Above the fray

Today: Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, writer, editor, co-founder of the new blog, Hearing Things, and author of the forthcoming book Vaquera.

Issue No. 197

Like Common People
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Like Common People

by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

I spent election night at a private watch party in Manhattan hosted by a literal billionaire. A friend who was working there invited me, saying he needed moral support. I had intended to observe the returns in my apartment with a blanket, my boyfriend, and my two cats, and even before agreeing to attend I knew this party would be the worst kind of party. But I also knew I would get free food and a good story out of it, and if there’s anything a writer loves, it’s free food and a good story (in that order). Besides that, I am never knowingly in the proximity of billionaires, and I thought it might be a worthwhile anthropological mission, to see how the other .0001 percent lives. Though this would be an even rarer space, because the billionaire is a progressive Democrat, and the party would be emceed by people of color on the liberal left.

I know what you are thinking and yes, the free food was bananas. I have never consumed a fresher or more buttery slice of salmon sashimi. The water was mineral with a dainty slice of lime, and was just served without asking. (Tap? For plebes.) The bar was, perhaps obviously, open, though in my 28 years of voting I have learned that election night is best suffered through sober. There were little trays of Greek olives on each table, swimming in fine oil that glinted off the candlelight. “Isn’t this delicious?” my boyfriend gushed, while eating an exceptional potato chip. I felt like I was cosplaying Gatsby, only instead of pearls I was wearing a XXL t-shirt that read “I WILL AID AND ABET ABORTION.” An attractive middle aged white man tried to hit on me by complimenting it.

The party felt like the Democratic establishment and its material failures. The air was thick with wealth and high-end personal fragrances, obvious even through all the Harris merch worn by the majority-white people in attendance—quiet luxury, I guess, a camo Harris-Walz trucker hat on the top, the Row loafers on the bottom. The hosts were funny in that they were comedians, but the crowd wasn’t really laughing until a 20-something white kid came out to tell moldy jokes about how the U.S. is sooo different from his home in the UK. I later learned he was the son of a different billionaire (not the host). The vibes were so bad that one comedian—the friend who invited me—basically said “fuck it” and started telling ACAB jokes. The crowd did not like that.