added the site to his links page.

16-year-old Andrea lives in Lima, Peru. Her homepage (now deleted) includes a link to Will Not, "the most hilarious page on Prince William ever...es un cague de risa!"

On the Spin Getalong Gang notice board, Dharma asked "What's the funniest website you've ever come across?". Dharma's own choice was will.not. "A friend of mine found it and sent the url to me. It's the story of how a lad received e-mails from people believing that his address belonged to Prince William. On his site are a collection of e-mails that he was sent. Very entertaining reading - I laughed for ages."

17-year-old LA native Selina is at Harvard Summer School and is keeping a journal using livejournal.com. Surfing in the early hours, she found Will Not:

"lol, I FOUND THIS GREAT SITE!! It's HILARIOUS: do me a fave and please just go and spend 10mins there, REALLY FUNNY! Me and Katherine having a nice PW laugh night!

"This guy had an email address that many thought was PW's and sent him weirdo emails, very adolescent longing notes...lol, omg, I just realize how embarrassed I was when I went through that stage. So embarrassed to buy those BOP and BIG BOPPER magazines and even then at CVS, second time this summer I didn't buy the PW on the cover mag. WHY? It IS embarrassing, but I was willing to risk it before, not now. SO it's OVER! Only reason why I'd ever like PW is because he's famous and damn Disney...DAMN DISNEY TO HELL!!!

"Please go to that site and read some feedback he got, I love Maria and Danielle's replies. After he stated he wasn't PW they still email him thinking he looks like him/has connections/is him. LoL, and the guy's a gay man in his 30s, lives in England too. Sigh, I know these feelings the crazy girls have! This site epitomizes some feelings I have, i give them empathy!!! LoL, it's sooo sad, but as Katherine says, "yet we still laugh." LoL

"This guy set up a fake Prince William email address, received lots of emails from many a young female fanatical fan and published them on his page for your viewing pleasure, my kinda guy."

 
Craccum is the student magazine at Auckland University, New Zealand. Thomas Scovell mentions will.not in his Webshite column in their Monarchy issue: "an online archive of emails to HRH that got sent to the wrong address." Click the cover image to read the whole column, which has some very interesting links.

Wills Ocupa Espaco
On this Brazilian Yahoo Club, someone posted a link to will.not. The Altavista translator tells me it says: "The site is really interesting, and shows the many faces of William's fans. ... and their naivety of them. Clearly, Prince William would not disclose his email address! The owner of this website created the email account, and later the site, and he received (and incredibly, still receives) tons of emails meant for Wills. I read one sad message from a girl who had also lost her mother. For whatever reason, they keep on contacting him/her, and it is very interesting, though cruel for the girls who believed the bullshit!

Boyz
The tacky but compelling free magazine for young gay men chose will.not as their Site of the Week in the Net Nancy column.

clickmusic.co.uk
Site of the Week: "A strange and revealing look into the mind of the fan, courtesy of Prince William. Madness."

The London page of UKHotel.net lists hotels, B&Bs, tourist attractions and, right at the bottom, Will Not: "See what happened when an ordinary Londoner posed online as Prince William - hilarious!"

23 April 2001
They are gossiping about me on The Thorn Tree, Lonely Planet's bulletin board for world travellers.

Pearls That Are His Eyes is Kathleen Gallagher's online journal. She is a Canadian journalism student and cultural critic. I just discovered that on Wednesday 21 June last year, she wrote that "Will Not is a website chronicling a web-prank that spiraled out of control. A bunch of teenage girls thought they had Will's e-mail and hilarity ensued!".

This Singapore-based site provides "online cultural adrenalin". They featured Will Not in their Psst! section.

Will Not is announced as a Yahoo! Pick of the Day and, weirdly, is added to their History section! Meanwhile, I still have a listing in their Entertainment category too, under Royal Humour.

The online version of The Northern Echo ran an poorly proof-read article "Getting Online with William" where Will Not is listed as one of the "stangest" Prince William websites. Click the banner to read the article.

