The (Protocols Of The) Boy(friend)s of Summer
Also: Ibiza, Hootie The Owl, billionaires in the club, facehugger economics, the reason I will one day be assassinated by the media illuminati, Geoffrey the Giraffe, and SUMMER FRIDAYS RADIO RETURNS!!
Ha, god. This one. Buckle up.
Ready?
Breathe in. And:
Table of Contents:
Summer Fridays Radio: The Last of the Long Days
The (Protocols Of The) Boy(friend)s of Summer
Give Or Take, 33,575 Reasons Why Private Equity Boyfriends Might Be Having a “Marrying Up Summer”
“Principles” In The “Club”
1. Summer Fridays Radio: The Last of the Long Days
As ever, don’t call it a podcast: Summer Fridays Radio is finally back, again. And this time, with an episode meant to celebrate the last of the long days, and the most of the sun. Included herein, the sweets sounds of Sardinia, Brighton Beach, and oh yes:
A very brief and personal tribute to William Orbit, and his greatest production.
Some unearthed tracks from a historic beach party’s out-of-print live recording
The best summer TRL-era R&B jam you’ve definitely forgotten about
And so much more.
You’re gonna enjoy it. I promise. Click on the embed above to listen to it, or find it on Soundcloud right here.
2. The Protocols Of The Boyfriends of Summer
Habibi City? More like HEY BB CITY! Ladies, ladies, ladies: Do I ever admire your commitment to the bit that is driving your fellow women insane with dating fads of any kind, but especially the ones that take place in the summer (when everyone is clinically insane). And my favorites? When — much like various species of trending genus Doodle (Labradoodle, Cavapoo, Bernadoodle, Cockapoo) — a new Type of Boyfriend is anointed as the must-have accessory of the season. And this year’s Ladbubu? The — have you heard? — Private Equity Boyfriend!
Wall Street Journal: “This Summer’s Hottest Arm Candy Is a Private Equity Boyfriend”
The Times of London: “The A-list plus one? It’s a private equity guy”
Vogue: “I Want What They Have: Olivia Rodrigo and Her Man in Finance”
And if you’re wondering about the logic used to determine this universal truth of our times, look no further than the obviously rock-solid “three’s a trend” standard: Olivia Rodrigo, Nicole Kidman, and Reese Witherspoon1 are all dating men in private equity — thus, Private Equity Boyfriend Summer has been declared.
Forgoing the fact that:
(A) Celebrity culture is mostly for idiots and people desperate to occupy the quiet despair of their own hollow lives with flyover-country grade noise,
(B) We know literally nothing about these people’s relationships — for all we know, it’s actually the summer of Pegging Private Equity Boyfriends! But that doesn’t make for good copy, so.
(C) Of all the people involved, only one of them is genuinely culturally relevant.
You could also probably throw any number of lady-celebs on the market into this list, invert this gender normative bullshit on its head, and declare that all men must abide Hot Divorcee Summer! But that’s besides the point. This shit isn’t to make men insane, it’s to make women insane.
For reference, see previous macro himbonomic “trends,” such as:
The Golden Retriever Boyfriend
The Hot Rodent Boyfriend
The Skater Boi(friend), and of course,
The Not Having A Boyfriend
As such, grab your rosary beads, and repeat after me:
The vast majority of lifestyle media
is designed
to either
turn your life's preferences into cliches,
or turn cliches into your life preferences. 2
That’s the entire thing! That’s the bit! That’s the thing I’ll type that results in a red floating dot just above my nose later this evening before it all goes black! Having worked in media for 18 years, I assure you: We’re good at what we do, and we know what the fuck what we’re doing.3 And what we’re doing is driving you insane, provoking your insecurities about not having things in your life you need, and/or having the information about which things you don’t have and need.456
3. Give Or Take, 33,575 Reasons Why Private Equity Boyfriends Might Be Having a “Marrying Up Summer”
Let’s set aside the fact that private equity is the facehugger of financial models: It lands on the head of a company and mouf-impregnates it with bad ideas which later come bursting out of said business’s chest, then making life super shitty for everyone nearby, usually resulting in a bunch of dead space truckers/unemployment, a blown-up spaceship/business, and the spawning of several mostly terrible sequels that keep getting made.
