God Forbid You Ruin the Vibe

Notes on privilege, performance, and the quiet horror of curated joy.

I’ve been thinking about Danya Issawi’s essay , the one where she says there’s more to life than designer Tabis or reclining on a stolen seafront. She writes that the genuinely coolest people are the ones who care deeply: about their neighbors, about strangers, about the planet. Meanwhile, many people obsessed with mimicking a lifestyle of curated bliss, draped cashmere, and €32 spritzes will never tap into the one thing that makes us human: compassion.

“What a shame it must be to live like that,” she says.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it this weekend.

It started at a car brand’s music festival. My friend, a fellow black fashion journalist, and I ended up in VIP, one of those spaces where the privilege is so thick it fogs the air. We were among the very few people of color inside. Almost everyone working, pouring drinks, clearing glasses, making the experience seamless, were people of color too.

Privilege rarely yells. It whispers. It hums in the background as you glide past security, handed things, served things, gifted things. It erases the labor beneath your feet. It makes effort invisible.

It’s always in the small things that you see how far gone people are. How “please” and “thank you” evaporate as soon as someone starts believing their own hype. I’ve seen it at fashion weeks, at brand dinners, the way basic decency short-circuits once someone steps inside that cozy little bubble. A minor thing, technically. But revealing. Awareness slips quietly, like a silk scarf falling from a shoulder.

The next night was Beyoncé. And listen…Beyoncé loves us down in Paris. But influencers? Influencers love themselves even more. (And yes, I say this as a fellow “influencer”. The call is absolutely coming from inside the house.)

The VIP box felt less like a concert and more like a live studio set: ring lights out, phones fully charged, hair flipped, angles tested. Beyoncé hadn’t even finished her opening note before people became real-time correspondents for their personal brands. That practiced performance of spontaneous joy while simultaneously workshopping Story slides is practically an art form now.

Meanwhile, my phone kept buzzing. Gaza. Iran. War. Displacement. Death. Every notification felt like a slap a reminder that while we flailed for better lighting, the world outside was literally burning. We were dancing inside a branded bubble while the house was quietly on fire.

And then came the balcony moment. A small pack of influencers completely monopolized it, cycling through full-blown photoshoots: posing, directing, adjusting, swapping angles, relighting. Not just content creation….. content DOMINATION.

I slipped in quickly, barely enough time to grab a single photo, and immediately received the kind of death stares usually reserved for home intruders. Like my existence was contaminating their feeds. One of them had already asked earlier if I was part of the brand staff….because why else would I be there? Inclusion always evaporates once you’re no longer useful to the content machine.

But what really struck me wasn’t the photos, it was what happened after. Once they’d secured the content, the phones went back into their handbags and the boredom set in. Beyoncé , one of the greatest performers alive, was pouring her entire soul onto that stage. And yet, several of them sat glassy-eyed, indifferent. The performance was complete. They weren’t there for joy. They were there to manufacture evidence of joy.

And this is exactly what Danya was talking about. The “coolest” people aren’t stacking perfect grids. They’re the ones still capable of being present. Capable of feeling anything at all.

Meanwhile, right on cue, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are beginning their billionaire wedding week in Venice, a city suffocating under tourism while locals flee because they can no longer afford to exist there. A perfect case study in privilege scaled so large it swallows entire communities.

It’s easy to sneer at these people. Easier still to become one of them. Because privilege doesn’t always announce itself with screaming excess. Sometimes it’s just a soft murmur in your ear, telling you: this is normal. A velvet cushion insulating you from consequence. Empathy becomes optional. Other people’s suffering becomes decor, a kind of tragic wallpaper humming quietly outside your field of vision.

As Danya writes, some truly believe they’re entitled to an untouched existence. They think they’ve earned it: spritzes on the terrace at Hôtel Costes while the banlieues burn; PR dinners in the Marais while riot police gas anti-fascism protesters a few streets away; martinis at Hôtel Amour while unhoused migrants sleep beneath the metro; another “quiet luxury” reel shot on Rue Saint-Honoré while the city’s working class gets priced into oblivion.

But god forbid any of that truth cracks the group chat. God forbid your cocaine-fueled night at Caviar Kaspia be interrupted by someone asking for help.

Because nothing kills the vibe faster than being reminded that your lifestyle exists atop someone else’s collapse.