the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

What is it about the royals that fascinates Americans. Meghan has brought a breath of fresh air to the palace, the Queen seems to like her but who really gives a shit if she crosses her legs. The Royal Family is a great publicity machine for the UK, its presence brings in billions , personally I'm not a royalist but I can see its value. On the downside it perpetuates the class system and the whole hierarchal lords, knights and dames system which is an anachronism in the modern world.

I guess it bring on a kind of romantic feeling of medievalness of just lords, knights and dames, although the medieval times where most probably very non romantic....And the British royal house is the closest to any royals the mericans can imagine to have.

Well, there was very little interest in the royals until Princess Di. The interest now is just a continuation of the reality-show paparazzi culture that centered around the family because of her. It's why her children's wives are constantly followed and compared to her.

There may have been some interest in the royal family when the Wallace-Simpson thing was going on; but, that was way before my time. Other than that, the royal family was a mystery. Maybe people who grew up in some part of the UK had a different experience.

A lot of nostalgia, a good portion of people from the north-east of America hail from the British Isles originally, and this is little known, but a lot of the robber barrons from the late 1800s and early 1900s sent their daughters over to the UK and they married into various aristocratic families.

It is more of a curousity than anything else. Keep in mind that barring our revolutionary period, the US has really only had positive interactions with the UK so some kind of residual interest makes sense.

Most people really view the UK as more of a 51st state than anything else. That probably makes no damn sense to anyone from the UK. FYI, we feel the same way about Australia and Israel. It's an American thing and pretty much impossible for outsiders to understand. If the UK asked for anything we'd probably give it to them. Likewise, if anyone threatened the UK we'd rain hate down that group of idiots. And as Americans we are pretty good at that.

Happy anti-royalist day to my fellow Yanks.

The British royals are an interesting permutation of royalty - ceremonial duties with minimal risk (e.g. in the old days when war and intrigue was the day-to-day for them). Now it seems that their main role is similar to sports or movies, though - to provide the public with distraction from reality.

That Windsors show with Harry Enfield is pretty amusing I thought