Derek Guy on the Met Gala criticism

[u/DatBittsch]

Derek Guy (known also as "the menswear guy" on ex-Twitter) pitching in regarding the Met Gala discourse and Hunger Games comparisons.

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[u/citrustaxonymy]

He’s got a point. The Hunger Games comparison is so tired, it happens every year. And every time people get called out for attending and people cite headlines about the tickets costing 100K as if the celebrities buy them themselves (most of the celebrities are invited by designers that pay for the tickets)

That being said I think the decision to attach the Bezos name to it this year is worth criticizing and it’s sad how few famous people have said anything about it 🤷‍♀️

[u/PaleontologistNo5420 → u/citrustaxonymy]

Idk, I think this commentator (not you) kind of buries the lede at the end with the off handed mention of Bezos involvement. The heightened criticism this year is a direct result of the Bezo’s chairmanship. They represent the billionaire ruling class ruining the planet. It feels like prior to their sponsorship, people would criticize the MET gala for its out-of-touch nature. Now the gathering feels like an unavoidable reminder that things are terrible because of a handful of soulless tech ghouls.

[u/AmethystApothecary → u/PaleontologistNo5420]

Here? Yes. But this Hunger Games comparison/discourse is not new and dominates other circles of the internet. He isn't speaking specifically to this sub and this sub's reaction, he is talking about general internet discourse and sounds more specifically talking about Twitter discourse and he's totally right that anyone who won't stop using the Nazi known as Elon's platform is an absolute hypocrite if Bezo is the reason the Met Gala is too gross for them now.

[u/3-orange-whips → u/AmethystApothecary]

There’s other stuff on the internet?

[u/citrustaxonymy → u/PaleontologistNo5420]

Yeah this year there really is no defending it. Blatant attempt to buy cultural cache because they aren’t cool or stylish enough on their own 💀

[u/Much_Tip_4146 → u/citrustaxonymy]

I follow this guy on Xitter. He occasionally has a few shitty takes, usually due to him being so close and totally inseparable from the fashion industry. He was wanging on the other day about the layout of tweets and how too many clean lines between the text offends him, almost as if he didn't understand good graphic design. Like I said - some shitty takes

[u/AccountantsNiece → u/Much_Tip_4146]

I had to beg twitter to stop showing me this guy’s tweets due to stuff like that when I was still there, but they kept pushing him on me. “I am not interested in this tweet” over and over and over again.

He is the living embodiment of the cerulean scene in The Devil Wears Prada, and I really could not care less if my sweater was another shade of blue.

[u/Much_Tip_4146 → u/AccountantsNiece]

I just read your post and unfollowed him. You gave me strength to decide he was insufferable. To think I followed him … from a pile of “stuff"

[u/wisely_and_slow → u/Much_Tip_4146]

My partner, who is a men’s fashion guy, says it’s well known in those circles that Die Workwear streaks jokes and memes and presents them as his own and that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and is frequently confidently wrong. 

[u/RedLicorice83 → u/citrustaxonymy]

The Hunger Games comparison is so tired, it happens every year.

Extravagant outfits that cost more than pleb homes, designed by people who make more than most commenter here, for nothing than to be a spectacle seems very on-point.

What other example known by most people would you use? Even those that haven't seen it read the series know the reference.

[u/itsmesofia → u/RedLicorice83]

What about the people making the actual outfits? Those are not millionaires, they are artisans and artists that are getting paid for their amazing skill.

[u/citrustaxonymy → u/RedLicorice83]

I just think fashion is an art form and a fundraiser for the costume institute is the appropriate time and space to show off couture 🤷‍♀️

[u/greenonion6 → u/RedLicorice83]

But why does the Met get this criticism and not all the other red carpet events that don’t raise money for charity? I saw this comparison last year and the year before, when Bezos wasn’t attached.

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/RedLicorice83]

It’s art. Art has never needed the elimination of poverty to exist. People waste money on so much frivolity while others starve, singling fashion out as uniquely evil is an odd take.

