"It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @sciencemuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R."
That's what it said, the first tweet from Her Majesty The Queen. Causing a great deal of fuss, it arrived on Twitter on 24th October. What could it all mean? Had the monarch entered the digital social age; and was she preparing herself for some pithy exchanges with her subjects on a regular basis? Will she be on the Downton Abbey hashtag, commenting and complaining along with the nation?
Not really. In fact, not at all.
"What we're seeing here is just a little PR exercise for the Science Museum."
For starters, the Queen wasn't tweeting. Her be-gloved hand went nowhere near a keyboard or smartphone. The message was pre-written, she merely pushed a button. What's more, there have been no further postings on her account (@BritishMonarchy). Or at least none claiming to be from Elizabeth herself. It's a disappointment, but what we're seeing here is just a little PR exercise for the Science Museum, nothing more.
Of course, that hasn't dissuaded thousands of goons from piling in, either telling Her Maj how perfectly marvellous she is, or how the royals are societal parasites, or just bouncing around throwing potty words all over the shop. Which interests me, because it suggest these tweeters imagined the Queen of England, Scotland, Wales and the Commonwealth was sitting in her drawing room, scrolling through their pronouncements on her ivory and emerald iPad. Which she may have been, but I'm guessing she wasn't. "Oh Philip, look! @bigknob75 has said I'm stupid beech. Should I block him, do you think?" Nope, just can't see that.
That's the thing with Twitter. It gives the impression the barriers of distance and protocol have been removed, urging every well-known person in the world to communicate with all and sundry for hours on end. That would be an interesting prospect, but I have to tell you the truth is somewhat more prosaic. Actually, the better known a person is, the less likely they are to have any direct input to their Twitter account (except Stephen Fry, obviously).
From Bryan Ferry to President Obama, the vast majority of 'celebrities' hand the whole thing to their 'people'. In turn, those 'people' use the platform to send promotional bursts about policy or upcoming concert tours. There are a few exceptions, Rhianna being one. But when you see the hundreds and thousands of followers they have, the chances they will seize on your particular greeting or item of vile abuse, and respond, are slim to none.
In the early days of tweeting, a colleague found himself discussing the meaning of life with the actress Demi Moore, across the network. I suspect that is a now a rarity, as the user base has grown so substantially. Not conversations between my colleague and Demi, you understand, but regular folk engaging with the powerful and famous. And yet that hasn't dimmed many users' enthusiasm for copying public figures into their posts. Perhaps it's in the hope that star will, one day, chime in with a reply. Or maybe it just makes their tweets feel more important, more prominent, more purposeful. Whatever the motivation, it's safe to assume nobody will ever check their Twitter timeline and see @BritishMonarchy has dropped them a link to a clip of someone falling off a skateboard.
Magnus Shaw is a copywriter, blogger and consultant
