The ‘Tech’ Gala
Another Met Gala, another social media cycle of armchair stylists and fair-weather fashionistas cataloguing the fashion fails and occasional triumphs.
However, this year it was hard to ignore the bad taste left behind after news broke that Amazon’s commander-in-chief, Jeff Bezos, reportedly donated $10 million to the Met. Predictably, protests erupted across New York City as calls for a ‘Bezos boycott’ began to gather momentum. From projections on surrounding buildings and fake bottles of urine smuggled into the museum itself, the backlash certainly wasn’t subtle. Then again, it has never been a secret that money can buy proximity to status and influence, but in the case of House Bezos, it still can’t buy good taste.
Over the last few decades, the Met Gala has steadily become just as important to Anna Wintour’s empire, if not more so, than Vogue itself. Adapting to match the times is the name of the game. This year proves more than ever that the Met Gala is no longer simply fashion’s biggest night out, but an increasingly obvious exercise in political and corporate image laundering.
The timing is almost too neat, with the recently released Devil Wears Prada 2 featuring a classless tech billionaire (à la Elon Musk) attempting to buy out Vogue’s fictional counterpart, Runway, despite having no real appreciation for the culture behind it. The storyline works because it mirrors what we are watching happen in real time: tech billionaires forcing their way into industries they neither understand nor particularly value. Journalism, like the arts, faces the same pressure - the slow encroachment of tech money that mistakes ownership for understanding, and a content ecosystem increasingly flooded with AI-generated filler that nobody asked for.
The disappointment surrounding this year’s so-called ‘Tech Gala’ is just another symptom of a much larger cultural rot. Every industry now seems expected to genuflect to Silicon Valley eventually, willingly or otherwise. Perhaps what left such a sour taste this year is not the outfits themselves, but the creeping sense that nothing remains untouched by the barrage of tech billions for long.
From Reality TV to City Hall
Back in the early days of 2025, an unknown State Assemblyman named Zohran Mamdani launched an outsider campaign for New York mayor, run predominantly through a slick social media operation.
In the early days of 2026, a former reality star named Spencer Pratt launched an outsider campaign for Los Angeles mayor, run predominantly through a slick social media operation.
We know how one of these stories ended. The second is still a work in progress.
Spencer Pratt is, to the connoisseur of 2000s popular culture, a reality TV villain par excellence. As a cast member on The Hills, a structured reality programme that long predated British equivalents like Made in Chelsea, he was perhaps the first person to realise that being seen as the bad guy didn’t matter as long as you were being seen. In the intervening years, he has mostly used this inherent PR nous to indulge his wife Heidi’s DOA pop music career - that is, until his house burned down in the Pacific Palisades fire and he discovered electoral politics. The somewhat aptly named Pratt, a man who has never let the fact that he is simply not very famous anymore get in his way, has decided that his latest incarnation is what might be called ‘Evil Jimmy Stewart’. Mr Pratt Goes to Getty House, if you will.
American history is littered with washed-up celebrities using politics as an extracurricular. (More than one of them has been President.) No one seriously believes that Spencer Pratt will be the next mayor of LA. But two key things are true.
The first is that he is running an extraordinarily right-wing campaign using the same playbook as that of Mamdani last year. In a series of incendiary social media videos, he has genuinely captured the attention of the right-wing commentariat beyond just the MAGA faithful. Yes, he has the approval of political kingmaker Joe Rogan, but even Jeb Bush (remember him?), a “Never Trump” kind of guy, commented approvingly on one of his ads. Much in the way that Mamdani ultimately united a significant coalition of union members and the young, Pratt has the attention of a large swathe of the Republican base. He also, again like Mamdani, understands how the media works - if, all those years ago, he was effectively self-producing on The Hills, he is now doing so on a much grander, and more essential, stage than an MTV reality show. And, if that’s a war, he’s winning it - would we even be writing about the LA mayoral election if not for him?
The second truth is that, while Los Angeles might be a liberal city, we should all be past the point of counting out upstart Republican challengers simply because “it couldn’t happen here”. The New York Post’s recently opened California outpost is in overdrive in his favour. He’s polling behind incumbent mayor Karen Bass, but largely ahead of socialist challenger Nithya Raman, and he made it to the most recent televised debate. And what do Californians love if not one of their own in office? Stranger things have happened.
Traitors Cast Coup
Just six months ago, the nation watched the epic finale of the first UK Celebrity Traitors as Alan Carr pulled off an absolute blinder to become the show’s first celebrity champion. It was only in 2022 that the BBC launched the now hugely successful format. While the series has been an undeniable hit, the broadcaster has also found itself surrounded by separate controversies, from the Trump documentary editing scandal to Scott Mills’ dramatic recent exit and the handling of Huw Edwards’ dismissal.
Much like the show itself, the BBC has faced its own interrogating and grilling at the roundtable of public opinion, and in actual courtrooms too, as it attempts to defend itself against mounting scrutiny.
However, while there may be plenty of eyes on the broadcaster, there were also 15 million watching The Celebrity Traitors finale. And with the newly announced cast already being devoured by the public, it seems the BBC must be doing something right. More importantly, the lineup suggests the casting directors actually understand what the word “celebrity” means. Among the names heading to the Scottish Highlands are James Blunt, Ross Kemp, Michael Sheen, Richard E. Grant and Miranda Hart, all preparing to either deceive or detect.
Another standout booking is Jerry Hall, who has also been confirmed for the new series. If her marriage to Rupert Murdoch, and his reported decision to divorce her via email, taught us anything, it’s that she can survive even the messiest showbiz drama.
It seems the format itself, along with its endless stream of iconic moments, has become a kind of Traitors-style cloaking device for the wider chaos currently surrounding the BBC. With such a star-studded cast signing on, the corporation is clearly not struggling to maintain its celebrity appeal. Filming is already underway, and the show will return to screens this autumn. Grab the popcorn and prepare to watch famous faces navigate deception, trust, and perhaps most challengingly of all, the spelling of Industry star Myha’la’s name on a chalkboard.
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