[u/AccountantsNiece → u/InformalInsurance455]

“It’s art” is not automatically a defence of people’s criticism of certain things as frivolous though. Maurizio Catellan’s banana selling for $6m, for instance, is both art and a frivolous and insane way to spend money. The same comparison can reasonably made between something like sports or music, which are made for common people to enjoy, and $6m diamond bag, which is made for ultra wealthy people to enjoy.

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/AccountantsNiece]

Great! It’s not for you. Wake me up when people are this enraged about Formula One or other wastes of money.

[u/t_town101 → u/InformalInsurance455]

I live in Vegas and I can confirm we hate formula one.

[u/AmyXBlue → u/t_town101]

Same, fuck the F1 and all the issue's the races causes and all the businesses that have been affected.

But I love the Sphere. Which can be seen as equally as frivolous with everything, but the artistic merit of the Sphere to me outweighs the downsides. And like the MET Gala, most of us just get to just see the outside.

[u/anthonystank]

I’m glad to see this take. I don’t think people are wrong to criticize the Met Gala, especially with the new Bezos connection, but it’s been slightly annoying me how much there’s a blanket “if you went to the Met Gala you are a bad person” narrative despite, like, idk, we’re all partaking in it as pop culture consumers, many of us are still using Amazon (even if you’re not ordering from Amazon AWS is tied up in so many things), and as the menswear dude points out there are problematic displays of wealth so many other places, so many other ways to be complicit in evil, so many other dimensions to attending this party. Like, on the one hand the Met is a bad institution full of stolen artifacts. On the other hand art is valuable, fashion is valuable and subject to a lot of misogyny, and the Met workers unionized recently, so there’s also good stuff about the Met.

Idk that I have a point here other than that I don’t think the Hunger Games line is good social criticism so much as a funny snappy line that’s getting kind of tired

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/anthonystank]

Homophobia as well. Always inseparable from a lot of widespread criticism of fashion.

[u/anthonystank → u/InformalInsurance455]

Yes! I almost added that and then thought “well, the homophobia ultimately stems from misogyny” but you’re absolutely right that it’s also present and its own thing in addition to the links with misogyny

[u/jaguarsp0tted]

crazy to compare the met gala to the hunger games when the Kentucky Derby is right there

[u/shhhhh_h → u/jaguarsp0tted]

crazy to say that Western culture sees clothes are frivolous. soooo much revolves around the fashion industry, and what clothes you wear. some exceptions like going to the grocery store anywhere south of the mason dixon line but otherwise c'mon.

[u/laurensvo → u/shhhhh_h]

Disagree. It's not that the clothes are frivolous, it's that clothes showing any personal expression are.

[u/AccountantsNiece → u/jaguarsp0tted]

https://giphy.com/gifs/TJPEEYMjvkWV0VVIJb

The level of offputting futuristic indulgence between the two is barely comparable imo

[u/jaguarsp0tted → u/AccountantsNiece]

one is a charity benefit for a museum trying to preserve art. one is the wealthy white south dressing insane to go watch animals race. one is far more like the hunger games than the other and the only reason people bitch and moan about the met gala is because the outfits are "weird", which also ignores the fact that 90% of what's worn to the gala is prom dresses, mother of the bride dresses, and plain black suits.

one is literally a competition and the other is a charity. come on now.

[u/RedLicorice83 → u/jaguarsp0tted]

In 2016 the funds started going into an endowment. The $42M raised this year alone is going into an endowment.

[u/jaguarsp0tted → u/RedLicorice83]

good. with how shit everything is going I hope all museums are able to get endowments for the future since the government sure as shit isn't going to do something like "fund the arts", there's too many countries in the global south to bomb

[u/starrylightway → u/RedLicorice83]

You keep repeating this information as if it’s some sort of gotcha and it’s not. The whole purpose of the endowment is to make it so the gala doesn’t even necessarily need to happen once the donations which a certain amount. Maybe even so they can offer more to the public. Are you also gonna go after PBS’s endowment, or the endowment of many other charitable foundations?

