The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are just like us, in that they’re bored in lockdown. Their staff is bored too. Which is probably why the Cambridges and their media team decided to change up their social media slightly. For as long as the Cambridges have been on Twitter and Instagram, their handle has been @KensingtonRoyal, and then the social-media-display name was always “Kensington Palace.” This goes along with Charles’ social media too, which is branded with “Clarence House,” his home and office (actually, the bulk of his offices are in St. James’s Palace).

Before Prince Harry married, his activities and announcements were covered by the Kensington Palace social media. When Harry and Meghan first got married, they fell under the KP social media as well. That changed when the Sussexes were “given their own household” in late 2018, and they debuted their new Instagram in the spring of 2019. The Sussexes were great at Instagram and easily grew their follower numbers. That’s when the Cambridges likely started buying bot-followers to compete with the Sussexes’ social media savvy.

Anyway, once the Sussexit happened, part of the negotiations were about social media accounts, bizarrely. I still 100% believe that Prince William insisted that Harry and Meghan should no longer be allowed to use their popular Sussex Royal Instagram. Apparently (this is my theory), William would not be happy with a simple name change, and so H&M will have to launch a new Instagram whenever they launch all of their projects and foundations and such.

Meanwhile, the Cambridges hired the Sussexes’ old social media guy, David Watkins, in April. I’ve been crediting Watkins with William and Kate’s Zoom keenness during the lockdown. I wonder if Watkins was behind the name change too – now all of William and Kate’s social media pages have the display-name of “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge” rather than Kensington Palace. “People” are already saying that the change makes Will & Kate seem more accessible, and like they’re not running their social media through a huge team (which they are). Is there any secret message here? I don’t think so. I think it’s just simply about Will & Kate staking their claim to these social media handles and saying to the world “this is about the Future King and Future Queen, not the spare and his American wife!”

Oh, and they just published a never-before-seen photo of Kate working on that fakakta garden.

One year on from The Duchess of Cambridge’s #BackToNature Garden, the Chelsea Flower Show is going digital!

Visit @The_RHS to join the virtual #ChelseaFlowerShow for practical gardening advice from world-leading designers and experts, all from the comfort of your own home ? pic.twitter.com/cT2UGfLWLH

— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) May 20, 2020

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Zoom, Avalon Red.