Queen Has Entered a New Phase

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Part of a series on Queen Elizabeth II. [View Related Entries]

About

Queen Has Entered a New Phase refers to a catchphrase and series of memes that reference a November 2021 announcement by royal experts that Queen Elizabeth II "has entered a new phase" and would likely not appear in public until February 2022. The announcement inspired jokes, with many posts imagining Queen Elizabeth making a personal experiment that would drastically change her appearance.

Origin

On November 17th, 2021, MSN UK^[1] posted an article titled "Queen has 'entered a new phase' and we 'may not see her until February', say experts." In the article, MSN UK quoted royal experts who said that the Queen's diary of public engagements had been mostly wiped for the remainder of 2021 and that she had "entered a new phase." The article said that doctors ordered the Queen "to take it easy" as she was recovering from a sprained back.

On the same day, MSN UK tweeted^[2] the article, with the tweet gaining over 400 retweets, 10,500 quote tweets and 4,800 likes in two days (shown below).

Spread

The MSN UK tweet and article and similar articles published in other media inspired jokes about the reasons Queen Elizabeth was taking a long break from making public appearances. On November 17th, 2021, Twitter^[3] user @glitterstrands made the earliest found viral tweet about the news, with @glitterstrands guessing that Queen Elizabeth was a contestant on season seven of RuPaul's Drag Race. The tweet gained over 4,800 retweets and 61,200 likes in two days (shown below).

On November 17th and 18th, multiple viral posts referencing the news and guessing the reason for Queen's absence were posted on Twitter. For example, on November 17th, 2021, Twitter^[4] user @staidindoors posted a joke about Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis that gained over 6,600 retweets and 79,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). Later that day, Twitter^[5] user @jilltwiss joked that Queen had attempted to give herself bangs, with the tweet gaining over 1,400 retweets and 24,400 likes (shown below, right).

February 2022 Update

Going into early February 2022, the discourse surrounding the Queen of England picked up again online due to her "new phase" coming closer to its debut. On February 5th, 2022, the Queen's new phase was officially announced, reported on by news outlets like BBC.^[6] According to BBC, the Queen announced that she wanted Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, to be known as Queen once Prince Charles became King after her death. A tweet^[7] from BBC (shown below) on the topic received roughly 12,300 likes over the course of two days.

On February 6th, the official Twitter^[8] account of the Royal Family posted a tweet in celebration of the Queen's 70th anniversary of her reign, calling it the start of her "Platinum Jubilee year." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 59,500 likes in less than 24 hours.

A lot of people online reacted to the update with nostalgia for Princess Diana who many hoped to be Queen before she tragically died. For instance, Twitter^[9] user _MrsWanted replied to BBC's tweet with a picture of Diana looking upset, earning roughly 3,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). Other Twitter users took the opportunity to post bait-and-switch media piggy-backing off the growing discussion of the Queen online. For instance, Twitter^[10] user amateuradam posted a thread on the 6th with their tweet receiving roughly 110,800 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, right). The subsequent thread devolved over six replies into an elaborate Rickroll.