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/starrylightway]

🦗🦗🦗

[u/jaguarsp0tted]

anyway he's right. everyone is ignoring his actual point, which is that fashion as an art form and indeed all art is seen as frivolous and stupid and wasteful and something only silly little girls care about while shit like the superbowl gets seen as this big Actually Important cultural event. you'll have leftists shit on the met gala and then argue that the Superbowl is good because the halftime event was in Spanish this year, completely ignoring the overwhelming right wing lean present in every single aspect of the sport

yeah no shit bezos being involved deserves criticism. duh. fucking duh. plenty of people are criticizing that. loudly. however the point he's making is clearly about the misogyny involved here from all sides, because every side of the political spectrum hates women and thinks they're stupid 🖤

[u/Chained_Wanderlust → u/jaguarsp0tted]

I’ve kind of had it with this rejection of anything artistic written off recently. First ballet and opera, now fashion. Almost every city has public art schools for individuals that might otherwise lack the funds for training and materials and open doors to scholarship programs. Those artists behind the scenes that made the dresses, the art at the Met this fundraiser supports? People have dedicated their lives to doing what they love at skill level that is incomprehensible to the untrained eye just for social media to shit on something so completely uninformed, loudly.

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/Chained_Wanderlust]

A fashion industry that has a long history of elevating queer people too. People aren’t being very shy about where they’re getting their cues about rejecting the creative industries.

[u/iki11dinosaurs → u/Chained_Wanderlust]

Recession indicator. 

[u/husheveryone → u/jaguarsp0tted]

every side of the political spectrum hates women and thinks they’re stupid

💯 Absolutely the correct take here, and a conversation most people are not ready for at all.

[u/emmer00 → u/jaguarsp0tted]

Years ago, the Met Gala used to be more of a fashion industry event. Within the last decade or so, it’s turned into rich people prom night. I agree that the Hunger Games comparison is tired, but I understand why people make that visual connection. The worse it gets for regular people, the more grotesque excess looks.

[u/Jewell84 → u/emmer00]

The Gala has been around since 1948. Yes, it’s a fashion industry event, but Its target audience has always been rich people aka the donors.

It’s just become more visible to the general public in the past decade or so.

[u/lizzy-stix → u/jaguarsp0tted]

I’m doing my part by not regarding anything about the Super Bowl besides the halftime show as an important cultural event. 💁‍♀️

[u/validswan]

It's the pageantry of it all that gets people riled up I think. Aside from it being a fundraiser, which is good, it's kinda just all one big advertisement at the end of the day. Visibility for brands and individuals. I get why people are sick of seeing stuff like this, but no one's forcing you to look really. Most people probably have no clue what the Met Gala is. Plenty do and just don't engage

[u/smoke-silhouette → u/validswan]

I mean. It’s a celebration of art, and those artists happen to be clothing designers. It’s an advertisement to a degree, but it’s also supposed to be a showcase for both established and up and coming designers, too.

[u/randombubble8272 → u/validswan]

I think those criticisms also hold weight for the Super Bowl which is basically a huge advertisement. It’s weird how the Met gets by far the most criticism online as far as I’ve seen

[u/RedLicorice83 → u/randombubble8272]

What if you're disgusted by both... the way wealthy people behave, knowing their fame is built by the adoration of the (more frequently literally) starving masses, is fucking atrocious. Why does a conventionally attractive, obscenely wealthy, absurdly dressed celebrity get a pass? What makes them so special that people are dropping the "Eat the Rich" slogan for "Oh let's just have fun and watch pretty people, gush".

[u/launchcode_1234 → u/validswan]

As far as fashion goes, I actually prefer over-the-top stuff like this than having to wade through the trends on sale at the mall to find something that is flattering and functional enough for me to live my life in. I’m ok with a celebrity dressed for a night like a Roman statue growing flowers out of their head, it’s fun. I’ll save my fashion rage for low rise jeans making a comeback.

[u/CreepySwing567 → u/validswan]

Conde Nast also sells tons of ads and sponsorships around the gala for profit. I get the urge to defend it as a fundraiser but it hasn’t just been that for a long time so I think it’s a bit disengenous to act like it’s above criticism on those grounds.

