TikTokcrats at the Gate

Twitter may be consumed with #eattherich, but Gen Z's favorite platform made a most elite term go viral and turned Thurston Howell III into its most unexpected fit king.

-  TAYLOR LORENZ

A TikTok influencer who goes by @eileen_darling recently posed a question to her audience. "Why be California rich, she asked, as clips of Kylie Jenner surrounded by designer shopping bags flashed across the screen, "when you can be Connecticut rich?" The post, which segued to a loop of vintage Ralph Lauren ads, a woman in a suit outside the St. Regis, and men with sweaters draped over their shoulders, exploded on the platform, amassing 5.4 million views.

"Old money rich is goals," read a top comment. And so, counterintuitively enough, at a time when an "eat the rich" sentiment is coursing through mainstream media and Twitter, a retro mood of champagne wishes and caviar dreams is consuming Generation Z on TikTok. Videos with the hashtag #oldmoney have raked in a collective 1.5 billion views and growing. There are thousands of accounts dedicated solely to glamorizing the trappings of wealth, including that of Christina Najjar, aka Tinx, whose 1.5 million followers include Gwyneth Paltrow, who cameo'd in Najjar's bit "Rich Mom Starter Pack: Brentwood Edition" ("Before buying some heirloom tomatoes and some gluten-free macrobiotic bread, head over to Tracy Anderson for a workout, Paltrow quips, a little too in on the joke.)