This German site provides daily birthday links. The June 21 listing for "William von Wales" included a link to Will Not with the annotation (translated from the German) "a personal homepage with information about the Royal children. The standard is equivalent to that of glossy magazines." Some time in Spring 2001, the link was removed.

The "Entertainment Buzz" area of seventeen.com features Will Not in an article "Feigned Prince Fesses Up". Kim Kleyla writes that Will Not is "guaranteed to make you re-think writing fan letters once you read them from the other end."

Indecent Proposals   A battle of Wills: "The Internet, we're always told, allows you to change your identity at the click of a mouse. But while many of us may dream of being royalty, few would get away with impersonating a memebr of Britain's premier family. Amazingly, that's just what happened to one Londoner last year, when he set up a 'joke' email account in Wills' name. Said account then got listed in the WhoWhere directory -- and the messages flooded in: indecent suggestions, proposals of marriage and scarily obsessive rantings. Even when the owner exposed it as a hoax, many didn't understand. Read the whole story (and the hilarious emails)".

A letter from me about this site was chosen as the Star Letter. The Big Issue had been running a series of articles about fans, and I offered my perspective. I had some very nice messages in the guestbook from Big Issue readers.

Student Websites

Leave me alone, I’m not a Prince William!   Check out this website from a guy that they all thought was Prince William. Mistakenly listed in an on-line directory as His Royal Highness, "will.not" became inundated with mail from fans of the Prince. Bombarded for a month, eventually he could take no more and shut the e-mail account down, but in it’s place set up a website dedicated to the cause.. This site has received shed loads of feedback as Will Not himself explained to us...

"William at 18" documentary
Granada Media for Channel 5
In April 2000 I was interviewed about this website for "William at 18", a Granada documentary also shown by A&E in the US. Sadly, I was edited out in the final stages, when it was decided that the film should focus wholly on William and his life, and not on his cultural significance. Still, I had fun, and the people from Granada were very nice and liked the site. "William at 18" was on Channel 5 on Tuesday 15 June 2000 at 8:00 p.m.

ICON
Sydney Morning Herald internet guide
"The bizarre case of how the (anonymous) site owner inadvertently convinced dozens of people that his or her email address was really that of Prince William. I know it sounds complicated, but stay with it. The site features much of the email correspondence the fake Wills received, most of which is, predictably, from starstruck young women. One or two correspondents should definitely have known better, including one bizarre missive from someone working at the Commonwealth Bank."

ALIGN=LEFT>Fierce Site of the Day
"see what happens when royalty makes themselves available to the public"

"Falscher Prinz" article in the Menschen im Netz section

"Flugs veroeffentlichte der britische Spassvogel die Fanpost im Internet - ohne Absender"

"...take a look at The Prince William E-mails - a site detailing how someone set-up a bogus Prince William e-mail address, and received numerous e-mails from people thinking that it was the real Prince William (!?) You can read some of the correspondence and how exactly it all came about at the website!"

listed in Humour section

Time Out
Weird Web Wonder
"Send this man to the tower: the strange case of Prince William's cyber impostor"

Boyz

"You've got to read it to believe it, but ye Gods, there really are some stupid people out there in cyberspace"

Microsoft's World Wide Weird
"Learn how one woman inadvertently fooled hundreds into believing she was Prince William"

Netradio
A radio station in Bavaria picked will.not as one of "Die Webseite der Woche" [Websites of the Week], but the link has now dropped off their online archive.

The "Online Mix" column featured will.not. The Google translator tells me it reads as follows. The secret fan Mails at Prince William in the Internet Actually will.not wanted to take the liberty only a small joke: It created itself with the Provider England.com as Prince William a free eMail address, in order to send to a friend one fun eMail. When it recalled however some weeks later the almost forgotten address again, it experienced a strong surprise: over 100 humans went into unintentional on the glue and paid to the false prince their heart! will.not could not resist and placed the Mails (without sender specification) on its web page. The love letters and fan Mails to the britschen successor to the throne read themselves quite maintenance SAM, but one asks oneself nevertheless again and again, how are naively some on-line user, if they fall to a simple free eMail address."

NTK: weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK
Memepool column