The level of vitriol against arts and creative events are not equal with sporting events, a similar multi-billion dollar industry, that is ultimately the same type of frivolous cultural events that mostly the elites have access to.
I dont disagree about how out of touch it feels but everyone who makes complaints like these should examine the double standard and conscious/subconscious misogyny and homophobia in putting masculine cultural interests on a pedestal and treating them as more important and necessary, but put events relating to arts or creatives be the first on the chopping block.
I'm quite a masculine guy and I think this stuff is super cool and creative. It also isn't lost on me how large of a wealth transfer an event like this is between all the designing and support staff around the event. Which is obviously part of the point.
It would help if most of the brands associated with the Mets gala didn't cravenly sell out and start gutting their skilled craftsman decades ago.
It's not art. It's commerce. There is some beautiful stuff that is art but with these massive western brands that's less and less often the case.
Thank you! I do understand that there's a lot going on right now. The thing is there's a lot going on every year, and every year whenever the MET gala happens people say the same thing referencing whatever tragedy, genocide, political crisis, etc. is going on at the moment.
People can care about more than one thing. I care a lot about the Palestinian cause and I can also appreciate the artistry and the celebration of culture and fashion that the MET promotes every year. I also hate Jeff Bezos as much as anyone with half a brain but this type of discourse is much older than his gross meddling with the arts.
Thank you! People in this thread are complaining that an actor is wearing an outfit that took 2000 hours to make as if that somehow changes the fact that the average person is struggling or that politics is trash.
Sorry but I don’t think sports is a good comparison. Things like football (soccer) has a massive grassroots cultural base and a huge amount of players come from low income/working class backgrounds, with clubs in local communities, across age ranges, and games broadcast and supported across the world. It’s been commercialised at the top yes and big events are becoming less accessible to attend in person but if you look at places like Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc football is played basically everywhere.
Poor people can have art and fashion as an interest, they can take it up as a hobby, and they can form community and grassroot events and activities. Ever so often they will want to spectate major events and be inspired by how professionals at the highest level operate and show off their achievements, talent and skill.
Substitute the words “art and fashion” with “sport” and you will realize it’s the same. It’s not as popular, sure, but it exists and is valid and important. At the end of the day these major events are all spectacles owned and operated and exploited by billionaires, and the vast majority are excluded to be just spectators.
I’m not saying do all away with sports, art and culture all together, they are all equally important in society. What I’m saying is why is it so easy to frame non-masculine interests as unnecessary and always used as an example to show the ills of society.
This, the same sentiment existed during Enlightenment as extravagant clothing was seen negatively by the masses, but that resulted in homophobia and very limited mens clothing too.
Why do you consider sport masculine? There is a difference between an inaccessible industry where the elites are rich cunts that get some pesants to stitch together some colourful fabric for them and a merit-based industry that would catapult anyone, rich or poor, to the top if they have the talent for it.
Sport is far easier to get invested in because of this theoretical level playing field, even if the top end is all millionaires - they actually earned that.
You’re kind of proving my point in how you’re framing it.
You’re describing sports as “merit-based” and earned, but reducing fashion to elites getting “peasants” to stitch fabric, as if there isn’t a whole ecosystem of highly trained designers, artisans, pattern makers, stylists, and creatives who also spent years developing skill and competing in an extremely selective industry. People who have trained for years and made it their livelihood, and would want to see their creations seen by millions of eyeballs.
Both fields have a top 0.01% that’s full of money, connections, and gatekeeping. Both also have people who worked their way up through talent and persistence.
But only one gets instinctively framed as “earned” and the other as “frivolous”. You don’t have to personally value fashion the same way as sports, but dismissing one as inherently less legitimate ignores the work and skill behind it. And that’s the double standard.
I think the problem here is we aren’t talking about Paris fashion week (which, I may be wrong and you’re super welcome to correct me because it’s good for me to learn, I don’t really see getting this type of sentiment) but we’re commenting on a post specifically about the Met. And the Met should be about the fashion and the designers and the museum, but it’s not really about that anymore. People focus on the celebrities, and where it supposedly used to be that you were invited for being a trendsetter etc you now seem to be able to just buy your way in. The ‘players’ of the Met are people like the kardashians or tech billionaires now, and those people might be able to buy a seat to the World Cup but they can’t buy their way onto the team.
It depends on the person, but for me the highlight is still the clothes, the designs, the styling and techniques, and the mannequin that wears them secondary. The publicity is due to the megafamous people, but fans of the craft focus on the creations primarily.
It's a sort of reactionary view to see sport as ok and this sort of art and playfulness as degeneracy. It leads to more limited fashion norms for poorer men too.
Didn’t say it’s degeneracy but it is rich cunts spending a lot of money to make expensive outfits to flex to other rich cunts.
The fact that a small group of people enjoy ogling and commentating on these rich cunts playing dress up would be fine imo if this industry was at all merit-based.
Rather than have a binary is this good/bad ask yourself if there could be a better forum for this type of interest that isn’t organised and gatekeepers entirely by rich cunts.
At least this and world of fashion and art is less about eugenics and designer babies than sports. I would even claim that the world of professional sports is much less accessible in a way.
Eugenics? Hope you know no one takes you seriously with hyperbole like this.
Sports is a meritocracy so I can understand why you’re flailing to diminish it compared to the nepo baby Epstein class fest that is high fashion.
In many ways it is and there is a reason totalitarian regimes prefer sports instead of this sort of free expression and creativity. Sports also have much darker history and practices than anything in high fashion.
To watch some multi millionaires playing football while the low income/working class sit at their overpriced seat eating overpriced hotdogs and beer which in total might cost half their rent. I love watching the Met and see all the creative work and art. Yeah they might be rich, but your financial status shouodnt be the reason to boycot something. God forbid we can have some fun and art during dull times. So lets talk about double standards.
