by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Many moons ago, I was famous. I was famous in Seoul because I was DJing at well known expat bar and I was publishing ROKon Magazine. Now, in the context of the actual, real world, I was barely a big fish in a puddle. But I did learn a lot about the dynamics of fame.
And so, this brings us to this picture.
This is a picture of well-known lesbian lothario Cara Delevingne in a two-person cardigan with Kaia Gerber. Given to them by Taylor Swift, of all people. Now, it is very, very possible that they were and are just friends. I’m totally willing to believe that. Just two friends goofing around with a promotional two-person cardigan gifted them by a good famous friend.
And, then, I find myself having some nagging questions about this situation. People who poo-poo any romantic connection between the two women will point out that, as I understand it, Gerber had a boyfriend at the time the picture was taken so, lulz, I’m being a weirdo for suggesting anything untoward. Then I think about what I know from my time in Seoul and it grows very difficult for me not to at least think THIS is what happened: yes, Gerber had a boyfriend, but the whole situation was far more Rich People Open Relationship than us Poors might understand.
As such, Poors like me don’t understand that what I think was happening with this picture is exactly what was going on with this picture, but it’s not as cut and dried as my Poor morality might be able to comprehend. The case could be made that, yes, Gerber was somewhat romantically involved with Delevingne at the time the picture was taken, but she DID have a boyfriend.
Whatever was going on between two women was so far removed from “Instagram official” that they weren’t dating at all and, by the way, Gerber had a boyfriend so why are you even thinking that you Poor freak?
Or put another way, when you’re famous, you have fan base and an image to maintain. If whatever you’re up to in your personal life doesn’t fit the narrative you have for your fan base, it doesn’t exist. It helps if you’re wealthy, have a powerful supermodel mom and the celebrity press is your willing accomplice.
What’s more, even if they WERE dating, at such rarified strata of society as these two women inhabit, whatever they may have been up to is so mundane to their peers that it doesn’t even deserve to be acknowledged. Within the circles of the rich and beautiful, there’s so much bed hopping — same sex and otherwise — that it really takes something unusual for what Poors think is scandalous behavior to become public.
And even then, it’s often something akin to a celebrity false flag operation.
So, yes, relative to my life as a rando Internet crank, there’s nothing to see in the above picture other than two good famous same sex friends sharing a promotional cardigan from another famous friend.
Reality may have been a bit more complicated and murky.
