I've been on this beat long enough that very little shocks me anymore. Justin Bieber falls into a hole? Eh, whatever. Harry Styles holds a bag? Show me something I haven't seen. You just don't get fazed much when you've been hacking away in the gossip mines as long as I have. But sometimes . . . oh, sometimes a story comes along that knocks you flat on your back, because it's such a surprising convergence of people and place that for once, maybe just one time all year, the world seems capable of true improvisation, of rarity, of the unique. My friends, just such a story has arrived today.
Let's just cut to the chase: the royals met Skam. Does that series of words mean anything to you? I can elongate it some if that helps: British someday king Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, met some cast members of the Norwegian television series Skam on Friday, while on a state visit to that frozen hooked finger pointing into the North Sea. Which is a really big deal.
On the one side, you've got British royalty, just about the only rich people worth talking about anymore. And not the old crusty ones, the young and bald ones! It's always exciting when they do a thing. Sure, sure, it'd be a much juicier story if William's brother, the red rake called Prince Harry, had been the one doing the Skam visit, with his American actress bride-to-be, Meghan Markle, by his side. But I'll happily settle for William and Kate, the older and more official of the princely couples.
Then on the other side of this story is Skam, which I'm sure many of you have never heard of, much to your great shame. Skam is a viral-sensation television series that began in Norway in 2015 and gradually made its way—largely through the tireless work of some intrepid and stealthy YouTube uploaders—across the globe. It's a teen drama in the vein of Degrassi, but without anyone saying "lao-zee" when they meant lousy. The show reached its zenith in its third season, which followed a boy named Isak, played by Tarjei Sandvik Moe, as he gradually acknowledged his sexuality and fell in love with another boy, Even (Henrik Holm). It was a real barn-burner of a season, a roller-coaster ride of handsome, gay, Nordic feels, and a very particular corner of the world went nuts for it. (I am a longtime taxpayer in that corner of the world.)
So, to hear that William and Kate went to the Oslo school where the show was filmed, and that they met with actors from the show, including Moe . . . that's almost too much to bear. This seasoned celebrity gossip news aggregator might have to sit down for a while. I wonder if at any point Kate leaned in close and whispered in Tarjei's ear, "Isn't it fun to be a phenomenon?" That would make sense. And maybe William asked Tarjei, "I've always wondered: what's it like to bugger a chap?" These are things that could have happened! Because the royals met Skam, and now the seventh seal is open. (In a good way. It's all finally almost over!)
As if the world weren't sweet and generous enough, embedded in People magazine's write-up of this historic event is an adorable little detail involving a real-life Norwegian teen:
[Kate] also spoke with 19-year-old Shaun Ondo and his friend Alfred Strande, 18. "I told her that her coat was burgundy and she said I had very good English," Ondo says. "It was nice to see them in real life and nice to see they are such friendly people."
Shaun!! Pickin' up on the burgundy coat! I hate to be a stereotyper, but a Norwegian teen boy who learns "burgundy" as one of his English words, and brings it up to the Duchess of Cambridge, has me wondering if Alfred is really just a friend of Shaun's. Could a real-life Isak/Even be playing out as we speak, right in the halls of the Skam school?? Oh heavens, I may faint. The main story sent me reeling, and then People went and added Shaun Ondo and his special friend, Alfred, waxing on about a burgundy coat worn by a future queen. Life is capable of such magic, isn't it?
Now all I ask is that all these fabulous people take this show on the road. William and Kate and Tarjei should travel the world, doing a tour that really could just be them standing on a stage and saying, "Hello, we've met each other," and that's it. I'd pay several pounds sterling to see that. And, hell, bring Shaun and Alfred along too. "Are we dating? Who is to know," they would say into a feedback-y mic in their Norwegian accents. And then the night's over and you spend a few thousand krone at the merch table (everyone will be so jealous of your "Shalfred 4 Eva" hoodie) and go home satisfied. What I'm saying is that everyone involved should find a way to bottle and sell the way this story has made me feel, all the giddy elation and—absolutely this is a part of it too—lonely pangs I experienced when I found out that my beloved royals commingled with my deeply cherished Skam.
Until they figure out how to commodify that, we'll just have to coast on the sensation, on this first blush, as long as we can. I'll tromp back into the ho-hum realm of Jennifer Garner's chicken and Brad Pitt's Subway sandwiches, and it will be a pleasant enough existence. But I will know, and I will hopefully be sustained by this knowledge, that more wondrous things are possible. That Kate Middleton—or any royal—and Tarjei Sandvik Moe—or any Skammer—can shake hands and talk about things, that Shaun Ondo and his possibly very serious boyfriend, Alfred, can look on, and the world can swirl around them all, the moment heavy with the happy gravity of a truly great thing happening.
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