The strangest thing about “Kategate”, the doctored-photo crisis putting the British royals under pressure, is not why the Princess of Wales didn’t tone down her children’s maniacal smiles when she did the touch-ups. It’s why it happened at all.
The scenario of Kate in her home office, tinkering to create the perfect comeback photo after abdominal surgery in January, is genuinely bizarre and weird.
People edit images for all kinds of reasons, and have been doing so since before generative AI, or even Photoshop.Credit: Instagram
Imagine the thought bubble: “I’ve just heard of a cool new thing called AI. Going to give it a crack. Charlotte’s arm is bothering me. I’ll chop half of it off but leave in Louis’ strange crossed fingers. And I’ll make my entire tummy a big black blob so nobody looks too hard at it. Done! Press send.”
So bizarre, so weird is it, that Kate’s mea culpa for tampering with the UK Mother’s Day image was seen by almost 30 million social media users in its first hours.
Roll up, roll up! Since when does a senior royal cop to an own goal, instead of sticking to the “never complain, never explain” dictum?
Look, I quite love Kate for going there, especially for something as innocuous as editing a snap for social media. We’ve all chucked on filters, aiming for arty or to please our 137 followers. I was tempted to tamper with my lats and traps in a bikini photo just yesterday. Except, of course, the princess’ image was posted for a specific purpose and its tampering was not innocuous.
Yes, the now-infamous photo looked like a stock standard “cuddle with mummy” snap for UK Mother’s Day, but that was its cover story. In reality, it was a strategic proof-of-life photo to stop Kate being hunted, quench curiosity and reassure the public the future queen is not in a coma or dead or reassessing her future at a mid-range London hotel.
Instead, it’s given wild rumours fresh oxygen and left the impression conspiracy theorists may not have been way off the mark after all. Terrible optics.
Kategate and the royal photo fail is so hamfisted it feels like a stitch-up
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12.03.2024
The strangest thing about “Kategate”, the doctored-photo crisis putting the British royals under pressure, is not why the Princess of Wales didn’t tone down her children’s maniacal smiles when she did the touch-ups. It’s why it happened at all.
The scenario of Kate in her home office, tinkering to create the perfect comeback photo after abdominal surgery in January, is genuinely bizarre and weird.
People edit images for all kinds of reasons, and have been doing so since before generative AI, or even........
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