When I was about 10 years old, my school's headmaster called my entire year in for an assembly about "being responsible on the internet". We had all recently gained access to Hotmail, you see, and our juvenile brains had melted when our first attempts at creating email handles were rejected. "Peter@hotmail.com is already taken, eh? You want something completely unique, you say? Challenge accepted."
Cue our headmaster, in his dog collar, reading out some of the most egregious examples and demanding we claim them.
"Who is Raging_Pillock?"
"Who is FelchMuncher?"
"Who is LongDongSilver69?"
Sheepish hands raised, stifled guffaws from the boys surrounding them, then a stiff dressing down on why pre-teens probably shouldn't name themselves like members of 4chan.
Fortunately for me and my classmates, those early digital missteps were never captured and shared in a bestselling, tell-all book. So pity poor Prince Harry, whose deeply cringe secret Instagram handle has been leaked in Finding Freedom, the new biography of Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship (can a relationship have a biography? If it achieves sentience, could it write an autobiography?)
According to its authors, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, in 2016 Meghan started following "a mysterious-looking Instagram account by the name of @SpikeyMau5", not long after her first visits to London for a series of secret dates. Innocuous enough, you might say. But to those in the know, the moniker and the mouse-shaped helmet in its profile picture – both nods to DJ producer Deadmau5 – were inspired by Harry's love of EDM. As for the first half, "'Spike' was a nickname sometimes used for the prince, particularly by Scotland Yard officers."
A quick scan reveals a handful more SpikeyMau5 accounts on the internet, including this Soundcloud, complete with Union Jack profile picture and lots and lots (and lots) of mediocre deep house remixes. What are the odds that, somewhere out there, there's a Macbook hard drive full of Harry's amateur edits of Cascada tunes. Reach for the laser, your highness.
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