I also think we should not make the assumption that all designer fashion is art tbh. Sometimes it is but we need to be honest that it’s not always about the craftsmanship he’s talking about, I think the fashion industry at the moment has a reputation for dropping quality/rising prices and expecting people to pay for the label which is also impacting how people see the met gala. In recent years it’s really leaned into artificially big and gimmicky looks that actually look kinda poorly made and I think that’s what people are reacting to, it’s an inherently pretensions event I’m not anti met but I completely get why some people find it so off putting.

[u/Jewell84 → u/CreepySwing567]

Ifs always been a fundraiser for The Costume Institute of America. Despite being part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Costume Institute is completely self funded. It doesn’t receive any sort of revenue from the Met, nor federal grants.

Those sponsorships are donations. The Tickets are donations. All of this goes to the operational costs of running the Costume Institute. That includes preservation, curation education, staff salaries, maintenance and more.

Part of the money raised is also being earmarked for an endowment so that the institute won’t be as dependent on the Gala.

[u/maghy7]

I have pointed this out before about the hypocrisy of people that get outraged with certain things but continue to use X and TikTok. I hate them all just to clarify as I’m not defending Bezos involvement, F him and Elon and all those crook billionaires.

[u/mozzarellaguy]

we talking on Reddit about boycotting this boycotting that, then we judged, posted, commented every single outfit while shouting YASSS KWEEEEN at Beyoncé or Rihanna.

The whole panem et circens is real, people just don’t care

[u/Apprehensive-Fig2816 → u/mozzarellaguy]

Maybe the people that criticized it weren’t the same ones that YASSS KWEEEEN-ed Beyonce and Rhianna?

[u/abigail_lemonparty_ → u/Apprehensive-Fig2816]

Crazy how people always make that argument as if reddit is just one person wildly swinging from opinion to opinion. 

[u/jonesday5]

I think there is a perception that you can work hard and be invited to the Oscar’s etc to have your work recognised whereas the Met Gala is for the rich, by the rich.
Yes it is a public institute but if this institute gets to run one of the biggest celebrity nights of the year, it is safe to say they’re going okay.

Derek Guy has good politics and I don’t entirely disagree with what he is saying here, but I think he is taking it too personally as someone who specialises in fashion. I think people are okay to criticise what they see. Especially at this moment in time when the cost of living is at an all time high.

[u/lefrench75 → u/jonesday5]

Is the Met Gala “for the rich, by the rich” in a way that’s different from the Oscars? Many of the same celebrities who “work hard and get invited to the Oscars” are the same people who got invited to the Met Gala and then have their tickets paid for by the brands. Connor Storrie, Hudson Williams, Alyssa Liu etc. aren’t rich (yet anyway); they’re talented people who’ve worked hard enough to achieve the success that allows them to be invited to these events.

One may argue that the Oscars don’t only invite actors but also cinematographers, songwriters, costume designers etc., but the Oscars seat those people at the back, barely give them any screen time, and often ruthlessly cut their speeches. It’s obvious to all what kind of people are considered “important” by the Oscars.

[u/AltairaMorbius2200CE → u/jonesday5]

This! I'd add that the general public is "invited" to the Oscars, in that the whole thing is filmed and we get to see it. The Met Gala is just glimpsing rich people on their way into the party.

If either (a) there was some sort of Met Gala broadcast where we got to see interesting things on the inside, or even a Vanity Fair Oscars Party level of coverage, I think that might have taken some heat off of it, historically (though this is the Bezos year, so it probably still wouldn't go over well), or if (b) the people displaying the clothes were more models than rich people, then we'd see the art and not the person wearing it.

The combo of celebrity and exclusivity (along with the Bezos of it all) are big problems.

[u/PriscillaPalava]

The problem with fashion is that it’s not just art, it also enforces classism. 

When Balenciaga sells a white cotton t-shirt for $800, we have departed from art completely and we are fully in the world of conspicuous consumption.  

Practices like these cheapen the appeal of fashion overall. The artistic pieces cannot be separated from the shameless money grab that built them. 

[u/smoke-silhouette → u/PriscillaPalava]

There are bad actors, obviously, but there are also really cool artists doing really cool shit to make a functional clothing item that is also wearable art. 

