Publishing the e-mails
At this time, April 1999, I was learning HTML for a work
project. Encouraged by my trainer to practice HMTL skills, I uploaded all
the e-mails to make a simple one-page website called The Prince William
E-Mails, using free webspace from the lovely people at Tripod Lycos. The
page included all the e-mails I had received, and which you can now read
in William's
in-box. You will see that some were friendly and charming, others were
very emotional, and some people turned the tables by pretending to be
friends of Prince William. At least I assume they are pretending... I
wanted to respect peoples' privacy, and did not want to make fun of
individuals, so I removed all their names and e-mail addresses.
Reactions
Almost
everyone who read the emails was astonished, a little embarrassed, and
entertained. Not long after I set up The Prince William Emails, I applied
to join a webring of sites devoted to Prince William. It seemed like a
good idea, but the owner of the ring turned out to be someone who had sent
one of the e-mails. She was a little upset to say the least. You can read
my correspondence with her, and many other people who came to visit the
original site, in the feedback.
Visitors filled a guestbook with comments and thoughts, and you can read
the best of them in the highlights of the
guest book. If any of the others who e-mailed "William" in Spring 1999
visit this site, I hope that they forgive me for stringing them along for
a while. I did not mean to be unkind, I just became fascinated.
Weirdly, though perhaps predictably, some people used the site's
feedback address, or the guestbook, to try to contact Prince William
himself. Later still, I launched a bulletin board and you
will see that it continues to attract messages for William himself, as
well as for me. This has always seemed very strange to me, but it means
the site continues to grow without me doing very much, and there is always
something new and strange to read!
Experimenting with a live chat programme that I was using for a work
project, I opened a live chat page
for a while, hoping to talk with visitors like you. I did have some
interesting chats, but tragically some people really thought that Prince
William might only be a mouse-click away, and I had some very odd chats
and offline messages meant for him. You can still read the best of these
messages and chats -- and my sarcastic replies that usually fell on deaf
and clueless ears.
Mistaken identity
That's a very good question. I think the site is fairly blatantly
satirical. Those who sent the original messages, who looked him up in
WhoWhere, are only guilty of being naive and hopeful. But what about the
others who visit this site and then decide to leave Prince William a
message in my guestbook or on my bulletin board? Or the lost souls who
tried to chat with "him" live? Perhaps they just ignore the evidence of
their own eyes and common sense? Perhaps some who are not native speakers
of English are misled? All I know is that even now, three-and-a-half years
years after it all started, there is barely a week goes by I don't get a
message for Prince William in my guestbook. I think it is bizarre and
funny that they do so, so I do not delete this messages.
Weirder still, I have had lots of messages from people who understand
the site, who "get it", who say the site is funny, interesting, etc., but
then say something that shows they don't get it at all. The two most
common messages have always been variations on
- "The site is funny, I love it. What is Prince William's real email
address?"
- "Great site, I enjoyed it. But you know you really do look like
him!"
They think that the photos are me! Some others seem to
think it is all a bluff, and that Buckingham Palace is behind the whole
thing? I have a feeling that this
person is talking about me when she speculates that Prince William is
"out there" in disguise.
Of course Prince William does use email, and this has itself become the
subject of speculation and fantasy. There were many stories about his
email correspondence with Britney Spears, he spoke in an interview about
emailing family and friends, and at least one fan fiction site uses the
ideas as the basis of a fantasy called The Day He IM'd
Me.
Who cares?
Prince William seems a perfectly nice person who is coping
well with the strange life he is stuck with. But in this new Millennium,
many British people, including myself, question what a modern democratic
country needs with princes and princesses, and privilege and superiority
by birth right.
It was very
interesting to me that the original e-mails all came from outside the UK.
Most were from the US, and some from Australia and France. I am no
historian, but surely the constitutions of these countries were drawn up
partly as a protest against the idea of privilege through birth? People
have send me some interesting ideas about this in the guest book and the
discussion area.
Most people do get the point of this site, thank goodness, and it has
been mentioned in the media quite often -- see the fame area for
details. I have also had complimentary words from cultural critics I
admire:
I also now have the main status symbols of real celebrity: a
professional lookalike, a
fan site, a conspiracy theorist and and, in the shape of "Danielle", a
stalker
.
I do love hearing from visitors, so please do sign the guest book
before you go, or use the bulletin board.
I don't know if Prince William or his family has visited the site. I
assume he has, and I hope he appreciates the spirit in which it has been
created. Weird people do leave me messages saying I am insulting him, but
I don't see how. In a way this site could be about how fans relate to any
celebrity, but the fact that it is the heir to the British throne makes it
far more interesting.
Andrew
go to William's
in-box
If you
are in a hurry, here's the story in a nutshell. Scroll down a bit for the
full sorry tale..
After about six
weeks, messages were arriving every day. I could not bear it any longer,
and I closed down the e-mail account. But before I did, I saved all the
e-mails. I let a few friends read them, and everyone was struck by the
strange collision of modern celebrity, royalty, friendliness, formality,
ancient protocol and e-mail culture.