Yesterday, Angela Valdez of the Washington City Paper broke the story of Late Night Shots, a members-only website and social club where Washington’s young elite go to play, then tell about it. The article appeared in my inbox late last night, from a friend who simply wrote, ‘You will love this.”
I called her after I finished the piece and left her a message. “I’ve known ___ for years,” I said. “I just want to see who else I know is on there.”
Like countless outgoing young people who buy Lacoste on eBay and have that perfectly indistinct European mutt look, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of social mobility, affording me the vantage points of both the participant in and the skeptic of social circles such as that of LNS. It was almost impossible not to enjoy the attention of the southern “gentlemen” in college, with their charming mannerisms and reckless pursuit of a story to tell the next day that they invariably didn’t remember. But I skewed strongly to the vantage of the skeptic after my freshman year of college. Being degraded to an object subject to critique and assigned value just didn’t do it for me, from being told I was being invited to date functions for status in “the house” to getting roofied. (I made it home safely, then blacked out and spent a morning hugging porcelain.) I also thought the lifestyle was incongruous with the notions of sophistication and etiquette. I stayed in a boyfriend’s fraternity house for a couple of weeks with him and got used to porn and fecal matter, the latter situated farther from the porcelain than the former. And to this day, I regret not going GDI. Men and women in their late 20s and 30s still ask for my Greek affiliation, regardless of differences in chapters from one school to the next. When you pledge, you’re not sisters for life. You’re labeled for life.
All that having been said, I loved college because I always knew I had agency. Most of the experience was nothing like that, by choice, and incidents like those I gave were contained to a small, self-selective, insular group.
The public is fascinated with the young elite. Look at the popularity of I Am Charlotte Simmons, The Hills, Late Night Shots. Clearly, though, none are more interested in the young elite than the young elite themselves. A recent study of the results of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory show that Americans born in the 1980s and later have a “positive and inflated view of the self.” (Citation below.)
On cVillain.com, I want to defend “southern schools” against stereotypes that I don’t think are representative of the entire student body. This group, for example, is not at all representative of fraternity men and sorority women or southern students or even people who wear pastels. The problem is that it takes a small percentage of vocal, proactive assholes to ruin it for everyone. It’s a universal phenomenon. But why do I care about these particular assholes?
I just thought this was something one grows out of, not into.
I already knew I wasn’t being raised in a meritocracy. It’s one thing to be rich and stay rich, but it’s another to get power. This is the population that exhibits the competence for and access to power. They’re clearly compelled to get it, and apparently, they’re getting it. God help us.
Of course, they have the rights to Christianity for their image, too.
Citation: “Egos Inflating Over Time: A Test of Two Generational Theories of Narcissism Using Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis.†By Jean M. Twenge, PhD.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Tagged as: Blogs, College, Gripes, Late Night Shots, Parties, Rumors, Singles Scene, The Lawn, Traditions, University of Virginia, UVA
got used to porn and fecal matter, the latter situated farther from the porcelain than the former
Ahh, the images you can paint. Very well written.
- the waiting d’oy
i just read that article, and while none of it is at all new or surprising, i still threw up a little in my mouth.
She didn’t “break” the story. Readers of Wonkette have known about LNS for a year now.
Wonkette’s a niche market, though, do you think?
Well put, lilith.
After reading the LNS story, I asked some friends about it. I wasn’t too surprised when one said he had been invited to join and hinted that another who wasn’t present wasn’t only a member, but an enthusiastic one. I heard the arguement that closed circle clubs are ways for people to meet appropriate matches, but I have to wonder if people just don’t trust their own judgement to weed out losers when they encounter them. On top of that, the whole idea sounds boring…same people, same places, and the same scenario, night after night.
This is a continuation for these dweebs of the insular Greek life many of them celebrated in college. The “elite” lifestyle and company they keep is self-affirming for them in way that the real world with its messy truths isn’t. By the way, lilith, don’t worry about defending southern schools. I witnessed the same exact behavior in my preppy northern Yankee school, just with a NY/Boston accent.
If these assholes continue to only surround themselves with the same kind of assholes with whom they have always surrounded themselves, they can continue to pretend that they have actual relevance in the real world, which they don’t (current presidential administration notwithstanding).
These are just the kind of assholes I went out of my way to avoid, through all four years of college. And frankly, I didn’t have a very hard time doing it, evne though I went to UVA and I was in a sorority (even if it was the dork sorority, up until they recolonized and got all new pretty white girls).
