Fiona McCade: @QueenRania Pls don't mk yourself lk so daft ;)

Published on Monday 11 May 2009 19:33

ASHTON KUTCHER and Demi Moore are currently less well known for their stellar screen careers and May-to-December marriage than they are for their addiction to Twitter. They are ranked numbers four and six in the Top 20 of the social networking tool's most influential users and it's now legend that Susan Boyle broke America because Demi saw her on Ashton's Twitter feed and spread the word.

Twitter calls itself a social networking tool, but of celebs use it primarily as a self-promotion tool. A quick glance at the Top 100 celebrity Twitters immediately reveals a typical demographic. A significant percentage is child-free; they evidently have lots of time on their hands, perhaps because they don't have much of a life outside the fame bubble; and they are often desperately needy, insecure, publicity-obsessed saddos. (Step forward Russell Brand, to instantly and manifestly prove my point.)

Occasionally, you get someone whom you just know wouldn't be there if they didn't have to be, but they feel it's necessary to get wid da kidz (yes, I mean you, Barack), but even this doesn't explain what the heck Queen Rania of Jordan was thinking last week when she joined Twitter.

Rania has a job for life. She doesn't have to worry about falling ratings, losing elections, or reminding people she exists. Until now, she's done extremely well at being taken seriously as a Royal With Something To Say. She does regular twirls on the world stage, exuding a perfect combination of intelligence, dedication and glamour and generally impressing everybody. She's a liberated woman living successfully in the Middle East – no mean feat – and she's become a role model because of it. She champions worthy causes and does the royal-mystique-meets-social-conscience thing way better than Diana ever did. If Diana were still around, she'd probably be Twittering away like Tweety Pie on Red Bull, but Rania? What's in it for her?

For the first time ever, I think Queen Rania has put a foot wrong. She's always kept up with the Zeitgeist, and that's admirable, but within the confines of her numerous public appearances and her website, she's always had control. The problem with Twitter is that to be in any way entertaining, it needs to be instant, spontaneous and unconsidered. Rania is royal, so she isn't able to be that. And by their very nature of being instant, spontaneous and unconsidered, tweets always show who's really smart, hip and on-the-ball, and who isn't. And Rania isn't able to be that, either.

The world is woefully short of clever royals. Until she started tweeting, Her Majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (QueenRania to her fellow Twitters) had passed for one, but not any more. Calling herself "a mum and a wife with a really cool day job", she summed up the head of the Catholic Church's first visit to an Arab country as: "Special day here in Amman; not everyday pope drop s by 4 a visit" (sic). As for entertainment: "Wknd begins for us, watching Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Glad I'm not single. It's vicious out there!" Knowing she watches Matthew McConaughey films already makes me think less of her, but not so much as the three cringeworthy references in four days to her husband being an "action man". Did he tell her to write that? Is she maybe not as emancipated as we thought?

It would be so much better for Rania if her Twitter feed was exposed as a fake and it turned out to have been written by a 12-year-old High School Musical fan in Illinois. I'd believe it. Many public figures have had this happen to them and if I were her, I'd be less ashamed if the world read: "Servant buckled when i used it 4 footstool. Cant get staff these days" or "Wotz best – diamond heels or solid gold flats? Help!" than her genuine, gobsmackingly clichd thoughts on raising royal children: "Always wanted 2 give them 'normal' upbringing free of pomp and protocol. Kinda wish they'd get with the protocol now! Fingers crossed!" The royal family as Jordan's answer to The Simpsons? I don't think so.

Queen Rania doesn't need Twitter. She's no here-today-gone-tomorrow celeb who's frantic to maintain some sort of public profile. Her destiny is of a loftier sort. But precisely because she's not a here-today-gone-tomorrow celeb, her words will be recorded for the history books.

So if she wants to be remembered as a woman of substance, she mite want 2 give that a bit more thought.