Prince Harry and Meghan's Instagram launch breaks world record
The Instagram debut of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex set a Guinness world record for the massive following it drew. But Prince Harry and Meghan's splash soon sparked outrage on word that the platform had hijacked their handle from a man who had already been using it.
Kevin Keiley, 55, said that Instagram gave his @sussexroyal handle to the couple without asking or warning. The British driving instructor, who had been using the account for about three years, says he didn't learn about the switch until his son jabbed him about it in a text.
Then, when he logged on to Instagram, he saw that he'd gone from @sussexroyal to the far less regal @_sussexroyal_. He said the title blended his home county (Sussex) and his favorite soccer team (the Reading F.C. Royals).
"I assumed my account was active, but Instagram decided it wasn't," Keiley told The Washington Post in an interview Thursday over Skype.
He concedes that he wasn't overly active on the site - "I would go occasionally" - but he did find a lot to like about it, including posts of British comic and TV personality Noel Fielding's chalk artwork.
It would have been nice to have received notice, he said, or to have been given options for other usernames. Keiley isn't particularly thrilled with his new handle, which is bookmarked by underscores. He would have preferred hyphens.
"It's a bit of a lame handle to have," he said. "Underscores are not something I would use in regular conversation."
Though most of the online feedback has been positive, Keiley said, his brush with the royals has given him a taste of the notoriety that can become attached to prominent accounts. He's receiving hundreds of new notifications every hour, some of them hateful comments.
"I am not a celebrity by any means, but I know what they must go through."
Instagram declined to comment on the name change, which was first reported by BBC News. But the company told the media outlet that the switch was made to "prevent digital squatting" - establishing a handle with no intent to use it or, in some cases, to compel a high-profile person or brands to pay to acquire it.
The company appears to have given the royal couple special treatment in this case. On a help center webpage, Instagram instructs users on what to do if a username they desire is already claimed but seems inactive.
"If a username you want is being used by an account that seems inactive, you can choose an available version of the username," the page states. "You can add periods, numbers, underscores or abbreviations to help you come up with a username that's not already in use."
Another FAQ states that Instagram bases account inactivity on several factors, including when the account was created and whether the user logs in, actively posts and interacts with others on the site.
The royal couple shared their first Instagram post Tuesday, racking up 1 million followers in 5 hours and 45 minutes, and shattering the record (11 hours, 36 minutes) set by K-pop star Kang Daniel in January. The singer had unseated Pope Francis, who took 12 hours to reach the threshold in 2016.
On Twitter, Keiley's username is still "@sussexroyal," and he appears to have struck a comically defiant tone. But he's still not sure what will come next. "Nothing has happened there yet - I say yet."