My guilty pleasure is keeping up with the Royal family.
I'm not a tea cup and portrait of the Queen level fan, but have enough curiosity to be in the loop when rumours swirl about scandals and general news on the family. Although my greatest fascination is for Diana.
I wasn't born when she died, but for some reason cannot get enough of the latest pop-culture hits the ghost of her fame seems to be reappearing in through various actors.
This seems to be something my generation is also becoming captivated by, with various TikTok videos and Instagram pages dedicated to the late princess.
Undoubtedly, the catalyst for this obsession was season four of The Crown, where breakout actress Emma Corrin portrayed Diana. I remember last year's hot summer, sitting in my living room binge-watching all 10 episodes and the thing that stuck with me throughout was how young Princess Di was when everything began.
Marriage at age 19 seems inconceivable to me, let alone when it's a worldwide whirlwind which saw her named a princess. What the Crown showed my generation was a young woman in an unfamiliar world facing the same emotional experiences as any do today - all while managing the devastating reality that her husband was maintaining an ongoing affair.
The latest movie in the Diana canon, Spencer, stars Kristen Stewart portraying the dark breakdown of the princess internally and externally and shines a light on how convention and archaic protocols can break a free-spirited person.
This overarchingly links to her style of rebellion and feminism that I think speaks to young people today. Her individualism shone through the stuffiness of the Royal family, while she worked to hold onto her own sense of self.
A strange segue, but Grace Tame's recent refusal to smile next to the Prime Minister comes to mind here as representative of my generation being tired of civility and playing nice. Princess Diana was ahead of her time in disrupting the 'seen and not heard' expectation of the Royal family, as strong women continue to do in the wider world today.
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Cultural interest in the princess also sparked when Martin Bashir's interview with Diana was investigated after fake bank statements were sent to her brother, implying people close to Diana were being paid by British newspapers. Everyone wanted a piece of her, many powerful figures manipulated her however a sense of feminist heroism shines through as she's portrayed to have never let go of her agency.
Then there's the fashion.
Model Hailey Bieber, married to Justin Bieber, did a photoshoot with Vogue back in 2019 reinterpreting some of the princess's looks.
Cue the oversized jumper with bike shorts as she held her keys in her teeth rummaging through her bag, or her look with a baseball cap while in baggy jeans with a shirt and oversized jacket.
One of Bieber's Instagram posts captioned "all credit and inspo to the amazingly beautiful and iconically stylish Princess Diana who I've looked to for style inspiration for as long as I can remember".
I am not going to pretend to know much about fashion, only that images of her dorky jumpers, blow-dried short hair and graceful statement pieces such as the revenge dress is something that I perceive as extremely stylish, and they do say fashion trends often make comebacks.
Of course, Diana was not perfect. While she was wronged in many ways she was an aristocrat who came into the Royal family, who knew how to use the press to her own advantage.
In the latest films and TV shows, her emotional turbulence shines through with her need for love and attention, while her mental health issues constantly weigh her down.
That is possibly something else that resonates with my generation, as we go into the third year of staying home, avoiding travel and limiting our social lives: it's safe to say many of my peers are emotionally turbulent during the pandemic's ongoing effects.
