When I coined the phrase OpenVerse, I wasn’t talking about giant IP machines or top-down fandoms. I meant the informal communities that already exist—loyal, passionate, self-sustaining—but fragmented and under-monetized. And the pattern is clear: once you harness an OpenVerse, it doesn’t just live online—it spills into gatherings, festivals, and conventions, where fans embody their collective identity. That’s when the economic flywheel kicks in.
Which is why I lit up when my friend, producer Meta Valentic, called me with an obsession she couldn’t shake. She saw the biggest untapped OpenVerse hiding in plain sight: the Royals. The British Monarchy already functions like a global soap opera, feeding millions of fans and critics across books, podcasts, tabloids, TikTok, and prestige TV.
But as Meta put it, this Royal ecosystem is “a convention waiting to happen”—a cultural crown jewel no one has yet fully organized, monetized, or scaled.
What follows is Meta’s deep dive: first, a case study
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