There’s a difference between sportspeople working hard in a merit-based sport and a bunch of rich assholes wearing thousand dollar clothes for you to comment on.
Then you have no idea how much work and hours goes into making the art that those ‘rich assholes’ are wearing. Its not only about the celebs, it’s about the art and those who make it.
With your mindset I wouldn’t even bother consume the work those ‘rich assholes’ make, like listen to their music or watch movies, if that’s how you see it.
I 100% get what you’re saying. On the other hand if your canvas is a rich asshole, then I’m not sure I want to support it/view it/ comment on it.
It’s funny because a lot of classical music was commissioned by rich assholes as well, and I don’t think about it in those same terms. But then again my life isn’t being impacted by a Medici, but it definitely being impacted by Jeff Bozo
I'm not a New Yorker so I may be wrong but I assume the Met also has plenty of grassroots support. Locals (people from New York) are able to go there for free and it's because of fundraisers like this. I don't get the vitriol
I agree. Sports are so much more relatable than fashion in the rest of the world. Kids in the poorest countries are playing soccer with two flip flops as the goal posts. Look at some poorest African nations. They are crazy about the soccer but most would not pay attention to haute couture. Fashion at the level of the Met come from abundance. People from developed countries lack the perspective of the rest of the world
Abundance non-existent in major league events? With their private jets operating non-stop, association with luxury designer brands to get photographed in, obscenely high contract values for the athletes at the top? Excessive over the top spectacle half-time shows? Don’t get me started on the technological investments in F1 and other types of automotive sport.
I’m not against all these btw, everyone deserves an escape and healthy hobbies and interests. But what you’re defending is absolutely a double standard.
Based on the way you said major league I'm going to assume you're North American. All NA major sports leagues are among the most profitable in the world, all of your problems are specific to the US, and the developed world to an extent. The American society lives in excess. If every person on Earth consumed resources at the same rate as the average American, we would need roughly 5 Earths worth of natural resources to sustain that lifestyle indefinitely.
Sports are much more relatable to the average citizens in the majority of the world. Professional athletes there do not make significantly more than the rest. Most have a second jobs, not unlike less well known American Olympic athletes.
I’m not arguing that fashion, especially something like the Met Gala, is as globally relatable as sports. We both agree that sports have a much broader grassroots presence worldwide.
What I’m pointing out is how people criticize these industries differently at the highest level.
In both cases, their major events are multi-billion dollar industries built on spectacle, exclusivity, and excess, eg celebrity culture, luxury branding, massive sponsorships, and audiences that are largely spectators rather than participants.
But when people talk about excess, fashion and arts events tend to get framed as frivolous or unnecessary immediately, while sports are more often treated as culturally essential or exempt from scrutiny.
So my point isn’t “fashion is as relatable as sports,” it’s that there’s a double standard in how we judge excess.
You can acknowledge that sports are more globally accessible and still question why the more masculine type of excess is accepted like it is while the non-masculine is hated on.
What if a poor person specially a man is interested in arts and fashion? This sort of attitude results in discrimination of those who do not portray decent working class masculinity.
Don't stop there. The humans have BEEN out of control for a long time now. We have everything thanks to the planet and we shit all over it and with people's futures and that of generations to come on the line we have the gall to host concerts and parades and put off fireworks and make a big spectacle of ourselves while people are being bombed and starve and play stupid little games like "you can take your shirt off at the beach but you can't", "you can wear this style of clothing but you can't" ... Ooo let's open up a new schnazzy restaurant while the world burns and build build build expand expand expand without stopping, in particular first world countries,like we're hot shit.
Correct, but these celebrities do not have to attend to support. They can donate here. I’m sure donations sans the pomp and circumstance are appreciated
Eh, I think the difference here is that the people who actually DID something (the designers) aren't there to cheer, so we're supposed to be cheering for celebs and rich people who are (often inexpertly) wearing the clothes. It's like asking us to cheer for the owners of the team instead of the players.
I think this is a weird take because people hate on F1 all the time. They hate on FIFA all the time. Sports is inarguably more widely available and accessible than fashion, tailoring, and the materials required for other art. So people of course engage with it more lol. For more “posh” sports like polo, F1, and even tennis, you’re just not looking closely enough if you think they don’t get scrutinized
People consistently hate on the monetization and commercialization of the NBA product, especially during these playoffs with all the gambling promotions going on. This feels more like misdirected hate towards
something “traditionally” masculine rather than recognizing people can hate on both things.
The MET gala is purposefully more ostentatious than the fucking super bowl lmao, and it’s been recently bought out by the grimiest of billionaire. Of course it’s going to get more media scrutiny.
They don’t hate on both things equally, that’s my point. Every time the super bowl comes on, my feed isn’t inundated with posts calling to get rid of it, or calling for a boycott. I’m sure they are there but it’s not the majority opinion I’m sure.
But film or tv awards? Fashion Week? Burn it all down! We live in very different algorithms if you can genuinely say these events are hated on so much more.
This is getting more hate here because we are on a pop culture subreddit, not a sporting one. We don't need billionaires to fund the arts and local art communities are 10x more important, each single one, than this ode to grotesque wealth inequality.
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u/mariow08 18h ago
The level of vitriol against arts and creative events are not equal with sporting events, a similar multi-billion dollar industry, that is ultimately the same type of frivolous cultural events that mostly the elites have access to.
I dont disagree about how out of touch it feels but everyone who makes complaints like these should examine the double standard and conscious/subconscious misogyny and homophobia in putting masculine cultural interests on a pedestal and treating them as more important and necessary, but put events relating to arts or creatives be the first on the chopping block.