quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

We Shall Over-Easy

that one actually sounds like the name of a brunch place

kudos

Ralph Brunch

On the Brant Bros:

“Everybody loves celebrity children,” said Stephanie Trong, the editorial director of The Cut. “But perhaps the biggest appeal is that these guys live in the lap of luxury and they’re extremely open about their exploits. How many teens go to couture shows or fashion parties, much less document them on their joint Twitter feed, in such a hilarious, uncensored way?”

The Brants have almost 70,000 Twitter followers, a fraction of whom appear to be their age.

“Most of my tweets happen between 1 and 5 in the morning,” Harry said. “I’m a night owl, and random thoughts pop into my head. I’ll be watching ‘Mommie Dearest,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, my God, Joan Crawford is amazing.’ ”

This sets off a film tangent.

“ ‘Cocktail’ is the best movie of all time,” Peter said.

“You hate ‘Troop Beverly Hills,’ but you love ‘Cocktail?’ ” Harry countered. “You are a tacky European man!”

But this was a brief low-culture aside. For a teenager, Peter Brant can sound like a been-there-done-that dowager countess, not that his Old World pretensions aren’t refreshing in the Internet age.

“I’m interested in 18th-century furniture, late-19th-century art, the Arts and Crafts movement and history of the mid- to late-19th century,” he said. “I bounce around a lot, but I usually stick with the same three centuries.”

Harry has similarly lofty passions. “I become obsessed with things like DNA or old Valentino shows or the Qing dynasty,” he said. “I have a love of opulence.”

"news"

I’ll be watching ‘Mommie Dearest,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, my God, Joan Crawford is amazing.’

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QK-RRQn4E-U/T0mBPUNiffI/AAAAAAAACIQ/gIKodVmrWGc/s1600/deep%2Bthoughts.png

spoiled brants

Gawker really tore that article apart.

ugh that gawker article was good but they did this five months ago http://gawker.com/5881065/the-brant-brothers-the-worlds-luckiest-teenage-homosexuals

ha, good catch

I guess I feel like there is this small, ultra-rarefied group of people who finds that sort of stuff interesting, for whom the word "socialite" actually even means anything, and that those people should just have a private newsletter or something and stop taking up valuable internet space on sites The Rest Of Us read.

it's called the New York Observer iirc

that thought crossed my mind

Unfair, the New York Observer is a 1000x better read than Sunday Styles.

that's very true

Fuck me, that Brant brothers piece. In summary: "These people are rich and therefore better than you." And they're not even as bad as the bottom-feeders trailing behind them in the purgatorial demi-monde of the NYC fashion blog world. The writer could find good work as a dictator's official biographer.

http://img1.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/h/9/h923fbuydy1jdy1f.jpg

http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/e/6/e6aj7ejvdc8wdv87.jpg

i kinda wanna read those livesaving butler tips

for example, how do i organize my enormous diamond collection? i'd wear my new diamond-coated pants if i could pick them out from all of the other diamond-coated pants

T&C's take on celebrity is so weird. Sure, you're an attractive, talented actress in a critically acclaimed hit movie but if you didn't go to the right school than fuck you. It's like a parallel universe.

"AWKWARD! When Your Neighbor's Art Collection Makes You Blush" is A+

that's some downton abbey shit

decent taste in cover women

my favorite thing about the brant piece was that naturally it was written by a reporter with the word "van" in his name

man i really do not miss moylan's gawker posts

Trying to figure out if Town & Country is aimed at aspirational upper middle class, aspirational nouveau riche, or actual old money. It's hard to believe legit old money would have a glossy magazine about being old money, but IDK.

"The Rich & The Recession: What They Can't Afford Anymore" kind of suggests the first option.

i think its for all those people. half of that magazine is party pictures from aspen or florida or wherever people go for fancy balls. i think for some people its like the nyt wedding thing. get your picture in T&C at the charity ball and you've made it somehow.

Today, the magazine is published monthly, and its readership is composed of mainly younger socialites, café society, and middle class professionals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_%26_Country_(magazine)

Is the art-collection-related blushing due to bad taste, superiority, or obscene content?

Like are you supposed to have been embarrassed by

(a) a bad painting of sailboats
(b) a Charles Ray sculpture of a gay orgy consisting of Charles Ray clones
or
(c) a bunch of expensive Damien Hirst bullshit

haven't we banged this out before? there's no real old money tbh

why did i say "tbh", meant "anymore"

there are still some royal families iirc

do gettys and hearsts not count?

Rothschilds, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers still have mad cash, right?

pretty sure I've personally met people who qualify as old money - I mean how many generations back does it have to go. 18th century? 17th?

IMO "old money" now just means being rich is an established way of life in your family. So I guess if you're like third generation super-rich that would count? Maybe it's analogous to immigrants -- the first generation will never fool anyone, the second generation badly wants to fit in, the third generation has roots.

http://www.socialregisteronline.com/#!__questions

The Treat Rotunda at the New England Historic Genealogical Society on Newbury Street in Boston was the setting for a reception celebrating the publication in October 2011 of the first genealogical treatment of the Lowell family of Boston in more than a century. Among the family members present were Mr. John L. Thorndike (who spoke about the genesis of the project); Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Stone (Cassandra S. Reeve); Mrs. Standish Bradford Jr. (Brigitte Pullerdt); Mr. and Mrs. Francis V. Lloyd 3d (Lida L. Thompson); and Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Byron Waud (Corinna Roosevelt Reeve). The Society’s president and CEO, D. Brenton Simons, and co-author Scott C. Steward were among the other speakers

Is the art-collection-related blushing due to bad taste, superiority, or obscene content?

Super curious about this and not finding anything informative about it online. Almost curious enough to see if the public library subscribes to T&C.

An interesting dead end:

http://i.imgur.com/RFMND.jpg

http://www.townandcountrymagazine.com.au/
Wagga Wagga News, sport and weather

haven't we banged this out before? there's no real old money tbh

this is prob objectively true but you'd be hard pressed to convince some people I know in new England of this

my aunt could be considered NE "old money", I guess ... ancestor invented some goofy Yale tradition, last living heiress of an old family worth tons o money. waspy nickname as everyday name. she's pretty cool, lives and acts pretty humbly, you'd never tell.

i come from an old waspy new england family but the money was long gone by the time i was born. and i didn't grow up like that. my grandfather did. and my father and his sisters to some extent. i always enjoyed meeting cousins and great aunts and uncles who had edith wharton accents. my grandmother talked like that. they were from another world. kinda hard to relate to them in a lot of ways. but i think whatever manners i have come from those people. and, of course, my natural sense of superiority.

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild

she married into that name. and made her fortune in the 90s!

my father theorizes our surname is an assumed one, as we were probably horse thieves in the old world and went into hiding

you guys missed a great one!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/fashion/the-midwife-becomes-a-status-symbol-for-the-hip.html?_r=2