Daniela Elser: Kate Middleton's fears for Prince George realised

Prince William and Prince Harry unveil a statue they commissioned of their mother Princess Diana, on what would have been her 60th birthday, in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London. Video / PA via AP

OPINION:

If you want to know how much trouble one pesky TV show can cause for the royal family, look no further than 1987's It's A Royal Knockout.

It was two hours of Prince Andrew and then wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, along with Princess Anne in Good Sport mode and a chuffed Prince Edward (who had cooked up the cockamamie idea) being chased around by Meat Loaf and John Travolta tossing plastic hams at one another all while wearing medieval costumes.

A family photo of The Cambridges including future kings Prince William and Prince George. Photo / Supplied

The humiliating spectacle did more to undermine the monarchy than centuries of regal carousing, womanising and regularly marrying their German cousins combined.

This week another TV series is about to hit screens and which poses a new small screen threat to the palace. Created by US comedian Gary Janetti, The Prince is a cartoon which satirises royal life for adult audiences from the perspective of Prince George.

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In the trailer, the 8-year-old is shown being helicoptered to a play date, asking a footman "do you have any tea that doesn't taste like p*ss?" and worrying that he looks fat while eating French toast.

Sure, this is far – far – from the first time that the royal family has been skewered in the name of a good giggle with everyone from Saturday Night Live to the eponymous (and genius) The Windsors mining the rich seam of material that is the Queen and her brood.

However, this is still a Rubicon-crossing moment for the palace.

Four generations of Windsors take a photo to commemorate the Queen's 90th birthday. Photo / Supplied

Whether audiences ultimately decide the series is an irreverent, affectionate lark or a tasteless exercise in exploiting the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's kids, its release marks the firing of the starting gun on an alarming new chapter in George's life as the target of a uniquely 21st-century strain of public exposure.

Hitherto, royal children have been off limits. With The Prince, that is no more.

While there might have been 23 Princes of Wales over the centuries, never before has the royal household had to figure out a way to raise a future sovereign in an age of omnipresent devices and in the shadow of the monster that is social media.

Over the last month or so, William and Kate have started to slowly introduce George to public life, taking their besuited son with them to sit in the royal box for two games during the Euro 2020 tournament.

Clearly, they are very gradually subjecting him to the extreme glare of the spotlight. But that control over how and when he is exposed for public consumption could slip entirely out of the Cambridges' hands – and fast.

A still from an upcoming satire about the young Prince's life starring Orlando Bloom voicing Prince Harry. Photo / HBO Max

George will be the first future monarch, ever, to have to navigate adolescence and young adulthood, and all the mistakes, scrapes and f**k-ups that are par for the acne-prone course, knowing that every room he walks into and every person he speaks comes with the threat of being recorded, photographed or filmed.

So far, George, and his sister Princess Charlotte and brother Prince Louis, have enjoyed a fairly protected existence.

The baying UK press, having come to an agreement with the palace, don't stalk their every move and save for the occasional official outing the troika of HRHs are just three more aristocratic West London kidlets who have their own ponies and season tickets to Glyndebourne.

Nor are the parents at George and Charlotte's school, Thomas' Battersea, likely to be the sorts to try and surreptitiously snap shots of the kids, or William and Kate, to hastily sell to the red top papers.

Discretion in these circles is something everyone can all rely on – for now.

An official photo released by Kensington Palace to mark the third birthday of Prince George in 2016. Photo / Supplied

However, that calculation changes dramatically if you look only a few years into the future when George hits his teenage years and likely goes away to boarding school.

As the third in line to the throne there was always a target on his back in terms of public scrutiny and attention but the difference between George's experience and that of his father William is that he is going to have to navigate his formative years with far, far fewer opportunities to truly relax and not be "on".

It could very well be a PR bloodbath.

William and Harry, as children and as teens, were able to rely on a trusted coterie of lifelong friends to form a sort of praetorian guard around them. No matter how trustworthy and dedicated George's pals might similarly be in the future, it's hard to see how that will go any way to combating the constant digital surveillance they will face.

For example, when he gets older, how to prevent someone at every party he goes to filming him? How to ensure his first illicit beer or cigarette or snog doesn't end up on YouTube?

A man reading a copy of The Sun newspaper in front of Buckingham Palace after Prince Harry made the headlines dressed as a Nazi. Photo / Getty

No matter how intimidating his protection team might be, there is no way that every rugby field opponent, university student, or teenager who ends up at a house party is going to be able to be brought to heel or pulled into line if they whip out their phone. The numbers will always be stacked against Team George.

For William, the press was the threat; for George, it's anyone with opposable thumbs and a smartphone. While there were dozens of the former, there are literally tens of millions of the latter in the UK alone.

How can anyone, no matter how devoted his parents, protection officers and trusted chums are, truly protect him and give him true space to grow up given the intrusive, pervasive menace that is social media?

The palace got a taste of just how humiliating the intersection of royalty and the digital age can be in 2012 when Harry hit Las Vegas.

As he partied at the Wynn Hotel with his mates Tom Inskip and Arthur Landon, one of the gaggle of partygoers invited back to their VIP suite (including a "bunch of hot chicks" as TMZ, who first obtained the incriminating shots, put it) managed to, using a digital camera, snapshots of the Prince enjoying a cheeky (literally) game of strip billiard.

Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry explore mental health and emotional wellbeing with stories from people around the world in a new docuseries. Photo / Apple TV

The photos went global and the UK tabloids cackled with glee at the prospect of being able to indulge in so many "crown jewels" puns.

The tail end of his party years overlapped with the advent of the omnipresence of camera lenses in every pocket, handbag and palm in modern life. The Vegas incident was barely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the PR minefield which the palace is going to have to navigate with George. (And later with Charlotte and Louis.)

The thorny issue of social media cuts the other way too. At the touch of a button, George will be able to drown and lose himself in a sea of public opinion.

No future king has ever before grown up with the ability to be able to tap into the condemnation, anger, support, idolatry (and everything in between) the monarchy attracts, whenever the whim overtakes them.

Every second of every day, he will be able to wade into the morass of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to know precisely what people are writing and thinking about him and his family.

It won't be pretty.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George disembarking from the RNZAF jet after arriving at Wellington Airport in 2014. Photo / NZME

How can being faced with such a deluge of invective and commentary not screw with his head, to some degree? How could reading what millions of strangers have to say about him, the monarchy and his loved ones, not be hurtful, alarming, upsetting or even confusing?

It is hard enough raising a teenager in the age of social media dominance; it is hard enough raising a future heir to the throne. Combine the two and you have a Venn diagram straight out of the pits of parenting hell.

Enjoy the peace now William and Kate, before the day arrives when you have to explain to the Queen a) what TikTok is and b) why the future King George VII is on the platform doing a kegstand with his mates Bunter and Hugo for all the world to see.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.