I did not know that Saint Barts was a country until age 20, when some friends at my mid-tier Ivy League school flew to Saint Martin to kill time during covid. I joined one trip and learned about adjacent geographies. This year I'm here in Barts. Because some friends are here, because I say yes too easily, and because let's see what the fuss is about.
The fuss seems to be increasing. Specifically, a video of Jeff Bezos looking bored at Nikki Beach was the twitter topic du jour yesterday. Unclear why he wasn't at La Guérite for Rufus on Monday - at least get caught on camera at a fun club!
Maybe Bezos just doesn't enjoy being on TV. I bumped into them Monday evening walking out of Eden Rock and Jeff looked equally ready-to-get-the-fuck-out, but Lauren Sanchez was having a great time, reciprocating my fraternity arms-waving dance moves and saying hi for 1.5 seconds (I have no connection) before resuming a brusque dance-walk to the exit flanked by three white ex-military security guards.
Lauren films her own bottle service in the viral video. Which speaks to a meta-experience of a Big Show. In a culture obsessed with Kardashian doodad purchases, Succession and White Lotus episodes, and Elon Musk's pay packages, the elites are taking out their own phone cameras. They want to be on TV.
St Barts is certainly "the scene" in the way I came to understand in college. Show face at four parties per day and say hi to the same forty people you saw in St Tropez at the other four parties. Everyone cares where Leonardo Dicaprio is for some reason, despite also allegedly having some vague connection to him. And yet, the scene feels ubiquitous and media-fied now in a way that, as an online and low profile person, it didn't used to.
Or maybe I was just too poor to notice. But I don't remember Yacht Trackers going viral even 5 years ago. Simultaneously, Billionaire friends had more diverse New Years plans 5 years ago. The monoculture is eating itself through the phone screen, bordering on self parody. Michael Rubin is paying Meek Mill to do bunny hops so he can be cool by association with rappers. The rich and famous have converged into a soup, with one global destination per month. Performative Leisure.
Secondary cultural consequences of money or fame as the highest ethic, combined with power law content outcomes discussed in Megachurch Time bring this same power law convergence to lived experience. The campy aesthetic of "The Capital" in The Hunger Games feels analogous.
If you're always on TV, or you're annoyed that you're not on TV for the current episode, values, topics and characters converge. Lauren Sanchez is watching the world through a phone camera and instagram-verse, and the main stage is in Saint Barts this week, so she must Go.
There's more to write for the next sentence: Instagram female status games, eat the rich, etc. etc. Someone commented that posts I write in shorter timespans may lack depth of analysis. But I wrote this after leaving the club early, there's great weather tomorrow, and I think we're gonna surf. I crashed a vespa into the front of the Dolce and Gabana store this afternoon and my arm is a bit sore. Life's good. More analysis is left as an exercise for the reader. Happy New Year!