Kate vs Meghan: TikTok community favours Kate Middleton over Meghan Markle

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are the most talked about royals on TikTok but the community seems to favour Kate Middleton over the Duchess.

A social media intelligence platform Hootsuite conducted research into audience attitudes to the two royal couples on TikTok on the request of Newsweek, revealing that the rise in negative commentary about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on the platform.

"Meghan and Harry are the most talked about couple on TikTok—but the conversation tends quite negative with most people being highly critical about their relationship," Social marketing specialist Eileen Kwok told Newsweek.

Kwok explained: "While #HarryAndMeghan has 5 million views under its hashtag, #WilliamAndKate has only 715K views.

"TikTokers are also comparing the couple, but have taken an even closer look at Meghan and Kate specifically—and they're taking 'sides'.

"The comment section for videos revolving around the royal family are heated with advocates and critics of their every move—from their behavior and fashion sense, to their looks and interactions."

Over a month period examined by Hootsuite, the number of posts were fairly equivalent for each royal standing at 6k for William, Harry and Meghan but 5k for Kate.

The Princes of Wales had the most views at 397k over this period, however, when overall data is taken into account the Duke of Sussex had the most posts (140k) and the most views (13 billion) followed by the Duchess (115k and 11 billion). 

Kate had 65k and 10 billion overall while William had 79k and 11 billion overall.

Hootsuite found that TikTok's search bar associated Kate with the keywords: "tennis," "rude," "paparazzi," and "coronation."

"The crowd on TikTok loves to compare the two but the overall consensus is that they seem to favor Kate."

The most liked for the search term "Kate Middleton" was a video from The Independent showing her attending Wimbledon. It was liked 620k times, though it is not a fan video.

TikTok associated King Charles III's eldest son William with the keywords "young, and Kate." 

Kwok said the future British King was captured "in a positive light on social media, with a lot of the videos calling out his dedication as a dad, his kindness towards strangers, his 'old money' style, and overall admiration for his relationship with Kate (a lot of fan videos about the couple are being made)."

The most liked video for the search term "Prince William" showed the Prince of Wales and his family arriving for the Royal International Air Tattoo on July 14. It was liked almost 200k times.

TikTok's search bar associated Harry with the keywords: "Meghan," "divorce," "court case" and "audiobook." The reference to divorce appears to relate to unfounded rumors the couple's marriage has broken down which a Newsweek fact check assessed as "false."

For Meghan, top keywords in the TikTok search bar were "divorce," "prince harry," "being rude," "narcissistic," and "awkward."

"The first video that popped up were clips 'exposing' Meghan of bad behavior. Other videos pointed to commenting on her looks (surgery speculations), her 'dark secrets,' before/after images, and her style (which is something the crowd on TikTok loves)."

Newsweek's research showed Meghan's two most-liked videos were positive but neither were fan videos. Both were posted by Ellen DeGeneres and were a throwback to a stunt they did together when the duchess was on her show back in 2021 (325k and 182k).