NEW YORK: "I'm probably going to continue to cry at how happy I am for Kate and her growing family as well as hysterically scream from the thought that actually she has another baby now."
This is how Jasmine, a 19-year-old university student, describes her feelings about the impending birth of the next royal baby.
She's a big fan of the Duchess of Cambridge ("her personality is truly genuine"), baby Prince George, and the whole British royal family, to say the least.
"If it's a girl I would really love Alexandra, Amelia Sophia, Charlotte, Alice or Caroline…" she tells Fairfax Media via email. "For a boy I would love John, Nicholas, Thomas or James (even though Kate's brother has already taken it). "
But Jasmine is no loyal subject of the Crown. She's not British, or even from a Commonwealth country like Australia. She's an American, from Houston, Texas, and one of many people from this staunchly republican nation who view the British royal family with a fondness that ranges from warm curiosity to outright admiration.
"As we all go completely insane, waiting, waiting, waiting for the arrival of the royal baby this week," Vanity Fair gushed this week, in one of a slew of articles and TV segments in the United States anticipating the birth of the Duchess of Cambridge's next child, reportedly due in "late April". On Tumblr and Twitter, young American fans like Jasmine, who runs the Twitter account @RoyallyKate, are in a virtual frenzy.
It would be easy to dismiss the American fascination with Kate and her newest sprog as simply an extension of the country's celebrity-mad culture, with the Windsors in the same company as the Kardashian and Jolie-Pitt clans.
But many contend there is more to this captivation, which pre-dates the current crop of telegenic young royals, or even the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
Royals from Prince Albert Edward in 1860 to King George VI in 1939 have been greeted with warm enthusiasm by Americans and their media on royal visits.
"We lack historical perspective on this issue," Professor Arianne Chernock, an American historian who specialises in British history, tells Fairfax Media.
"We forget that in 1838, New Yorkers and many people across the states were equally enthusiastic, given the media available at the time, about Queen Victoria's coronation."
That America could fight a bloody war for its independence from Britain but still hold the royal family in fond regard has been a longstanding contradiction in its culture.
"Many revolutionaries, not all, distinguished between the monarchy on one hand and the parliament on the other," says Professor Chernock.
"I dont think that Americans wish that they'd made different choices, back in the 1770s - that's definitely not what I'm suggesting. It's just with that decision, Americans gave many things up, some of which they had more ambivalence, I guess, about saying goodbye to."
While a close relationship between the two countries has endured as geopolitical necessity, Americans have been able to view the royals from a comfortable distance.
Less precarious than the public's relationship with most celebrities, whose image is in flux with every movie or ill-thought Tweet, or politicians, who we expect to deliver tangible results, the royals can be viewed from this side of the Atlantic with a warm, uncomplicated romanticism.
"I think it's fair to say that the American people are quite fond of the royal family," US President Barack Obama remarked to Prince Charles on a recent visit.
"They like them better than they like their own politicians."
For Jasmine, the pageantry of the royals, combined with the personal allure of figures like Diana and Kate, lies at the heart of the appeal.
"I think what makes Americans so fond of the royals is that first and foremost, we don't quite have that kind of 'pomp and circumstance' here," she says.
"They're like the real royals that we watch in our animated films and read in our Disney and Golden books as children, and then suddenly, there they are in real life Technicolour."
While royal fever burns up in Australia too, especially around a royal birth, marriage or visit, it's not hard to find dissenting voices in public life, from those eager to see the country become a republic.
There is deep cynicism and weariness among a large part of the population about having an unelected foreigner as the head of state. With every royal birth, there is another person who is in line for a powerful public role that no Australian can aspire to.
"Americans can enjoy the spectacle of monarchy because its not theirs," says Professor Chernock.
"They're part of this tradition like Australia, yet they've removed themselves entirely from a political complex."
Not everyone in America is cheering, of course. Like Australia, or Britain, there are quiet masses who find the spectacle baffling at best and tedious at worst.
That antipathy was personified perhaps best this week by another beloved British cultural import to the United States, comedian John Oliver.
"I don't care," the TV host remarked drily to the New York Post this week, when asked for feelings about the birth of the next little Prince or Princess.
"I think people around the world care more about royal babies than British people do. It's one of the only things we produce of international value any more."
