What’s in a name? A lot says Instagram user @sussexroyal

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan recently joined Instagram, a social media. The company allocated the username @sussexroyal to the two, which gained over a million ‘followers,’ within six hours of being activated.

While several eager royal fans thronged to the account and started following it, a driving instructor from Worthing, UK was flattered but annoyed at the same time, says a BBC report. Kevin Keiley, 55 had been using the handle @sussexroyal to post about his love of Reading Football club and his home county of Sussex for around three years.

Keiley was in for a surprise when he found that his handle had been allocated to the Royals without prior notice. However, Instagram says his handle was changed to “prevent digital squatting”. Keiley realised that his username had been revoked when he received a text from his son, joking about the situation.

Following the text, he checked his Instagram account to find that his handle had been renamed to @_sussexroyal_ from @sussexroyal. Even though Keiley had few followers and posted seldom, he was disappointed at not being contacted or informed about the username being taken over.

Keiley who uses the same handle on Twitter says he has witnessed a sudden spike in his follower base that shot up to 198 from just four, in about 24 hours’ time. He says that his phone has been constantly ringing and that he has been receiving rude messages from trolls.