Skip to Content Subscribe My Account Manage My Subscriptions FAQ Newsletters Canada Canadian True Crime Canadian Politics Health World Israel & Middle East Financial Post NP Comment Longreads Puzzmo Diversions Comics NP News Quiz New York Times Crossword Horoscopes Life Eating & Drinking Style Sponsored Play for Ontario Travel Travel Canada Travel USA Travel International Cruises Travel Essentials Culture Books Celebrity Movies Music Theatre Television Business Essentials Advice Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Buy Canadian Home Living Outdoor Living Kitchen & Dining Tech Style & Beauty Personal Care Entertainment & Hobbies Gift Guide Travel Guide Amazon Prime Day Deals Savings National Post Store More Sports Hockey Baseball Basketball Football Soccer Golf Tennis Driving Vehicle Research Reviews News Gear Guide Obituaries Place an Obituary Place an In Memoriam Classifieds Place an Ad Celebrations Working Business Ads Archives Healthing Epaper Manage Print Subscription Profile Settings My Subscriptions My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ Newsletters Canada World Financial Post NP Comment Longreads Puzzmo Diversions Life Shopping Epaper Manage Print Subscription HomeNP CommentJohn Robson: The New York Times' shameless celebration of debaucheryBoth ads and feature stories give glowing approval to grotesque, excessive consumptionLast updated 32 minutes ago Women walk towards luxury yachts at the harbour in Monaco next to the Circuit de Monaco, on May 25, 2018 ahead of the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix. Photo by ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty ImagesMy arguably obsessive files on the state of the world, a.k.a the mess we are in, include one labelled “You Have Mistaken Me For Someone Else,” as a repository for offers to curate this, moisturize that, and improve my “email deliverability.” It is evident that many people live in ways I could not emulate and do not wish to. And also that marketers have surprising trouble telling me from our libertine liberal elite.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorFor instance the moisturizer from the New York Times “Wirecutter,” a sometimes-useful guide to “lifestyle hacks” if I had a lifestyle or were into hacks. Instead they lost me at hello, a.k.a. “Do you need a different moisturizer for each season?” to which my response was “No, the tap works year round.” But evidently they had something different in mind. And someone different. As so often.The National Post newsletter that doesn’t hold back, giving readers the unvarnished truth on media, politics and culture.By signing up, you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Right? will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againI won’t dwell on the demoralizing offer to “Improve Your Chess Rating” that arrived right after achieving my lifetime peak. But hot off the presses here’s another Times item, Canadian-girl-makes-good, where “She Makes the Impossible Happen for Her Ultrarich Clients.” To mistake me for the ultrarich would take some doing. But it’s also weird that they thought I’d get a vicarious thrill from this debauchery. And that “they” were the New York Times.If you get the joke about the preacher who read the Bible and the Times every day to know what both sides were thinking, you’re aware that the “Grey Lady” is the sober, reputable voice of wacky woke liberalism. It favours DEI, loathes Donald Trump, and wants higher taxes, Net Zero, income redistribution, an anti-fun nanny state and blah blah blah progressive orthodoxy. Yet it also celebrates grotesque displays of hedonism among those whose rank and wealth bring privileges. And it’s no coincidence.I won’t wallow in the horrifying details. You have the Interwebs on your computer, your phone and possibly also your watch and can read it for yourself if you find high-flyers with pointless lives and huge bank accounts bathing in champagne alluring. As many people apparently do, since the influencer or whatever she is in question has some two million followers online and a contract for a “scripted series” to somehow push her over-the-top existence over another top or something.Suffice it to say that one featured event she created, or possibly curated, for a client evidently determined to prove money can’t buy class, involved spending six figures just on Dom Pérignon sprayed on party-goers by … um … sexy young women in revealing outfits. Not exactly Woke 1.0, is it? Or is it? Ideas are not random. As philosopher J. Budziszewski observes, people disinclined to obey natural law are inclined to deny its existence.The piece calls it “pointless excess” with apparent glee, revelling in the final cost of all this wasted high-tone booze, including “artisanal” tequila, being “$226,000 and change” and quoting the facilitator of this sinful display that “Honestly, (the client) would have spent more. But he got hit hard at the casino the night before.”Not hard enough, I say. (Cue the opening scene of Diamonds are Forever.) But the Times, and the entrepreneur, know their audience: nearly 3,000 people “paid anywhere from $1,500 to $25,000 for a table at the outdoor club” without even knowing the host. “But that hardly mattered. What the glossy strangers provided was an appropriately uproarious backdrop when the inevitable reels of the blowout would stream on social media.”So there was a point, hidden in plain sight: obscene excess that would have had Caligula talking like Cato the Elder. But surely the Times too should declare censoriously that the money could have been better spent on the homeless, the carbon footprint was the size of the Chicxulub crater and as ominous that Narcissism inhibits compassion and so on. Instead the piece is celebratory to the point of parody, chortling that our heroine “has flown to Paris to retrieve the largest croissant in that city to please the daughter of a Miami billionaire.” “Luxury Beliefs Go Wild” for your private public pleasure.If you’re wondering how the rich can roll about in cash and wasted luxury foodstuffs cackling in ways Marie Antoinette would have found disquieting while Times readers savour the frisson, consider that one of this panderer-to-conspicuous-consumption’s working mottos is, “Our job is to execute, not judge.” Voila. Non-judgementality gives you licence to bask in privileged excess while flaunting your social conscience. If you care to.Yet again, they appear to have mistaken me for someone else. I’d be out back hosing off the tequila with municipal moisturizer muttering “O Tempora O Mores.” But with a client list who “must fork over an annual fee of $100,000 and agree to book $1 million in yearly travel,” the mere planning of which would kill me, I don’t suppose they care.National Post Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.