After the invasion of Ukraine, when the United States targeted the Russian oligarchy, the trail of assets continued to lead to our own backyard. Our country not only became a haven for shady foreign funds, it also cultivated a familiar class of billionaires who own yachts, control industries, and extract resources. His January 2024 and February 2024 issues of our magazine explore the rise of America's oligarchy and what it means for the rest of us. You can read all the pieces here.
I'll give it to the Kardashians. So much for this: There's nothing more relatable than fighting with your sister because she stole your favorite dress.
For the past 16 years, the Kardashian-Jenner couple has been making money out of the turmoil of their private lives through their Hulu service. kardashian family And its spiritual predecessor was E!, Keep up with the Kardashians. More than just celebrities, the KarJenners are our most ubiquitous cultural oligarchs, reaching into the stratosphere of wealth, pop culture supremacy, and political influence. More than a reality star. Kendall is furious that Kylie took away the brown dress Kourtney wanted, and Khloe is upset that Kourtney made fun of the color of the patio furniture cover. But in the third season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which aired last summer, it was Kim and Kourtney who had a months-long argument.
Courtney, the eldest of the family, married Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker in 2022, achieving something many women born at the cusp of the '80s once dreamed of. Her wedding took place in Portofino, Italy, and featured several Dolce & Gabbana-designed outfits, including a black veil, corset-top minidress, bejeweled crucifix, and draped fabric. A few months later, younger son Kim curated a collection for Dolce & Gabbana. The atmosphere of the collection and the atmosphere between the sisters was terrible. “You're just copying my wedding,” Kourtney cried to her Kendall, her shirt sleeve wet with tears.
As expected, Kim fired back. In a horribly fabricated confessional interview on TikTok, Kim took a deep breath as if he were trying to rewrite the Constitution. “I got married in Italy. Are you trying to say you got married in Italy and copied me? Who performed at my wedding? Andrea Boccelli. He performed at Courtney's wedding. Who's that? Andrea Boccelli,” she said, referring to her 2014 wedding to Kanye West, which definitely went well and we never hear about it again. “You stole my wedding country and wedding performer…but am I copying her Dolce Vita lifestyle?” Kim dresses like Lucius Malfoy in drag And I said all this while sitting in what can only be described as a rich man's valley. The room is undecorated, with only clean, ecru-colored walls, and it's the type of room that only rich people can make ugly.
But the cultural oligarchy just does things differently than we do, and what better symbol of true wealth than fighting with your sister over who gets to have a lavish Italian wedding first? Oligarchies, like your garden, use wealth to maintain power. The KarJenners have created a unique power by forcing us to look at them for the better part of two decades. And the banality of their problems has proven to be some of the most compelling parts of reality TV, especially when those problems are the kind that only the wealthy can have. Masu.
Within a certain subsection of reality TV, that is, shows designed to aspire rather than to be rebellious, how stupid the problems are, how insignificant they are, and how quickly they can be solved. proves wealth. Most fights fall exactly into this category. I mean, unless you're stupidly rich, you're too stupid to care, in which case it's the only shit worth caring about. “More money means more problems” has always been a stupid adage. In reality, the more money you have, the smaller the problem becomes. Wealthy people are lucky in many ways, but one of the most important is that they are able to care about the things that don't matter.
Kim and Kourtney aren't exactly archetypes. 2002 and he goes back to 2003. osbornes and simple life and Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica When it first aired on Fox and MTV, TV producers realized that watching rich and envious people could be even more addicting than watching poor people bicker on another season. . police officer. Nick Lachey, a former boy band member and current reality TV host, and his then-wife, pop star Jessica Simpson, were rich, famous, young and beautiful, and over the course of three seasons, they learned how to stay active. I could see them talking about it. laundry.
Their attempts to appear realistic did not fool us. Even though the laundry in question was a $1,400 set of sheets, their argument, while stupid, was inconsequential.But it was MTV My Super Sweet 16 This showed that even the extremely wealthy can become insecure about their wealth. The show first aired in 2005, at a time when many Americans were in horrendous debt. , which showed how they threw an expensive and hugely extravagant 16th birthday party just for themselves.
The fun of the show wasn't watching the well-behaved little cuties cheerfully accept the four-tiered cake and express their gratitude for the blessing.No: my super sweet 16 It saw Hellion wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit throw a fit over a party invitation. Are you crying because your mom bought you a brand new Lexus convertible and then gave it to you the day before your six-figure birthday party? When she lost her $75,000 diamond earrings at a luxury resort, she tried to calm herself down by saying, “Kim, someone's dying.''
