Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A royal baby watcher on why the royal baby watch was pointless


As I've blogged about before, I find the royal family interesting because they have this really bizarre job that they have to do and it's interesting to me to see how they do it.  I'm also interested in fashion, so I will totally click through for a picture of a female royal, just to see how they've costumed themselves for this bizarre job.

Despite the fact that I'm childfree, I also think babies are interesting.  They're all little and cute, with these ridiculously tiny (but fully functional!) hands and feet, and it's interesting to me to see what they can do and to speculate on what they must think about what's going on around them.  I will totally click through to see a picture of a baby.

So that makes me totally the target audience for royal baby media coverage, which I unrepentantly consumed when the time came.

However, I think it was a complete waste of time to have media staking out the hospital for weeks and weeks in anticipation of the birth, because there was no story to be had by doing so.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the royal baby is news, objectively speaking.  Under the current system, he's third in line to be our head of state.  His identity is approximately as relevant as the identity of a political party leader. (But he's much more adorable to look at!)  On top of that, there is public interest.  When you've got a large chunk of your audience wanting to know biographical information about a public figure, it is appropriate to report it.

The thing is, what is there to know about a newborn in the first day of their life?  Their name, gender, date and time of birth, weight and length, whether they're healthy, and what they look like.  That's literally all there is.  There isn't any more yet because the poor kid hasn't been around long enough yet.  Even his parents aren't yet able to answer questions like "Is he a good sleeper?" or "How's he nursing?" because they haven't had enough time to find out yet.

All they could get by camping out in front of the hospital was pictures of the baby and maybe a soundbite or two of royals charmingly expressing appropriate delight at the birth of the baby.

All of which the palace would have released anyway.

All that time and effort and sitting out in the hot sun, and it made no difference to us as the interested audience. It just took up a lot of airtime and column inches on "no baby yet", all of which could have been better spent on something else.  We still would have gotten all available information through official channels, and there was simply no other information to be had.

3 comments:

laura k said...

But without all that, how would they have built suspense and held public interest and sold media time to such a (IMO) non-event? Because my interest in (and knowledge of) royal babies is nil, I assume all that "watching" was to generate interest.

#LeastImportantThing: Are a newborn's hands and feet really fully functional? They can't use their hands for anything that human hands are normally used for, nor their feet.

@ProudToBeIgnorant: I only learned from your Twitter feed that it was a boy and what his name is.

impudent strumpet said...

I think they would have sold media time to the news of the baby itself because a) it is newsworthy to a degree, and b) when people know someone is pregnant, they wonder if they've had their baby yet. People will click on the article for the same reason you'll click on the email saying that your co-worker on mat leave had her baby, even if you hadn't heard anything in the interim. I can't see how constantly camping out for weeks going "NO BABY YET!" would add to it.

Re: hands and feet, what amazes me is they can wiggle their little fingers and their little toes and grab stuff with their hands and they have all their joints and fingernails even though they're so small! I'm not sure if their inability to do things with their hands is because their hands aren't fully functional, or if it's a function of size ratios. For example, a baby bottle is about the size of a newborn's torso. So the fact that a newborn can't grasp a bottle and drink from it might not be because his hands aren't fully functional, but rather because it would be like me trying to grasp a keg and drink from it. Similarly, maybe they can't walk on their feet because they can't hold up their head or balance their body. They can't play piano because each individual piano key is the width of their whole hand. (It would be like trying to play chords with your fingers on one of those giant floor pianos that people play with their feet.) They can't type for the same reason (plus, like, they don't understand the concept of letters). They can't braid their hair because their arms are so short and their head is so big that they can't reach the top of their head (not to mention they might not have hair).

I don't actually know, this is just speculation. All I know is they can move their fingers independently, they can grab things, and it blows my mind every time I see it happen.

laura k said...

Those tiny hands and feet are awesome.

I do think there are size ratios at work, but there's also muscle development - plus let's not forget cognitive development. So the hands and feet might be functional but the brain doesn't know what to do with them yet.

I see that typing in the dark has failed me. I wasn't addressing ProudToBeIgnorant with an @ sign. I thought I typed a hashtag.