We’re starting to get seriously worried about the rich people, folks. Not “worried” in the sense of being concerned that they might actually ever be adversely affected, either by COVID-19 itself, or by the economic and social shake-ups that the global response to the virus has necessitated. More “worried” in the sense that it’s actually baffling how bad so many of them have proven themselves at not issuing nigh-daily accidental press releases on the financial and emotional benefits to be had in rising up and devouring them whole. It’s getting to the point where it almost feels like some sort of cash-induced brain disease, a hideous and infectious need to say something about their vast reserves of wealth, safety, and power, when “nothing” would certainly have sufficed.
Take, for instance, the now very locked-down Instagram account of ludicrously wealthy and powerful Hollywood executive David Geffen. Anyone who knows who Geffen is—Dreamworks co-founder, Geffen Records creator, maker and breaker of presidents—knows that he is, if not richer than God, then rich enough that he and God can share some knowing and superior nods. But did you know that David Geffen has a yacht, and that yachts are pretty sweet places to weather a global viral pandemic? David Geffen would like you to know this. (Or at least he did, before the comments got too mean.)
Geffen made the above, screenshotted posts on his Instagram earlier this week, apparently not really thinking about the fact that other people might not have a yacht anchored off the Grenadines to hang out on while life on the mainland continues to get more painful and surreal. (By the way: As far as we can tell, that’s the Rising Sun, “the sixth largest motor yacht in the world.” Did you know that David Geffen is so rich that his Wikipedia page has a separate entry for “Yachts”?) Said comments were intriguing and fascinating enough to the non-yachted classes that Geffen is now trending on Twitter, although presumably he doesn’t know this yet, because we assume rich people get the nice version of Twitter where the @ button no longer works.
David Geffen has done some good things in this world: He’s made a lot of donations to medical schools over the years, and also that Beetlejuice cartoon he produced in the ’90s was pretty sweet. (Although he also once got into a massive fight with the Malibu city government because he refused to build a legally mandated beach access path for us poors to use after he gobbled up a bunch of oceanside property, so there is that.) But we’re getting pretty concerned that his case of can’t-read-the-fucking-room-itis has reached chronic, if not terminal, proportions. Pray for David, folks. Or pray against him. We’d understand doing that second one, too, really.