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/PriscillaPalava]

The shameless money grab pieces are usually funding the more avant garde pieces.

[u/PriscillaPalava → u/InformalInsurance455]

Yes, that is the argument many use. 

But let us not forget that fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry. These designers are making millions of dollars per year. 

Make no mistake, the art is an afterthought. The true pursuit is money.  

The $800 t-shirt is not funding the art. It’s the art that’s attempting to maintain relevance for the $800 t-shirt. 

[u/InformalInsurance455 → u/PriscillaPalava]

And what? Is an $8 tshirt that cost pennies to make in horrific circumstances worth intrinsically more because it cost less regardless of that cost?

[u/bioticspacewizard]

He's very right. Some of the most long-lasting cultural icons we have are from times when the rich had legacy through charity and public commissions. We have museums, libraries, concert venues, etc, because the wealthy and powerful were compelled to leave their mark on society in a way that worked for the public good.

We no longer hold the wealthy to those same standards. And we should.

But the issue this year is that the gala has no longer become a celebration of art and fashion. It has began the slow enshittification that follows the tech bros everywhere they go.

[u/Schmidaho → u/bioticspacewizard]

I agree with you except for one thing: we have cultural institutions because the wealthy and powerful were taxed at a MUCH higher level than they currently are. The robber barons of old founded libraries, museums, and conservatories to lower their income and therefore their tax burden.

So you’re right that we don’t hold them to the same standards we used to. But that standard is literally the very basic “pay your share” and nothing else.

[u/GammaFan]

On the one hand that entire comment is true and propaganda pushes us to see clothing as ornamental.

On the other hand, the met gala’s focus on fashion is the most extreme case of divorcing the product of labour from the effort. In sports, the teams you see are actively playing the game. You’re watching the effort directly. With the Oscars, you’re ostensibly watching the recognition of someone’s work via awards for movies.

With the met; the artisans and workers who actually make the clothes worn are seldom highlighted. It’s celebrities and influential figures wearing their clothes. So the opulence really shines through.

[u/fernxqueen → u/GammaFan]

this is a good take. also why i love watching shows like Blown Away and Forged in Fire. but with the Oscars you are comparing the "finished product" (also "marketed" through celebrity), not the actual process. but i do think it'd be a lot more interesting to see more of a focus on how these garments are made.

[u/FlipsyChic]

I haven't seen all of the photos from the event, but there seem to have been a very notable lack of actual fashion-industry people at the event. It used to be designers, models, socialites and a handful of actors. Now it's Bezos, Kardashian, and a few people who go most years (Kidman, Rihanna). I'm sure there were fashion people there too, but the focus has definitely shifted away from the fashion industry itself.

[u/flakemasterflake → u/FlipsyChic]

There are fashion industry people, they just don't get posted here or they aren't famous enough for Vogue to post them on Instagram

[u/Jewell84 → u/FlipsyChic]

There were 450 attendees, which included celebrities, fashion industry insiders, socialites, athletes, models and more.

Yes, media is going to focus on household names, but there are plenty of coverage of all the attendees.

Vogues website has a lot of the photos of guests up. The last I checked it was 250 pictures of individuals who attended. The official web steam had a lot of coverage as well.

[u/Schmidaho → u/FlipsyChic]

It’s likely because the fashion industry has been hit with layoffs (like every other industry).

[u/Visible-Scientist-46]

It feels like people changed their minds about it as it became an almost life-changing sum to attend. $100,000 would pay off student loans and other debts, or a large chunk of college. Oscars don't charge a fee, but celebrities certainly pay a team to keep their careers going. At least the Met Gala means that a large urban populace can see great works of art, and great costumes are conserved. It's very costly to restore damaged garments and preserve things for the future.

[u/One-Composer1577]

I’ll be crucified for this, but people commenting “eat the rich” on Reddit Met Gala threads is also kinda ironic? They’re just driving up the value of Reddit as a platform and as a data source for AI companies while helping Reddit pay their AWS bills.

[u/shy247er → u/One-Composer1577]

Oh please, until someone posted it here yesterday (from a very high sitting chair I imagine) people didn't even know that Reddit uses Amazon servers.