But with income inequality increasing rapidly over the past 30 years, why isn't it made more apparent on reality TV? We were given two ways to observe. One is how we can ridicule how foolish and pathetic their plight is, and the other is how we can admire the contours of their luxurious lives. It’s a fleeting panacea for our own excitement that it’s okay to be alive, even if it’s nothing more than self-loathing.
bravo's real housewife The series essentially consists of stupid brawls that blow up a group of ultra-wealthy, mostly white women friends who are happily oblivious to the events of the hoi polloi. The best part of watching an episode of Housewives is taking sides in a battle where there are really no winners.This season is real housewives of salt lake cityLisa Barlow, a Mormon tequila saleswoman, spent several episodes complaining about losing her $60,000 diamond baguette ring on a flight to Palm Springs, and just before that, she said she was spending $60,000 a year on wanderings. She cried because she didn't want to participate in a drag makeup contest because she was spending so much money. She claims to be glam team and not let others make her face.
An odd choice since most of the Housewives want to be seen as relatable, but their most outrageous acts are what make us want to watch them in the first place. And of course they're really bad at it. Lisa's best attempt at friendliness ends when her ring, worth almost three times as much as my perfectly usable Canadian alma mater's degree, ends up in a tampon dumpster at a public airport. I was crying because it might have happened. Frankly, it's impressive. (A close second came from new cast member Monica Garcia, who cried about buying a Louis Vuitton bag just to fit in with her new rich friends.) 4,000 Don't you hate buying dollar bags? Do it!!!)
These arguments are rarely directly related to their wealth, but the more ridiculous they are, the more their wealth subtly supports what they can waste their time on. Like money, time and energy are finite resources for most people, but the more money you have, the more time you have to yell at your friends on some island and drink another martini. If you do so, the camera will start following you. .
When Dorinda Medley and Bethenny Frankel fought in season 10 real housewives of new york, The ostensible reason was that Dorinda received a gift from Bethenny's daughter and wasn't thanked enough. The gift was a sold-out human-sized nutcracker from FAO Schwarz. (No one knows how much it will cost, but FAO is currently selling a 20-inch version covered in Swarovski crystals for $5,600.) That's an easy purchase unless you're very rich. It is the kind of gift that cannot be purchased otherwise. Track whether you have the kind of free time that wealth gives you in the first place.
But this is another benefit, or perhaps one of the key tragedies, of being part of the 1%. Your problem becomes more and more ridiculous until you don't even see its own ridiculousness anymore. For the wealthy in these fights, the outcome is crucial. No one can just let something go.
It provides something for the rest of us, the commoners who tune in to watch the conflict. For a little while each week, we get to cosplay as someone who is rich and has no restrictions. Sure, we look at it with disgust, but even though we almost feel sick, we can't help but lust after the lifestyle, like when we lick an active canker sore in our mouths with our tongues. There is also a perverted joy.
When Mary Fitzgerald stands on her head Selling Sunset Season 4 will have viewers choose sides and pledge their allegiance after Christine Quinn's dog's birthday party goes awry, with the biggest question including the words “dog birthday party” You will live through the characters. “She's always in charge of everything,” Fitzgerald says when Quinn shows up at a party she throws for her dogs. “This is my dogs' party. It's not about me. It's the dogs.”
As viewers, we can put ourselves in her shoes for a moment. If I'm rich enough to throw a poolside party for my dog, with signature cocktails and a fat Netflix check, what if that party is ruined by a leggy blonde? How angry would you be?
women of Selling Sunset They're pretty wealthy themselves, but it's all the more exciting to see them cater to the obscenely rich, just like Bravo's solidly middle-class cast members. below deck or vanderpump rules. The pinnacle of success on a show like this is achieving notoriety and becoming firmly wealthy yourself. Young people in their 30s who went bankrupt vanderpump rules They're now in their 40s and wealthy enough to fight at a pool party where all their alcoholic friends are forced to pick sides.
Either way, there's something very appealing about being rich and angry at the same time, and seeing rich people just as miserable and anxious as everyone else. There's something calming about it. In fact, who among us would want to watch these shows, the Great Unwashed, if the people on them weren't so grumpy? There is nothing schadenfreude about seeing the wealthy happy. We should be angry at their perverse flaunts of wealth, but just thinking about how much money Khloe Kardashian spends on balloon arches for her children's birthday parties makes me cringe. I'm thirsty. But instead we laugh at them. It's a kind of vaccination for both parties. Laughter helps take the pain out of the huge wealth inequalities that are going on, and we get by without taking any real responsibility.
And for people like Kim Kardashian and Lisa Barlow, these issues are pretty much the only ones. Caring passionately about something that doesn't matter, like your dog's birthday party, is a signal that your wealth will take you into the stratosphere that others will never have access to. You don't have to worry about the things that people like me worry about. I'm at risk of losing my health insurance, while Kim and Kourtney are at each other's throats trying to coordinate the schedule for the annual Kardashian Christmas card.
But in that respect, rich people are just like us. They too are wasting their time fighting with their sister. They just don't happen to have credit card debt. And, look, if I don't have the means to undermine my brother through a multi-million dollar contract with a designer who has been repeatedly accused of racism, then I'm going to watch someone else fight the good fight. You better believe I'm going to tune in.
