When You Have Everything But Friends, Why Not Buy Some?

[randomness]

Richard Kirshenbaum has been getting some attention for his piece Paid Friends: Weary of Genuine Relationships, Rich New Yorkers Hire Stand-Ins

Illustrations by Ivan Brunetti.
Sycophants have existed as long as there have been rich and powerful people, of course. This is a modern version.

A woman on her ex-husband's paid friends:

“When we first started dating, I was annoyed that so many people were always around. But I learned that powerful men all have posses.”

...

“I think many really successful men don’t actually have time for real friends. Their old friends are either resentful or bitter or ask for money, and the new friends are often competitive. In my opinion, very rich men have paid friends as an expensive filter, because they can control them. They love to manipulate everyone.”

...

“Look, let’s be real. If he didn’t have any money, he’d be sitting all alone in his apartment with a container of Häagan-Dazs and a bottle of vodka.”

A guy about his entourage:

“Once you’ve had paid friends who don’t argue with you, it’s actually quite hard to go back to real friends.”

All anecdotal, of course, though it did remind me of the old saying about DC: "If you want a friend in this town, get a dog."

Evidently there are people for whom that plan isn't enough.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I read part of that and started to wonder if I was being trolled by the author.

(not that I don't think sycophants and hangers on are a thing - of course they are, but the level of weird details like the brand name-dropping, overly *something* descriptions, and something about the prose just strike me as someone fucking with me by exaggerating/embelishing.)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

FWIW, despite the florid writing it rings pretty true to me, though I'm tempted to call it "paid family" instead of "paid friends".

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't actually think the florid writing was at all out of place in the Observer.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I think that's the New York Observer more than anything else. As achinhibitor points out, the Observer is "for the class of people who have paid friends", so that kind of name-dropping description is there for credibility.

The society section of the Times and the Post also has some of that, in a slightly attenuated form.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test covers a bunch of the same ground and is an interesting read.

...and yeah, they all seem to have dogs.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I'm always surprised when famous people have cats because I kind of expect them to have dogs because dogs are devoted in that way I assume a famous person would want.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Har. There have been "parasites" since forever.

I'm also amused that it showed up in the New York Observer, which seems to be the magazine for the class of people who have paid friends.

Of the people in the story, there seems to be a shortage of Old Money. But I suppose that old money people have actual friends, people they went to prep school with and an infinite network of old money relatives.

Also, having an entourage in train shows other people that you're rich.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'm also amused that it showed up in the New York Observer, which seems to be the magazine for the class of people who have paid friends.

Where better, really.

But I suppose that old money people have actual friends, people they went to prep school with and an infinite network of old money relatives.

I think the story here is about people who cannot distinguish between staff and friends, or who would like to be able to have their staff stand in for friends. Old money tends to have experience with the failure modes of this approach.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining a different version of those cute little pictures, where rich guy Tony Technology has friends like Bruce Biochem, Steve Super-Soldier, Professional Pepper, Just-In-Time JARVIS, [I haven't thought of one for Thor yet, help?], Ninja Natasha, Crafty Clint (knitted arrow cozies!), etc etc etc.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

And what's up with the cartoon images? Most of them depict people who are doing a job.

That's exactly the point of the article. The "paid friends" mentioned in the article are actually service staff of one kind or another, doing a job. It's the rich people who seem to have confused them with friends, or are demanding additional services from them.

As I said, sycophants have existed as long as there have been rich and powerful people, but this particular current form has an article written about it.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Mocking stupid rich people while false-teaming with the reader?

I can't speak to authorial intent, as I have no knowledge of the guy beyond what he's written, but judging from some responses I think that was the actual effect. (There was another link I'd add but Facebook is being unhelpful.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I do recall near-cringing service at fancy lodgings once; there was some very minor thing wrong/missing that they fixed immediately while seeming braced for us to flip out. We figured the staff were accustomed to calming entitled jackwagons and didn't know how to dial it back.

I have had it explained to me that part of the price of fancy lodgings (and other similar services) is the cost of the cringing service. Entitled jackwagons pay for and expect that.

It's been put differently, but that's what it amounts to.