Kim Kardashian’s Private Island Birthday Is the Ideal Lockdown 2.0 Aperitif

As you’ve definitely seen this morning, it’s a day for watching Twitter. Last night Kim Kardashian West posted pictures of a little surprise private island getaway she and her inner circle enjoyed for her 40th birthday after, in her deathless phrase, “multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine”. Surpriiiiiise!

“We danced, rode bikes, swam near whales, kayaked, watched a movie on the beach and so much more,” she wrote. “I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is.”

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Obviously, it’s crass. Obviously, it feels like a wind-up. If you wanted to go to a private island, you could also go to a private island without telling anyone. But that’s where the tweets really touched a nerve.

There’s the wealthy, then there’s the super-wealthy, then there’s the private island-wealthy. Whether you actually have loads of money or just want to give the impression you do, a private island is the ultimate, extremely literal planting of a flag. A private island says you’re so wealthy that it’s done something to your brain, that you’re wealthy to a pathological degree and simply cannot be around normies anymore.

The only other people who have private islands are Bond villains and slightly mad people who declare themselves the new royal family of their proud new micronation set on an old oil rig. In all circumstances, you suspect, private islanders have a bit of a superiority complex.

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So something like this is exactly what a lot of us have been waiting for: some tangible proof that we weren’t wrong to resent and suspect the extremely wealthy people telling us we were all in it together and actually it might be nice to just disconnect from the pace of modern life for a while and it’s actually a kind of a blessing and etc etc etc. And it turned out that ‘something like this’ would turn out to be a perfect storm of indignant fury.

The Kardashian Industrial Complex is a popular target anyway, but that multiplied by private island, times staring down the barrel of a lockdown where the sun goes down at 3.30pm, to the square root of a pretence of humility – it’s a fair idea to acknowledge your privileged life, but not while pairing it with pic of your cocktail-aloft strut from a beach house – has got a lot of us foaming.

Well, foaming for comic effect at any rate. Even Hacker T Dog, CBBC’s resident dog puppet, has scored points off this one on Twitter. He doesn’t even have a skeleton.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

We’re past the point in the Twitter cycle where anyone’s doing earnest rebuttals anymore, but there’s a real and longstanding irritation underneath the memes. If we can’t eat the rich, we can at least take the piss out of their crayfish skewers. Pass the Malibu.

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