Met Gala Moments That Reveal The Unspeakable Horrors Of Our Dystopia

Yadda yadda yadda, queue another rant about how the Met Gala involves the rich acting rich while the poor look on from the sidelines. All nepo babies, Hunger Game comparisons (that teeter on conspiracy) and complaints about how one artistically-styled dress could pay off my student loans. 

For those of us not in the top 1%, or the top 10%, we’re all well aware of the pitfalls of our position. But none of us, and I mean none of us, would be telling the truth if we said we wouldn’t go to the Met Gala if we were invited. Even though, maybe, that would be totally morally corrupt. 

I’ll be the first to admit that, yes, I did sit in the VICE office in a hoodie, a 5-year-old pair of pants with holes in them – that I’ve never thrown out – and a $15 pair of op shop shoes, um-ing and ah-ing the boringness of this year’s looks, criticising designs that are meant to showcase the depths of human creativity. While also forgetting that this is a charity event that actually raises thousands of dollars.

But Semantics, semantics. The people don’t care about that; the people care about systemic oppression and flashes of unperturbed wealth, all while watching and eating cereal for the third time that day. 

So I’m here to give you a daily dose of cynicism that lets you know someone else on the internet agrees with you. We can all bitch about this together. We can all be that old man shaking his fist at the clouds.

Here are a few moments from the Met that let us know we’re falling down a dystopian wormhole of humanities own making.

A$AP Rocky was running late. A$AP Rocky was Stressed. A$AP Rocky’s time is money. A$AP Rocky used someone's face to one-handedly pole vault over a fence and onto the red carpet. 

I saw the videos. Rather than appear through the gilded entrance where most other celebrities would enter, A$AP flailed his way through a sectioned fan area where they stood to watch the night unfold. At first, the people lining the plastic-bottled partition, bothered and brooding, shouldered the young rapper back into submission thinking him to be another fan trying to push his way to the front of the gate. But alas, he was A$AP Rocky, and his life means more than yours because he’s a *celebrity*. 

Once A$AP made his triumphant vault over the gate, peeling back his hood, his gucci-clad feet landing on the pristine red floor, the crowd went wild. “OMG It’s A$AP Rocky.”

The girl, whose glasses had been yeeted from her face, went from seething-side-eyed hater to gasping, ecstatic fan girl.

“I can’t believe I got semi-throat-punched by A$AP Rocky! I’m going to tell everyone!” 

What an honour. Celebrities are the best :)

(This is no hate to A$AP. I also fall victim to my love for him. Someone once said I looked like A$AP Rocky on Ketamine. Any celebrity could have done this and I would have written the same thing. I’m a living case in point.)

The most viral and celebrated moment of the Met Gala: when a cockroach made its entrance on the red carpet. Karl Lagerfield had arrived. 

No, no, it’s just a joke. But seriously? A cockroach? Honestly, I can’t say I’m surprised. The world of viral content is a stranger to pattern or form. 

But why virality for a cockroach? Maybe it’s because a cockroach is the stark opposite of opulence, a cockroach is a pest, a cockroach is dirty. A cockroach at the Met Gala? Preposterous. 

Sadly, in the end, I heard the cockroach was killed. Is that symbolic? Lots of questions.

Nothing screams ‘celebrities being relatable’ than a recycling-marketing scheme that says  “we get it, the world is on fire and the ice caps are melting”. This time the walls keeping the peasants and miscreants – i.e. the media and PR people – out of reach from the million dollar babies were lined with plastic bottles, all the same size and of impeccable shine. 

I’ve tried to find information on where these perfectly-aligned bottles came from, and why they were all the same size, and how they were cleaned so impeccably (surely the amount of time, manpower and water outweighed any real saving of electricity or resources – that’s beside the point though). And I can’t. 

Well, almost…

I did find one thing: “Given today’s climate, we wanted to highlight the importance of giving our everyday items more than one life cycle,” the man behind the decor, Raul Àvila, told Vogue.

“We wanted to find a way to create a sustainable design that would implement the bottles into a breathtaking installation unlike anything we’ve done before.” 

I like the idea behind it. I like the idea of using recycled goods as art but something about it feels off. Maybe it’s the countless dollars that go into the Met Gala itself: the outfits, the attendance of billionaires whose job it is to sell products to us lesser humans, the countless jet flights to attend, the sheer amount of opulence and individualism and capitalistic tendency that the Met inspires.

Sometimes when a famous person does bad things it’s okay. Actually most of the time it’s fine. In fact, it should be celebrated! 

Here are some cool things Karl Lagerfield has said:

During the #metoo movement…

“It’s unbelievable. If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent. They’re recruiting even!”

“What shocks me most in all of this are the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened…Not to mention the fact there are no prosecution witnesses.”

On beauty…

"[Adele] is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice." 

"Kate Middleton has a nice silhouette and she is the right girl for that boy ... On the other hand, her sister struggles…I don't like the sister's face. She should only show her back."

“Life is not a beauty contest, some ugly people are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people. The worst is ugly short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life — they are mean and they want to kill you.”

When Chancellor Angela Merkel talked about opening the German border to immigrants…

"One cannot – even if there are decades between them – kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place.”

"I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said, 'The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust.”

Obviously people change. Maybe Karl Lagerfield in his later years atoned for his mistakes. Maybe he didn’t actually mean anything he said and it was all a joke. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

Some celebrities are said to have protested on the day by wearing pink, “See life in pink, but do not wear it!” Lagerfield once said. And Lizzo was pictured eating Mcdonalds while in her Karl Lagerfield inspired dress. 

But there’s no way you can’t go to the Met Gala, so instead, why not – in an incredible show of protest – do something most people won’t even pick up on?

Anyway I hope this list didn’t upset you too much. Everything’s good and everything’s fine. The world is healthy and humans are innately good. It’s all just a bit of fun anyway, isn’t it?

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