The British Royalty Go YouTubing
by
on December 26, 2007,
Sure, we’re a tad too late to the punch. We probably should’ve spent a few moments earlier in the week sharing a thought or two about the Web-2.0-ification of Queen Eliza and her immediate familial subjects relatives – in advance of her holiday greeting. But better late the never, right?
Okay, putting aside the fact that that little four-word adage went tired and expired many, many, many years ago, we must say we enjoy the fact that Her Highness has taken the royal family viral with the launch of The Royal Channel. Or at least taken herself and her kin to a place where things [have the option to] go viral.
As cheesy and uncool as the move to YouTube may have been thought by the public at large, it was, well, pretty darn cool to do. Sure, you’d have to be kinda ballsy to go to an Internet café in London, take out a big whopper of a 17” notebook, and play aloud a clip of the crown talking her usual talk. But if you look at the new initiative with a generalist view, the project in a way validates ever more the Web as not only a very popular medium, but an entirely mainstream one. If she’s willing to go the distance, who the heck isn’t?
Now, it’s true that the Queen already went online some time ago, and even went so far as to publish a number of podcasts about various things. (Things we’ve honestly no interest investigating whatsoever.) But look at big mama now. She’s working her pixels alongside the Britney backers and Britney bashers (oh how we hate that that train wreck consistently comes to mind), the dog skaters, the homespun bloopers, the copyright infringers, and the attention-hungry soft pornographers. She’s in the worldwide mix now, lock, stock and barrel. (In hindsight, a terrible pun, we agree. But we use anyhow.)
And we like that that transition has been made. The royal fam all more or less token newsmakers at this point, sure. (This story has already more or less been glossed over by more pertinent and more entrancing novelties.) Yet we still find them a welcome addition to the Web’s largest video trove.
Of course, we may not watch them. But at least we know they’re there.
A side note: Why’d Q & Co opt for placement on YouTube? Wouldn’t it be more fitting for Britain’s “finest” to take up official residence on the video industry’s EU native, DailyMotion?
