“The best parties are the ones you can’t talk about, where everything worth repeating is also entirely unprintable.”
Social fixture Carson Griffith started her writing career at (where else?) AVENUE, and now is the Siren of Substack with “Rich People Shit,” her oft controversial, always juicy column and weekly newsletter that has the entire city buzzing.
Did you always want to be a writer?
I was always nosy. Eventually, I figured out that journalism was one of the few professions in which being nosy and remembering everything anyone has ever told you are considered employable skills.
“Rich People Shit” has everyone talking.
“Rich People Shit” was already what I called my journalism beat. I spent years reporting on the peculiar ways that money, access, taste, and status intersect. Many of the best stories were too short, too niche, or too strange to become conventional features. I wanted somewhere to put them. I was nervous about starting a newsletter and it took me almost a year to finally do it, but it’s the best thing I’ve done.
Rich people do some crazy shit.
The funniest examples aren’t the biggest purchases. A $200 million house is almost boring at this point. I am more interested in the tiny absurdities that money creates. I’ve heard of a billionaire shipping his own mattress to Claridge’s because even one of the world’s most luxurious hotels apparently couldn’t be trusted with his sleep. There are also specialists hired to teach pets how to behave on yachts. Apparently, your puppy’s sea legs, like everything else, can be outsourced.
“When I first moved to New York, you could go out on a Tuesday night and somehow stay out until four in the morning. Celebrities seemed to roam the city freely, without every movement being photographed, posted, or turned into content.”
Has anyone been offended by something you’ve written in “RPS”?
Of course, because everyone is always offended by everything. But RPS is a privilege, not a punishment. It is not a gossip column. You would be surprised how often the person you are reading about in “RPS” is also the source of the information. I write about status symbols in “RPS,” but due to the very specific circle of people who read it, appearing in “RPS” has become a status symbol of its own.
Substack is Instagram for people who actually read.
The best part is having a direct relationship with my readers. I can hear something on Tuesday night, report it on Wednesday, and put it in front of thousands of people that morning.
If you could profile one very, very rich person, who would it be?
Warren Buffett, for my own personal interests, because I am fascinated by someone who accumulated an almost unimaginable fortune while constructing a public identity around being remarkably ordinary. From a journalistic perspective, I would choose Jacqueline Mars or Gérard Wertheimer. Both control enormous, culturally significant family fortunes and have given so few interviews that much of what we know about them comes from other people. Profiling someone whose life has not already been packaged and explained a hundred times over is the real dream.
Has NYC changed since you first arrived here?
When I first moved to New York, you could go out on a Tuesday night and somehow stay out until four in the morning. Celebrities seemed to roam the city freely, without every movement being photographed, posted, or turned into content. Now everything closes strangely early, and there is a membership club on every corner trying to recreate the spontaneity we used to have for free. But for all the ways it has changed, New York is still the best city I know.
Membership clubs are popping up faster than Duane Reades.
They are here to stay. New York is borrowing directly from the British model, and London has somewhere between 130 and 140 private clubs. Once New York’s market becomes saturated, I think we will follow London’s lead again. Clubs there are increasingly turning themselves into wellness destinations. Eventually, it will no longer be enough to offer a beautiful dining room and a difficult reservation.
I want a “Real People Shit” book.
I’m writing a novel, but between “RPS” and my other journalism, I am already negotiating with the same 24 hours everyone else gets. I could see “RPS” eventually becoming an entire series. First, though, I have to finish the book I’m pretending I didn’t just tell you about.
You’re invited to some of the swankiest parties in town.
The best parties are the ones you can’t talk about, where everything worth repeating is also entirely unprintable.
What is your ultimate escape?
Mustique. Even with its decades of glamour, it has somehow avoided being overrun by the machinery of mass tourism that has swallowed so many other beautiful places. For something a little easier to reach, Shelter Island. I have a weakness for anywhere that requires a ferry. There is something about leaving the mainland behind that makes an escape feel official. – PETER DAVIS