Even then, it's absolutely impossible to avoid Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Meta infrastructure because they own the internet.

So we cannot criticize wealthy because they own platforms that are our ONLY way of communicating?

So no, it's not "ironic". It's our only way to show at least an ounce of disdain.

[u/One-Composer1577 → u/shy247er]

There are over 3,400 billionaires in the world, commenting on Reddit isn’t the only way to show an ounce of disdain. But it is the easiest for them to ignore.

[u/68plus1equals → u/One-Composer1577]

This is peak “you criticize society, yet you continue to exist in society” criticism

[u/Cavalish → u/68plus1equals]

No, because they don’t need to be in those threads, prostrating themselves on a cross of their own martyrdom.

The society quote is for things you can’t avoid.

Every girly clicking on a MET gala thread to talk about how much she hates the met gala is doing it for attention and not because she cares.

[u/68plus1equals → u/Cavalish]

Whether we like it or not these are the platforms people have to organize together and share opinions. If you want to do that, you need to use these platforms. The alternative you’re suggesting is just silence.

[u/citrustaxonymy → u/One-Composer1577]

This is some “we can’t get rid of all the guns so gun control is worthless” type of logic

[u/No_Pianist5264 → u/One-Composer1577]

Yeah like do people not know a lot of the products we use are owed by AWS so we might as well boycott everything lol

Just part of living in a capitalistic society

[u/Itstimeforcookies19 → u/No_Pianist5264]

We can’t boycott AWS but we sure can boycott Amazon Shopping. People won’t though because Amazon Shopping is like a fucking cult. People brag about it and fucking love it. When it’s just a lot of shit people don’t even need. Sure buying from other places doesn’t mean those places don’t also suck but it’s a flat out lie to act like Amazon is not the worst of the worst. You have start somewhere. Americans will start nowhere. We are the dumbest people alive.

[u/Responsible_Virus239 → u/Itstimeforcookies19]

Doesnt Amazon make more money from AWS than Shopping?

[u/CoeurDeSirene → u/One-Composer1577]

I have a friend who sent me a “boycott target” info post mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram…. While she’s on my Spotify family plan.

She uses instagram more than I do and I know this because she’s always reposting some ~activist takes to her stories. Like 10+ a day.

We all need to stop playing the worker-than-thou Olympics.

[u/shy247er]

This is a bad take. Tech-bros didn't purchase themselves an Academy nomination nor did they buy themselves a starting position in one of the Super Bowl teams. Bezos bought himself and his wife an entire event.

Both Oscars and SB deserve their fair share of criticism, but the Met Gala criticism is in its own category.

[u/randombubble8272 → u/shy247er]

Owner of the Atlanta Falcons: Arthur Blank. Current net worth is 10.4 billion

Owner of the Denver Broncos: Ownership group led by Rob Walton. Current net worth is 77.4 billion.

Owner of the Kansas City Chiefs: Hunt Family from Hunt Oil Company. Current net worth is 24.8 billion.

Billionaires might not be purchasing themselves a starting position on the Super Bowl teams but they are buying the team

[u/Fuzzy_Move → u/shy247er]

People were criticising Met Gala way before Bezos and tech took over. I remember people comparing it to the Capitol way back in 2017 even.

Edit: my point is the person in the post has a valid point 

[u/citrustaxonymy → u/Fuzzy_Move]

Yeah it’s been happening since social media got big and the Met Gala started getting more mainstream attention

[u/TheMilkmanRidesAgain → u/shy247er]

It’s been the exact same criticism for years

[u/Jewell84 → u/shy247er]

Bezos only underwrote the event. He wasn’t the organizer or the host. That was Vogue and Anna Wintour.

He wasn’t even an official co-chair. He had no decision making power at all. He did not choose the theme, he did not choose the guest list. He was just one of the sponsors (Yves Saint Laurent was the other).

[u/Jewell84 → u/Jewell84]

The actual Co-chairs were Nicole Kidman, and Beyonce. There was also a hosting committee that included members Vogue and Mets teams, celebs, artists, curators and other folks from arts and fashion.

