The main problem with all the fake royal baby feeds that sprang up all over Twitter yesterday following the official confirmation of Kate Middleton's pregnancy is that none of them are actually really funny. Snarky and sometimes mean? Yes. Funny? Meh.
But they're all fighting to be the number-one parody account commenting on Kate Middleton's pregnancy, which is thought to be fewer than 12 weeks along, possibly as few eight. As these parody Twitter people try to make jokes about the unborn child in 140 characters or less, Kate Middleton remains laid up in the hospital, where she's expected to remain for days as reporters stake out the joint, where there's nothing to see but two royal guards at the door and Mr. Kate "Prince William" Middleton popping in and out occasionally.
First, there's fake account @RoyalFetus.
@RoyalFetus started on April 29, 2011 — the day of Kate and William's wedding — with this cheeky post.
Following yesterday's announcement, the feed came to life as users expressed enthusiasm over the 19-month-old first tweet.
But subsequent tweets haven't been as clever as the very first.
The person behind @KateMiddletonFTW is allegedly the same person behind the @RoyalFetus feed, which would explain their similar breeds of crass humor. The joke about Kate Middleton being haughty and smug because of her marriage to William, and therefore extraordinarily more fabulous than all of us plebeians, has been a meme for ages. Transferred to a "Royal Fetus" Twitter feed? It's not breaking any new ground or reading as terribly genius.
Meanwhile, @KateMiddletonFTW is still going strong.
It's connected to the Tumblr of the same name which posted funny memes commenting on Kate Middleton's fabulousness.
While the Tumblr is all in good fun, the pregnancy tweets are a little off-color!
If Kate had normal morning sickness this would be one thing, but she's pretty seriously ill, so this feels uncomfortably snarky.
There's also @RoyalFoetus, which offers quips of a similar flavor. It didn't get off to a terrible start!
However, the feed is pleasantly free of jokes about Kate vomiting and being anorexic.
While these feeds go strong, a lot of royal baby parody feeds — including @IamRoyalBaby, @KatesWomb, and @HRHRoyalBaby — have all been suspended. Twitter would not comment on the nature of the suspension due to privacy reasons, a spokesperson told BuzzFeed Shift. But it's probably safe to assume that either they failed to adhere to Twitter's guidelines for parody accounts (which state that parody accounts must present themselves as such) or that the people who started them just gave up. Because starting a successful fake Twitter account that anyone cares about is hard to do and time-consuming. You'd have to not have a lot of stuff to do during the day to really pull it off.
So far @RoyalFetus and @RoyalFoetus seem to be the front-runners to become the go-to account for people looking for jokes about the Duchess's pregnancy. As of publication of this post, the accounts have about 10,100 and 6,500 followers respectively. But many others, like the 40-followers-strong @BabyofCambridge, are also striving for Twitter parody fame, so @RoyalFoetus and @RoyalFetus could still be unseated. Whoever starts the account that overtakes them just has to be legitimately funny, largely inoffensive, and overall celebratory of the future heir to the throne. Joking about Kate vomiting when she's hooked up to an IV in real life isn't going to make everyone on Twitter who loves Kate Middleton also love that feed!
If you want a really great royal Twitter account to follow, I personally love @PippaTips. It makes fun of all the terrible party-planning advice she offers in her new book, the oh-so-creatively-titled Celebrate.