The Hamptons Fugazi
- 19 hours ago
- 3 min read
Ah, the Hamptons.
That magical stretch of Long Island where a $38 lobster roll is considered casual dining, a rented Range Rover qualifies as generational wealth, and everyone you meet is either launching a magazine, hosting a “private” party or desperately trying to get invited to one.
Welcome to summer in the Hamptons…America’s most expensive high school cafeteria.
Once upon a time, the Hamptons were genuinely understated. Old families. Beautiful houses hidden behind hedges. Writers, artists, Wall Street titans and people whose last names appeared on buildings. They packed their cars along Park Avenue at noon on Friday and headed “out east”.
Today? Good God.
Every weekend brings another “exclusive” party attended by 400 of the host's closest friends, 300 of whom are holding their phones vertically while scanning the room for someone more important than the person they're currently talking to.
And then there are the magazines. Dear God, the magazines.
How many Hamptons magazines can one civilization possibly support?
There is Hamptons Magazine, Social Life, James Lane Post, Purist, Resident, Avenue, plus enough assorted publications, websites, newsletters and luxury “platforms” to clear-cut a respectable portion of Canada.
But my favorites aren't even the actual Hamptons publications. They're the infiltrator 'sort of' magazines that parachute in from other parts of the country sometime around June 30th.
Suddenly a regional publication you've never heard of is touting itself as an “Official Media Partner” of some intimate soirée. Really? Last Tuesday you were covering a new steakhouse opening 900 miles away. Now you're apparently Graydon Carter.
What exactly does that even mean? Usually, it appears to mean somebody gave them two wristbands, access to the step-and-repeat and a mandate to post 47 Instagram Stories to their 6,318 followers. Stop the presses!
Then comes the obligatory “Hamptons Pop-Up,” because apparently renting a room for four hours, finding a liquor sponsor and placing your logo on a vinyl backdrop constitutes establishing a presence in America's most competitive luxury market.
Here you will see everyone photographing everyone else. The magazine photographs the influencer and then the influencer photographs the sponsor. The sponsor photographs the “celebrity,” whom everyone quietly Googles in the Uber on the way home. Then, on Monday morning, everybody posts the same photos captioned: “What an incredible Hamptons weekend!”
It was Saturday afternoon.
Which brings us to the great Hamptons sport: Real Money vs. Fake Money.
Real money tends to be surprisingly quiet. The billionaire may be wearing faded shorts, an old polo shirt and driving a ten-year-old SUV. His house was bought 25 years ago. There is no logo wall in the backyard. And he certainly doesn't need to post a photograph proving he was in Sag Harbor.
Fake money….that arrives differently. New Lamborghini, giant watches, shirts unbuttoned somewhere near the pancreas. Typically, in rented houses with a leased boat and a borrowed invitation.
In between those two groups sits the enormous Hamptons aspirational economy: people spending extraordinary amounts of money to appear considerably wealthier, better connected and more important than they actually are.
That's the Hamptons' most successful industry. Perception.
Another “exclusive” party. Another “VIP” dinner with 200 guests. Another media partner. Another pop-up. Another step-and-repeat. Another “Power List” filled with people whose greatest apparent accomplishment was getting onto the Power List.
And somewhere behind a twelve-foot privet hedge, an actual billionaire is grilling hamburgers in flip-flops, blissfully unaware that he missed the Luxury Lifestyle Hamptons Influencer Media VIP Summer Kickoff Experience.
Poor bastard. He probably wasn't important enough to get invited.
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