A Bite Off The Upper Crust - photographs by Bruce Weber

I’ve mentioned before that Vanity Fair is masturbation for middle class social climbers. The same way some kids watch The Hills or Gossip Girl and see a lifestyle they aspire to, adults (and kids) see a world they wish they were a part of in the pages of the magazine. The painful truth is that even if most people could somehow achieve the lifestyle they see in VF, they’ll be generations removed from the joie de’vivre exhibited (such as in this photo series) and unable to enjoy it themselves. They’ll [honourably?] try to give their children all of the things they never had, which almost always results in over-entitled first-generation rich-kid assholes.

Most of my friends fall into these groups - the ones who save for a month to get nose-bleed seats at a Lakers game and the ones who sit court-side at the championships, BBMing through their boredom about what clubs they’ll go to later, who’s in and out of rehab, what actor or rockstar is staying in their guest house… Some that decorate their walls with pages of Vogue, writing about their favorite designers and picking out their dream dresses, and others who sit front row with Marc Jacobs at his runways, still BBMing, with closets full of De La Renta and Hermes and vintage YSL that they treat like dirty laundry. I used to walk past Katsuya in Brentwood quite often and I would think the same thing, that some people wait for an anniversary or graduation or some occasion and make going out an event, but on any given day the majority of eaters are young kids who can barely stand to be there, and can’t even taste the few nibbles of food they take over the coke or vallium in their systems.

I feel empathy for both, but I’m grateful that I was raised with virtually nothing because it’s jaded me in a way that I appreciate the amazing things I get to be a part of without fetishizing those other passing things that were outside of my reach.