I came home from the show a few days ago and my wife was hanging on the couch playing with our daughter and had a show on in the background. I get through the door, kiss the girls and put my stuff down. The TV catches my eye and I see a show that is not usually on our screen. It’s just random people talking around a dinner table but no discernable main character.
Me: hey babe what’s this?
Jen: it’s Alix Earle’s new reality show.
Me: who?
Jen: Alix Earle, you don’t know her? She’s the Miami girl, well not Miami girl - she went to UM but is originally from Jersey and people call her a Miami girl even though we reject that as Miami girls. She’s huge online, dated Braxton Berrios and had a fling with Tom Brady recently.
Me: No idea. So it’s just following her around?
Jen: Yea basically, a carbon copy of the Kardashians but with her family.
Me: hmm
As I watched about 4 minutes of the show I had this crashing existential realization about the state of our world.
We love peasant slop.
My definition of ‘peasant slop’ is the endless digital stream on social media or TV of extreme wealth, excess and vanity repackaged as relatable entertainment and content for people who don't live anything remotely resembling that life.
Now let me stop you right here and tell you that this isn’t an ‘anti-rich’ article. complaining about rich people is lowest-tier loser shit.
What I can’t stand and am pushing back against is the faux relatability that the extremely rich and famous are trying to sell us. and guess what people - we’re buying it so fast they can’t keep it on the shelves.
I’m not against money or people who have it.
Let’s just stop the performance of ‘I’m just a regular person’ even though I live in a $5M house, have every material possession I could ever want and millions of people who tell me at every turn that I’m great, beautiful, handsome, amazing, funny, smart etc.
Flaunting wealth was the rocket ship of early social media - can you fake it until you make it enough that you actually make it and now have to fake it.
somewhere along the way we got wise to the game and they had to pivot from pure flaunting to something that would connect them to the peasant on the other side of the screen.
now the formula has turned into:
flaunt your excessive wealth, beauty, material possessions etc whatever it is that you peddle
acknowledge that you’re imperfect, that you’re fighting things just like everyone else and call it authenticity.
the difference is you’re telling me you’re overwhelmed from the pool house of your $8M house in the hills. you’re showing me how hard it is to balance life while a nanny takes care of your kids downstairs. Yea the world is upside down and everything is insane - I don’t need to hear your rant from a $175k G-Wagon about supporting green energy initiatives.
What I struggle with is that we’ve all fallen prey to this. Even I had a matrix-like awakening after a particular influencer [NAME REDACTED] I followed for a specific kind of content started posting peasant slop content. Look how perfect my life is, look how amazing my home on the water is, I eat at the best places in my city, money is no object. I do workouts while you’re sitting in traffic to go to your miserable job. I go to grab $15 coffees with my dog while your boss is breathing down your neck for those reports from the Penske file. Oh you have to drive back to your 1 bedroom apartment in 2 hour traffic and reheat Chinese food from 2 nights ago. SAD! It’s Tuesday and I’m getting drinks and oysters at Pastis!1 Everything is so manicured and intentionally made to look like something from Hollywood. I started letting comparison permeate through my subconscious and question my own life - I would see that and be like damn, I’m on the metro rail next to a bum smoking a blunt on the train (real thing that happened to me!) another guy tweaking on the phone screaming to someone on the phone to ‘don’t let me find you in Brickell cause I’m gonna crash out’ and the rest of the civilians packed in like sardines. ñoo the last thing that I need is to see your perfect life after a long day of work and 1,000 things on mind.
Comparison is the thief of joy - I have a great life and I had to remind myself that it doesn’t need to be photographed, monetized or validated by strangers to have significance. If I walk through the door after an hour and half commute home and my wife and daughter run up to me and give me a kiss and ask to go to the park and play on the swing, that’s worth more than any external validation from me posting a funny video or a good sports take.
I unfollowed.
Why are we consuming this? Because we’re fascinated by wealth. Because we have always wanted to peek behind the curtain. But social media has turned that curiosity into a 24/7 reality show where the audience gets none of the reality. We’re watching other people’s lives instead of living our own.
Give people aspiration. Give them envy. Give them outrage. Give them just enough vulnerability to make the whole thing feel authentic.
Then serve it again tomorrow.
Excess and the pursuit of it has become the new ‘normal’ standard by which everyone measures their own life. Where you live isn’t nice enough, the vacation you took wasn’t 5 star enough, how could your marriage be happy you never post each other on social media, you’re not ripped enough, you need to switch careers and make more money.
There’s billions of pieces of content that are vying for your eyeballs in an attention economy all full of excess and wealth - suddenly you feel inadequate because you’re comparing your life to someone else’s highlight reel of abundance disguised as authenticity.
Look, everyone is entitled to bad days no matter how much money, success and fame you may have. but let’s have a reality check - vulnerability is not a permission slip for vanity either knowingly or unknowingly.
go out and enjoy life, the social media elites frozen on the screen will be back dancing for your entertainment when you get back. and they’ll still be rich.
JBTN
-10Day
Editor's note: [NAME REDACTED] has never actually said any of these things. This is my editorialization of the vibe their page gives off for comedic effect. I'd actually respect the hustle more if they just said it outright.
Sucks that Greg Cote lost his job but it's funny (not funny like haha funny) that his firing and talking about Substack brought you back to write something. Keep going. I hope you get the rest of the DLS folk to write down their thoughts long form like you did today
This one got me in the bones… “those reports from the Penske file.”