If you were to design a technology to exploit the human appetite for social grooming, you could do little better than sites such as Facebook or Instagram
One woman dominated the 1980s gossip media landscape. I recall a sunny school holiday Wednesday morning as an 11-year-old, when family and friends gathered around our television, and a staggering 750 million other people gathered around their televisions too, to watch her float up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral trailing eight metres of radiant white silk taffeta. From the moment that Charles, then and now heir to the British throne, showed an interest in her, “Lady Di” became the most photographed woman in pre-Kardashian history. For nearly two decades she graced the covers of more glossy magazines than every other celebrity combined.
Princess Diana’s power to propel the printed gossip machine brought her stress, unhappiness and, hounded by paparazzi through the streets of Paris late one night, the motor vehicle accident that killed her. Her second son, Harry, and his wife, the American actress Meghan Markle, experienced something similar. Harassed by photographers, their every disagreement with other royals and every utterance regarding the mental burden of their fishbowl existence stoked and fanned by the gossip press, they stumbled out of royal life and headed for North America.
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