Welcome to Rich People Shit
A new newsletter about cultural capital, the invisible currency behind everything.
Hello everyone, welcome to Rich People Shit.
Rich People Shit is about the way money and cultural capital move together. How each one reinforces the other. Taste that feels instinctive. Access that feels casual. Confidence that rarely announces itself. The kinds of signals that aren’t about money on the surface, but rarely exist without it.
You’ll see a few different kinds of things here, three to four times a week. Sometimes it will be a reported essay or an interview. Sometimes it will be a signature Rich People Shit piece, built around comparison and accumulation, and shaped by reader input. And sometimes it will be a tight edit of what’s circulating quietly right now and worth paying attention to.
The name is the shorthand I’ve used for years to describe the kind of journalism I do. For more than fifteen years, I’ve written about power, taste, and influence in spaces where money was present but rarely named. I’ve been in rooms where certain things never needed explanation, and others were understood instantly. Rich People Shit was the phrase that captured that world most accurately, the stuff you clock only after you’ve spent enough time around it. I also think it would look really good on merch.
For the first month, while I find the rhythm, Rich People Shit will be free. After that, it will move to a paid model. Subscribe accordingly.
I’m glad you’re here.
Noted: Ari Emanuel, Prince Harry, JR Moehringer, Waldorf Astoria, St. Barth’s, Town & Country, Vanity Fair, Dara Kayes, Jess Graves, The Love List, Saint Laurent, Kaitlin Phillips, Ryan Murphy, David Ellison and Larry Ellison, Reeves Wiedeman, Davos Conference and more.
Town & Country investigated the facial chlamydia outbreak in St. Barths so you don’t have to. Can we just all agree that going to St. Barth’s for New Year’s Eve is no longer a flex and is incredibly tacky? Apparently the best time to visit is actually Thanksgiving.
Larry Ellison realized one of his yachts had a name that, when read in a mirror, spelled “I’m a Nazi.” It’s perhaps the funniest, though far from the only, great detail in Reeves Wiedeman’s profile of David Ellison, “The Son King of Hollywood.”
Afternoon tea at the Waldorf Astoria is back after an eight-year hiatus.
The Waldorf Astoria re-opened in July 2025. Ari Emanuel is teaming with Prince Harry’s former ghostwriter on a memoir. The famously aggressive Hollywood power broker and CEO of Endeavor has spent most of his career shaping other people’s public narratives from behind the scenes. He’s chosen JR Moehringer to tell his story. As a ghostwriter myself who has written five books, I can tell you Moehringer is the gold standard in the industry.
Apparently Saint Laurent’s half-zips and windbreakers are what everyone will be wearing next. Jess Graves chatted about them on The Love List, Dara Kaye posted about them the same day on Instagram, and they’re already starting to feel inevitable. They also remind me, just a bit, of something my dad might have worn for a backyard game of touch football in the suburbs (the unbranded version obviously), which may be exactly what makes them so cool.
Vanity Fair got the first look at Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. People can’t get enough of this show, and I should know, I’ve been assigned two stories about it for different outlets. Set for release on Valentine’s Day. How cute.
If you’re looking for something new to read, I have two. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash and Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises by Katie Benner both came out on Tuesday and were promptly gushed over by the New York Times. They’re very different books, but both are closely observed portraits of specific worlds. I went to the parties for both and have already ripped through them.
Speaking of books, I may have to buy Aimee Donnellan’s book about GLP-1s after reading her article in Air Mail a couple weeks ago. It argues that GLP-1s aren’t just changing bodies, but formalizing pretty privilege into something money can reliably access, reinforcing the same hierarchies that have always rewarded appearance.
It’s no secret how much I love Kaitlin Phillip’s newsletter Gift Guide. It was the first newsletter I paid for on Substack. This alert about the Porthault sale, and the way she writes about it, is all the more reason why.
In case you missed it, I wrote about how being a restaurant regular is de riguer again for the New York Times. It came out last week online and in print this week. Are you as sick as the reservation rat race as I am? If I never go on Resy again for the rest of my life it will be too soon.
January feels quiet here in New York, but not everywhere. Right now, my feed is full of friends at the Cayman Cookout. On Tuesday, I’ll be interviewing a founder who’s in Davos-Klosters for the World Economic Forum. And by next weekend, the migration moves to St. Moritz for the Snow Polo World Cup. Where are you headed this month?
As a very amateur polo player, I’ve always wanted to go.
im soooo in
2026 is our year! LFG sis.