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September 15, 2024 9:26 AM

Billionare lifestyle parody Gstaad Guy's (Constance, and sometimes Colton) ongoing (TikTok, Instagram) series on behaviors from men who should immediately be dumped à la poubelle (all videos on TikTok). “Although they are fake people, they are very authentic to their values and characters. It’s either excellent or it’s à la poubelle . . . ”
posted by spamandkimchi (9 comments total)

The bedrock of Gstaad Guy’s humour is “if you know, you know”.

Fascinated by this stuff! And I feel like this is the crux of it all - with this sort of "ha ha omg you call a WEEK in Mykonos a vacation?" I am sure there are actual rich people who like to see their lifestyles represented in self-deprecating comedy bits so they can feel a little more human, but more likely this is appealing to a much higher volume of upper-middle to upper-class gen-z/millennial types (basically, this guy) who semi-ironically aspire to this kind of jetsetter/ultra luxury bullshit or at least want to feel like they are "in" on the Do's and Don'ts of the millionaire and billionaire class.

Bourdieu's Distinction comes to mind - merely knowing and being "in" on the preferences and tastes of the elite becomes a means for acquiring social and cultural capital, which is no longer secret knowledge for the In Groups, its all just out there on social media now and more accessible than ever. Makes perfect sense why luxury brands want to partner with him, I don't really see much of him "lampooning the ultra wealthy" the way the FT article implies in their subhed - more so just winking at them and lightly chuckling.
posted by windbox at 10:20 AM on September 15 [7 favorites]

yes I am sure the ultra-rich are weeping in their mega-yachts over this brutal mockery.
posted by supermedusa at 10:48 AM on September 15 [3 favorites]

He says, "à la poubelle," but I hear, "in the tumbrel."
posted by panglos at 11:07 AM on September 15 [1 favorite]

The tempo of tik tok has really thrown comedic timing à la poubelle, huh
posted by phooky at 11:19 AM on September 15 [3 favorites]

> yes I am sure the ultra-rich are weeping in their mega-yachts over this brutal mockery.

We were driving home from i-forget-where one day, and decided to cut through the mountains as it was mid-summer and we were in no rush. Eventually we passed a few old cars with "Gstaad Yacht Club" stickers on them driving in the other direction. Then more. Then even more.

WTF? I said, Gstaad doesn't even have a lake. So my partner Googled it. Sure enough, Gstaad Yacht Club is ... a unique global yacht club away from the waters, instead of another local club by the waters".

I mean, why bother with parody when self-parody already appears to exist?
posted by lawrencium at 12:01 PM on September 15 [11 favorites]

The worst thing about all of this is that one of the tiktoks mentioned an "Iqos" and I didn't know what that was so I looked it up and now I am aware of the existence of yet another kind of tobacco-consumption product. (I would like to be aware of 0, because I would like 0 to exist at all.)
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:35 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

"Gstaad Yacht Club. Est. 1998." Clearly new money. [Looks askance.]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:03 PM on September 15 [7 favorites]

Don't like it. It humanizes billionaires.
posted by signal at 3:08 PM on September 15 [6 favorites]

The thing that gets to me is just how much money we 're talking about here... like apparently First Class commercial flights are for plebes.

A flight on a private plane from London to Gstaad for Christmas can cost € 11,800

A typical food bank in the UK runs on about £6,000 per month

Eat the rich.
posted by maggiemaggie at 4:19 PM on September 15 [4 favorites]