BONUS: A Trashy 2000s NYC Reading List

Buckle up, we're going for a ride (in Lizzie Grubman's Mercedes SUV)

A funny thing about the 2000s: while it produced some of the most absurd, brain-breakingly idiotic art and culture that I have ever personally witnessed, the writing that was published about that culture was often…fantastic?? Profoundly engaging?? Written with a wit and level of care that one rarely sees in cultural coverage today?? Maybe it was in spite of the idiocy, or perhaps the idiocy was the muse, who knows (I mean, Nancy Jo Sales knows, but she’s not talking). Maybe it was just because we didn’t have Twitter yet.

Anyway, when I posted about a classic NY Mag trashterpiece on Twitter yesterday, it seemed like a lot of people were interested in learning more, so I am breaking open my archives: here are my personal picks for the best articles about the trashy 2000s in my adopted hometown of NYC (yes, some of this is from the late ‘90s. As previously discussed, the 2000s actually began in, like, 1997).

I’m not just focusing on New York because I live here — I really do think that if you want to understand the 2000s, you have to look to New York. While ‘90s New York exported grim, gritty, intellectual culture to the rest of the country — Biggie, Abel Ferrara, Sonic Youth, Wu-Tang, Chloe Sevigny, Elizabeth Wurtzel — and generally kind of followed the culture coming out of the Pacific Northwest and other indie hotbeds, in the 2000s, NYC once again became a cultural epicenter…of glam stupidity. It was like the whole town had a secret meeting and decided that in order to get back on top, we had to declare that books were for losers, we were tired of thinking, and we were all going to go clubbing without any underpants on for a while, and see if we liked that better. It led to hyper-speed gentrification and the general American Psycho-ification of the city, and I think we’re still paying for it today. But damned if it isn’t fun to read about.

See you at Marquee!

1. Prep School Gangsters, Nancy Jo Sales, NY Mag, 1996

   

   Years before she terrorized poor Alexis Neiers, Nancy Jo was reporting on the wealthy teens of NYC, as in this infamous piece about nihilistic, drug-dealing private school kids who commit crimes and hang out at fancy bars. This piece came out in the wake of 1995’s Kids, a sensationalistic yet boring after school special-cum-art movie about naughty NYC teens, and definitely does that film one better: The kids here are worse and the dialogue is better (does that dialogue sometimes seem made-up? Sure, but who cares, this is ART). It set the standard for the many, many “look at this fucked-up rich teen!” articles that would come in the following decade.

   *Also, reader beware: any article from 1996 entitled “Prep School Gangsters” is obviously going to be totally insensitive, and this article has some offensive language and can get very, very weird about race and sex.*

   *Also also: like many of the most transgressive (or “transgressive”) films of the ‘90s, Kids is legally streaming nowhere, but it is on the Internet Archive, if you feel like seeing it for yourself. I very vividly remember moving heaven and earth to get my hands on a VHS copy in 8th grade, and then watching it and being like, “I busted my ass for THAT??” but hey, make up your own mind.

2. Welcome to the Dollhouse, Vanessa Grigoriadis, NY Mag, 1998

The only person to give Nancy Jo a run for her money in the 2000s trashterpiece department is, imho, Vanessa Grigoriadis. Vanessa has mostly moved on to more high-brow topics these days, and while I’m sure that’s better for her, I am sad, because when it came to penning absolutely brutal looks at fascinating, deluded rich people, Vanessa was one of the best to ever do it. I strongly recommend exploring the early ‘00s section of her NY Mag archives. Is she basically our ‘00s Edith Wharton? IT’S NOT FOR ME TO SAY.

This 1998 piece is like Rosetta Stone to understanding the spray-tanned, wealth-worshipping, body-dysmorphic, cocaine-addled, out-of-control, starlet-barfing-outside-a-nightclub decade that followed it. Ostensibly, it’s chronicling the adventures of a group of very young, very rich publicists who like to party hearty; but really, it’s about excess, meaningless decadence, rich dads, empty lives, expensive jeans…everything you want in an article, really. If this article had never been written, would Serena van der Woodsen even exist??

* The Observer did a 15th anniversary “where are they now” that’s mostly unsatisfying, except for the revelation that Jennifer Posner gave it all up, became a yoga teacher, and moved to Peru.

3. Caution: These Kids Are About to Blow Up, Nancy Jo Sales, NY Mag, 1998

   

   Are you old enough to remember those “Models Suck” t-shirts? Then you will extra enjoy this profile of the very goofy, fairly obnoxious young men who created it — with bonus appearances by Mark Ronson, Leo, Q-Tip, and a bunch of people who are probably just parents in Connecticut now who are trying very hard to keep their kids from finding this article.

4. A Very Grubman Interlude

   

If you know the name “Lizzie Grubman” (she’s one of the women on the “Power Girls” cover above), it is for one of two reasons: 1. You watched her 2005 MTV reality show Power Girls or 2. You remember when she backed her car into a crowd of people in the Hamptons in the summer of 2001.

In the years between those two events, she was the subject of frequent local think-pieces, because, you know, there’s a lot to think about when a rich white lady is allowed to plow into a group of people with her SUV, and then essentially return unscathed to her previous life AND actually get a TV show out of it.

Reversal of Fortune, NY Mag, 2001

A blow-by-blow of Grubman’s life in the immediate aftermath of her crime.

When Lizzie Mattered, NY Mag, 2003

Another Vanessa G. hit!

Is Original Power Girl Lizzie Grubman A Changed Woman?, NY Mag, 2005

A weird portrait of Grubman on the way back down.

Power Girls seems to have been scrubbed off the face of the internet, but if you find any illegal videos, send ‘em my way.

5. Ben and Dara are in Love (And Nothing Else Matters), Nancy Jo Sales, Sept 2001, Vanity Fair

   

You know how every time there’s a New Yorker interview where Isaac Chotiner totally eviscerates some dum-dum, you’re like “Who’s dumb enough to agree to be interviewed by Isaac Chotiner?” I always think the same thing with every Nancy Jo article about idiot rich teens: what parent is dumb enough to let their kids talk to Nancy Jo Sales? I don’t know, maybe it was easier to not realize you were talking to one of the era’s top literary assassins before the internet was really a thing.

Anyway, this article is about a pair of horny rich kids who fight a lot and go to nice restaurants, and you will not be able to put it down.

6. When Boys of Summer Linger Til Autumn, Allen Salkin, New York Times, 2007

   

   Why have I read this article about commitment-shy 40-something i-bankers in the Hamptons so many, many, many times? It was possibly my first exposure to the concept of the “hate read,” but it also is symbolic in a change in NYC “lifestyle of the rich and tasteless”-type coverage. While the early 2000s coverage was often mocking and brutal, it was simultaneously worshipful; by the late ‘00s, the tone of these kind of pieces had shifted, and become more sad. Instead of suggesting that anyone in the Hamptons is doing better than you (as this article probably would have if it was written in, say, 2002), it is a quietly tragic document of a party that is almost over.

7. The Short, Drunken Life of Club Row, Isaiah Wilner, NY Mag, 2007

   

   This is the end, my only friend. As New York’s rep as peak party destination rose through the 2000s, it led to the development of the Meatpacking District, a nightclub-heavy area that I would describe as a combination pleasure district/ DMZ, where anyone in the tri-state area with money to burn but no creative idea of how to spend it could get a $500 “bottle service” vodka. By 2006, it had been the site of at least one murder, of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore, who got abducted and killed after going to one of the neighborhood’s plentiful clubs. The next year, a man named Orlando Valle died at a club called BED after falling down an elevator shaft. If you want the Altamont of 2000s trash culture, I think it’s right here.