The Neighbours Shrug: Harry and Meghan Leave California, and the Story Leaves With Them

The Times put it with the dryness the subject has always deserved: as Harry and Meghan leave California for the U.K., the neighbours shrug. I have been waiting for that shrug. It is the first adult sentence in a saga that has been written, for years, as if a zip code were a moral position.

Montecito is not a public. It is a privacy product with palm trees. People who buy that product are not a Greek chorus. They are busy. A famous couple leaving is, to them, a change in the security choreography at the roundabout. The British papers will continue to file this as a constitutional weather event. King Charles, per The Times, has already indicated that Harry is not the priority. Institutions are allowed to be cold. It is one of their few honest modes.

What the coverage is for

It is for us, the spectators, who have used this marriage as a proxy war about race, the press, America, and whether a prince is allowed to want a normal neurosis. Those are real themes. They do not require us to pretend a moving van is the fall of a house.

A shrug from the neighbours is not cruelty. It is proportion, which royal coverage treats as a shortage commodity.

Lila Voss, The Atlas Culture

I hope they find a quieter room. I hope the press finds a different addiction. I will not pretend their departure rearranges my week, and I do not think a serious culture desk should. The interesting story remains the one about a monarchy managing decline with etiquette, and a couple who tried to build a brand on the wreckage of a role. California was a set. Sets get struck. The shrug is the review.