Princess Catherine, BBC Dad, and the New Picture Perfect

A family snap of the Princess of Wales with her three children has dominated headlines and group chats since its release on U.K. Mother’s Day last weekend. Princess Catherine, whom the palace says is recovering from abdominal surgery in January, is known chiefly for never putting a foot wrong in nearly two decades of intense public scrutiny—first as girlfriend of Prince William, then as a wife and mother to future kings, and an advocate for uncontroversial but important causes such as early childhood development.

Yet even for a woman defined by her seeming perfection—Hillary Mantel once wrote the former duchess appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen—the Mother’s Day photo of Catherine and her family was judged a little too perfect. The uncanny valley of the photo was prime territory for conspiracy theories, already circulating, in which the princess was missing or perhaps even dead. According to these theories, the snap was either a sinister throwback designed to deceive, or created via artificial intelligence, in order to conjure a body, or bodies. (The AI charge has since been debunked thanks to the photo’s metadata.)

It turned out there was a technical reason why our collective gaze rejected the photo, its wonky sleeves and distorted skirting boards. The picture had been edited, apparently by the princess herself, likely for the same reason anyone edits photos, which is to look better. Flawless. Not a crime, exactly, but not something the public has much patience for anymore.

This week marked the seven-year anniversary of another family’s moment in the global spotlight, and the contrast between the two is instructive on how expectations have changed. Incredibly, it was 2017 when an interview on the BBC with Professor Robert E. Kelly about political tension between North and South Korea was interrupted by his extremely adorable daughter, Marion, and her equally cute younger brother, James, bursting into the room—only to be coaxed and then dragged out by Kelly’s wife, Kim Jung-A. At the time, the episode was greeted with worldwide mirth and disbelief. It’s hard to imagine it making anywhere near the same waves in 2024.

Kelly, who has contributed to Foreign Policy, kept his cool on air with “pardon me” and “apologies.” But what made the incident so striking—in addition to the kids’ unforgettable entrances, and their mother’s careening across the floor—was its collision of public and private. It was unprecedented then, not so much now. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how mortifying the interview was for Kelly at the time. He told the New York Times afterwards “we thought it was a disaster”—would the paper even report on this happening now?—and confessed a fear that no TV network would ever call him again. The opposite was true, of course. There’s not a producer in the world who wouldn’t think of Kelly when consulting a virtual rolodex of Korea experts. Seven years later, media organizations delight in running updates on his family and sharing photos Kelly has posted of them on social media. They’re “all grown up,” the New York Post declared this time around.

Maybe, just like the Kelly kids, we’re all grown up too, and are no longer content to be fed images of family life which look too neat and unscuffed. Since Marion burst into her father’s study, a few events have reshaped our relationship to what family life actually looks like.

First, there was the pandemic. During COVID, we all got to peer into each other’s lives in a way that was unprecedented. Think Joe Biden conducting a presidential campaign from his basement, or Anna Wintour filmed doing a Zoom in sweatpants. Even Queen Elizabeth got into the swing with an address from what we liked to imagine was her slightly less formal receiving room in April of 2020, ending with the cozy and comforting refrain that “we’ll meet again.” Because of this precedent, and for white collar workers fortunate enough to continue working at least part of the time from home, the idea of a kid making an appearance during a meeting is no longer a big deal. If anything, it is now seen as humanizing.

Then there’s the rise and fall of influencer culture. Documenting domestic life on the internet arguably began with the Mormon mommy bloggers of the early 2010s. As phones became more ubiquitous in everyday life, so too did the audience’s desire for warts and all, and the suburban wine moms on Instagram were ready to answer the call. Now the most successful influencers tow a careful line: never too perfect, always relatable, sometimes vulnerable, up for sharing both “parenting fails” and styling hacks. They’re tired—who wouldn’t be, with a brood this big—but look! Everyone’s in matching pyjamas, Mom’s using the new Dyson hairdryer, and here are the affiliate links with a discount code just for you.

Finally, let’s not underestimate the impact of the runaway royals, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who have pulled back the curtain on the most famous family of all. Between the couple’s tell-all interview with Oprah, their Netflix documentary, and Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, the British royal family’s rampant dysfunction has been revealed anew for those not alive or sentient when Princess Diana was doing the same. When Diana told the BBC in 1995 that she wanted to be a princess of hearts, but didn’t see herself as becoming Queen of England, she seemed to be grasping ahead of her time the growing potency of attention over institutional power. There’s a reason why the Kardashians, who also understood this truth before others, are referred to as “America’s royal family”—and at this stage, probably live much nicer, and easier, lives than their British counterparts.

These days we are all the popular Marie Kondo gif: “I love mess!” We expect it, we demand it, and when it’s not there, we get angry. The public’s reception to two families, both alike in virality, illustrate this phenomenon. “BBC Dad” is no longer the aberration. He’s the norm. And until the Waleses embrace this new world, conspiracy will swirl in the information vacuum they’ve created.