The Beckhams have long been the secular counterpart to the royals on the British Isles. Be it tabloids or social media, the Beckhams are rarely missing. Almost logically, football star and metrosex model Sir David and his wife, the pop singer and designer Victoria, experienced their Prince Harry moment at the beginning of the week. Just as King Charles’ youngest son turned his back on Buckingham Palace a few years ago, now the eldest son Brooklyn turned away from his parents. He broke up with his family on Instagram.
Like Prince Harry, Brooklyn didn’t just say: “Bye-bye, I do it my way.” No, the departure was staged as a forced move by a victim who has no choice but to publicly accuse the parents of being more interested in their brand than in their children.
The children of prominent parents, now known as Nepo babies, don’t have it easy. If they have just a little less talent for self-marketing or self-realization, they are quickly viewed by the public as underperformers. But less talented children are also a problem for celebrity parents. Image cultivation has always been essential for the rich and powerful. In the hypermedia age, curating your own performance is like brushing your teeth for billions of people.
The Beckhams were pioneers in this. Although David and Victoria worked hard for their status, they also incorporated the status of their children, especially their eldest son Brooklyn, into their public performance and thus their branding as an emancipated, autonomous, gender-equal, good-looking, likeable and loving extended family right from the start. And now the son of social media pioneers has killed his parents on social media.
Knighthood without a son
The indications that things haven’t been going well between the Beckhams and Brooklyn’s lover increased last year: Brooklyn wasn’t present at Daddy’s 50th or his royal knighthood, so he wasn’t mentioned in the family’s annual review.
Now he made it clear: reconciliation with the family was no longer possible. He delivered an accusation that has since generated hundreds of memes: the accusation against the mother that she hijacked the bride’s dance and danced “inappropriately” with the groom, i.e. her son.
What “inappropriate” means is now being widely joked about. And that is presumably exactly the intention behind this formulation. These memes and the hate that Victoria Beckham is now receiving are probably far more hurtful to the former Spice Girl than the video of the bridal dance could be. Whether there is even a video is controversial. And if so, it could only be in the hands of Brooklyn and his wife Nicola.
One may find the memes making fun of Victoria’s dancing skills funny. But actually only if you’ve forgotten that just a year ago a dance scene by Victoria and David themselves became a celebrated meme (“Love!”, “It’s great,” “Such a great couple”). And only if you jump over the stick that Brooklyn was holding there. Expecting that it can only be embarrassing what a super ambitious over 50 mother can do.
The evil raven mother
In any case, many on the internet are jumping over Brooklyn’s sticks. For her it is finally clear: Victoria is an evil mother-in-law and a nasty mother-in-law who will not tolerate any other woman, especially a younger woman, next to her. The proof? 15 second video snippet from the photo shoot at the premiere of the Netflix documentary “Victoria Beckham”, in which Beckham slightly pushes her daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz away in order to bring herself into the foreground.
Well, maybe there is a more elegant way. But why should the main character of a film give way to an actress who is best known for being a two-time Golden Raspberry nominee for Worst Supporting Actress and the daughter of an American billionaire who boasts of having set up Elon Musk and Donald Trump?
In the “documentary”, in which Victoria herself also took part as a producer, she portrays herself as a loving wife and mother, but also as a woman who wants nothing to do with dishes, making jam, planting tomatoes or baking bread. The message: We are a modern married couple where daddy does the housework.
It is not impossible that the ambitious Victoria will now find her emancipated story falling at her feet. Maybe because Tradwives are more popular than Spice Girls at the moment. In any case, anger is raging on social media, especially fueled by women, against the bad mother who drove her son to despair.
Almost as good as Dallas
To what extent Brooklyn was restricted, used and controlled by his parents we will probably never know. However, the whole thing has the makings of a remake of Dallas. This time the beautiful daughters and sons of the rich were not playing in the backdrops of oil fields and banks. But in those of social media, start-ups and tech billionaires.
Because just as Brooklyn could have become a victim of his ambitious mother, he could also have become a victim of his in-laws and their daughter.
Nicola Peltz’s parents are among the richest families in the USA, Elon Musk was at the premiere of Nicola’s directorial debut “Lola”, which, despite this prominent visit, the rest of the world took no notice of. Nicola Peltz certainly didn’t just adopt the name Beckham out of pure love. This definitely ensures attention. In “Lola” she plays the main role herself. The plot: Lola has to organize a lot of money to free her little brother from his toxic family.
Brooklyn Beckham could really end up looking like a complete idiot. But the Beckhams and the carefully cultivated image they have built up over decades are also likely to be damaged. The reaction of David Beckham, who was at the economic summit in Davos on Tuesday, is as cryptic as it is clear: “You are making mistakes,” said Beckham. “But children are allowed to make mistakes. That’s how they learn.”
It’s always someone else who makes mistakes, that’s for sure. This sentence should be enough for a soap, but the cool boomer move of a metrosex man who has understood the Internet looks different.