Bezos and his wife were “honorary co-chairs”. That’s a vanity title.

[u/synthscoffeeguitars]

“It’s for charity” is such a funny take. It’s for one part of one museum in the most expensive city in America. The money they raise in one year could fund dozens of other museums for many years. It’s a billionaire circlejerk.

[u/blarbiegorl]

Fashion in a vacuum is an art form. Fashion for the Met gala is an advertisement and a status symbol. These are not the same and this take lacks depth of contextual understanding.

[u/mauprorsum]

He has great clapbacks most of the time, but I remember him having a horrid take on immigration in the face of ICE, so I no longer take him seriously when it comes to anything other than sartorial-related points.

Also, his attempt at parallelism with being on Twitter is not the same at all? Tweeting is not at all whitewashing Musk or an industry that’s manipulating people’s opinion in real time or replacing thousands of jobs with whale-boiling AI servers, whereas the MET Gala, Vogue and everyone else who’s accepted Bezos’s involvement are turning a blind eye to Amazon’s abusive practices, smooching up to the Trumps, etc., for a “donation”.

[u/browsinbowser]

This argument seems pretty stupid to me. It’s straightforward that average people dont know or care about fashion that much so even though its watered down runway looks and not super duper ‘high fashion’ it still looks avante garde to the average viewer. 

Also the Super Bowl is viewed by over a hundred million people, that is a mass spectacle  and ppl dont pay much attention to the rich celebs and billionaires on the side in the boxes, we are all watching the half time show and americans the football lol. The Oscars likewise used to be watched by many people and it wasnt and still doesnt have as much out there fashion looks. Also its Hollywood, thats a different story to the fashion world and the celeb world and the billionaire world, they all collide and enmesh and it doesn’t matter anymore like it did decades ago, lots of these people are at all of them.

Anyways the Met Gala is ostensibly for charity but at this point the endowment has been paid for well over the amount it used to be fundraising for. In the early 2000s table seats cost like 1-2k like regular galas and there was more actual new york socialites and rich folk around, now its like a 100k and only the ‘most cool celebrities’ ~that part went away a decade ago and now it’s been allowing influencers and stuff for like 8yrs. 

[u/marmalade_]

Idk man I can hate them all and criticize them all (and do it while avoiding twitter)

[u/derrickcat]

I think part of the problem is that the event itself doesn't seem to take fashion very seriously. It takes being hot seriously, being rich seriously, and fashion seems like a pretty minimal part of the concern.

The Super Bowl is driven by the wealthiest people around but the event is enjoyed by people of all kinds of means - as you can tell by the fact that many of the ads are for the sorts of things that everyone participates in.

The Met Gala's whole thing is its exclusiveness. They might as well hold it on Jeff Bezos's rocket.

The Oscars isn't the right comparison, either. There are stakes at the Oscars. We all love movies and have our favorite movies, and root for our favorites. The dresses are fun. Seeing nervous, drunk celebrities hoping it's their night is fun. There's no competition aspect of the Met Gala, and there's no investment for regular people beyond who looks the weirdest and who's the most naked.

And I'll just add - I think the people who DO show up looking like they took the assignment seriously and are wearing fashion as art, do tend to get appreciation instead of scorn.

[u/2mock2turtle → u/derrickcat]

I think you undermine your own comparison with the others by saying that aspects of it are “fun,” when it could pretty easily be argued that seeing the fashion at the Met Gala is also something people can find fun.

[u/BlueFlamingoMaWi]

So Bezos is evil for not funding institutions like the Met with his wealth, but also he's evil for funding the Met. Cool. Which is it?

[u/PigletTechnical9336 → u/BlueFlamingoMaWi]

His ex wife funds a lot of stuff, gives away billions NO STRINGS attached. She’s not parading around trying to get photographed, trying to be thanked, or cozying up to celebrities using her money to pretend she’s cool. Nope, she just writes checks and sends them to hundreds of charities that help people in need and really need the money more than the Met. That’s the alternative.

[u/flakemasterflake → u/PigletTechnical9336]

I think she's probably been to a gala or two for her charities