What I truly do not get is how any woman participates in this LNS crap. Seriously, have some self-respect.
Also, Wonkette isn’t the only blog to have covered LNS over the past year.
People are assholes, news at 11.
One can only hope that these people never breed and create the next generation of My Super Sweet 16 on MTV. I’m not holding my breath, though. That culture is so contrary to my upbringing it’s ludicrous. But I was born in ‘83, so I should try to develop a “positive and inflated view of the self,” so then perhaps I can partake in the lifestyle. They’re like modern-day Neros, only without the religious persecution and the matricide.
I think it’s important to remember that, as lilith pointed out, there is a vocal minority coloring our perception. As this afternoon went on, more of my DC friends reported that they are members of LNS, though none spend time on the forums the website. I wouldn’t catagorize any of my friends to be the predatory type described in the Washington Paper article.
The group in question seems to be Republican, which makes me think that their heyday will be coming to an end shortly. They’ll still have their website and their get togethers, but they probably won’t enjoy the same social power that they currently have in the DC scene.
As much as I tend to be disgusted at LNS type people, I have to laugh when I see people say things like “they can continue to pretend that they have actual relevance in the real world, which they don’t” and other similar comments.
I know it makes you feel better to think that these people are of no importance at all, but I hate to break it to you, that simply just isn’t the case. These guys are more often than not in some sort of position of above-average influence. I know we can sit around and debate about what exactly “relevance” means, but at the end of the day I’m gonna have to say that at the end of the day the rich guy in Georgetown in these stupid social circles probably had a greater (read: “larger”, not “better”) impact on the world and those who live in it than I did. Now before you say “Sounds like a personal problem”, I’m gonna go ahead and acknowledge that yes, it is a bit of a personal problem. I wish I was doing something more meaningful or influential. However, I don’t think I am in the minority when it comes to my low level of relevance vis-a-vis these rich folks.
I’m not saying I don’t want to make fun of them or say bad things about them. In general I don’t agree with their politics or their lifestyle. However, I’m not going to kid myself and convince myself that they are totally unimportant people, because that just usually isn’t the case. Like it or not, money is very important when it comes to influence.
Perhaps it’s a factor of my being completely non-influential (at least, in the sense of these LNS types) and not caring a whit about it. This type of people has never had any kind of real influence in my world, and I’ve gotten along perfectly fine without them for 33 years.
Assholish young neocons are certainly not the only people in the world with money, or influence.
I believe that is an important distinction to make, “my world” or “your world” versus “the world”.
And clearly they aren’t the only people in the world with money or influence. I don’t think I insinuated that anywhere.
But “my world” is part of the world. As their world is part of the world. That doesn’t mean that their power/influence extends much beyond their own community into the world at large any more than mine does.
That is the illusion that I am trying to dispel here. It is my opinion that saying their power/influence is negligible, or doesn’t “extend much beyond their own community into the world at large any more than [yours/mine/average joe] does” is just wrong.
Yes, I can see how it would make someone feel better to believe that. Heck, I used to feel that way. However, IN GENERAL, I think it’s a pretty safe thing to say that the effects of their money/careers and the resulting influence DOES extend into the world more than most of the general public.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be happy in your own personal world, far removed from all their nonsense; I try to do that every day. But I’m not going to sit around kidding myself that their lives are complete wastes and that no one outside their social circles are affected by their lives. I would wager that a staggeringly large percentage of these people will hold positions of significant influence throughout their lives.
We have some athropologists on this site!
Guess you guys don’t read other Charlottesville blogs. Waldo’s had that article linked on his blog for about a week now, with the wonderful linked text: “I dislike these people intensely.”
I’m not sure if naughty words are allowed, but, there is one word that perfectly sums up the people involved with LNS: douchebags.
I am not trying to “make myself feel better.” I just disagree that a large percentage of these people will go on to hold positions of any significant influence… largely because I think 90% of the people who are part of that group (and groups of its ilk) are not, in reality, quite as cool and influential as they seem to think they are.
I think a tiny percentage of them will be actually important in some way to the world at large, and the rest of them will play golf, drink scotch (or red bull and vodka, well into their 40s), and cheat on their wives, and raise another generation of Muffys and Chazzes who will behave the same way.
No: I read them very inconsistently.
Waldo: No, I hadn’t seen your page. Credit where credit is due: http://waldo.jaquith.org/blog/2007/07/lns/
Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLF3Xs0BvKw