Honestly, we don’t even need that fucking metaphor!7 Get this:
- People literally die when private equity takes over their hospital/healthcare network. - - Also, kids get dumber at schools,
- Restaurants get shittier,
- The housing market becomes impossible for you,
- and Geoffrey The Giraffe and Hootie8 The Hooters Owl get violently murked!
Doesn’t get any more straightforward than the Kennedy School publishing “Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream,” does it?9
But look, as someone who would prostitute his very stretchable….moral core…for (what are honestly fairly reasonably priced) late season Balearic accommodation, I get it, you gotta do who you gotta do, and I hope you take that Private Equity Boyfriend for all he’s worth in the divorce.
EXCEPT: Might go the other way around, sister. Because just a few days after all those Private Equity Boyfriend stories, there was this New York Times gem:
For the third consecutive year, private equity firms are saddled with a rapidly increasing number of companies that they cannot sell or take public at the returns their investors expect. As of June 30, private equity firms had 33,575 unsold companies in their portfolios.
Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so ba—
That’s up from 32,451 companies at the end of last year and 15,923 companies a decade ago.
Oh. But, uh, the private equity industry expanded, and the numbers are gonna grow, so, kinda feels like it’s not such a b—
As the backlog grows, private equity firms continue [underperfroming on the market]. From July 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026, U.S. private equity firms generated annualized returns of 6.4 percent, far below the 15.2 percent annualized returns of the S&P 500 and the 19.3 percent of the Nasdaq during the same time period.
Short version: Low interest rates post-pandemic caused private equity to go hog-wild borrowing money and eating up companies they’d then destroy, interest rates went up, now people don’t wanna borrow the money to buy the lifeless husks of companies they fugazi’d, so now, P.E. is left holding the bag, and investors can find better returns in plenty of other places, like [gestures widely] and cult substacks that refuse to monetize. I’ve got an idea for one place: A prediction market for how long any of these Private Equity Boyfriends will last, and take the under on a year. Easy money, and a good show, too.
4. “Principles” In The “Club”
Let me now whisk you off to my spiritual ancestral land of Ibiza, a place with far more virtue than you’ve probably heard. It’s not the Big Nightclub And Lad-Infested Hellhole you might think. Imagine a place where the actual-worst-of-it-all is the busiest, and the actual-best-stuff is stupidly-easily accessed: That’s Ibiza, that’s why I love it, and that’s why I’m never doing travel content on here unless I’m making you people pay through the nose to give up my spots.
But earlier this week, further "improving” the reputation of the White Isle was a Tweet from Ray Dalio, the Bridgewater founder and author of “Principles” — the “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” of cornball MBAs and first-time founders hoping to one day impregnate the economy with someone else’s demon semen capital. Said Tweet?
Annotated:
Of all the clubs in Ibiza, that Dalio was at UNVRS — Ibiza’s first “hyper-club” — wasn’t a surprise, in the slightest. It’d be a surprise if he went anywhere else. UNVRS is a “nightclub” like the Bellagio is a “hotel” or like this thing is a “spider,” which is to say: Technically true, but also, are you fucking kidding me KILL IT WITH FIRE KILL IT NOW jesus, fuck.
UNVRS has, by any reasonable definition, good booking: Carl Cox (an actually-great DJ whose legendary Boiler Room set minted him for life, to say nothing of the fact that he still has the sauce), Fisher (also an Australian spider, who actually, like the rest of his spiderkin, descends from the ceiling of UNVRS), and Anyma (which — living up to the homophone — is just nightmare fuel mixed with the brown sound). But if it’s between seeing Carl Cox at UNVRS, and not seeing Carl Cox at all, I’m taking a rain-check.10
UNVRS is the kind of “nightclub” that sells €80 chicken tenders. It’s the kind of “nightclub” that debuted with a Will Smith-starring trailer a few years ago. It’s the kind of “nightclub” owned by a billionaire named, incredibly, Yann Pissenem. Who (per a recent Vanity Fair profile), doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs, barely sleeps, barely smiles, and mostly eats nutritional “pellets” prescribed to him by a Swiss doctor. The other clubs he owns, HI Ibiza and Ushuaïa, are about as appealing as a colonoscopy with slightly better drink service (and mostly, worse music). True story: I’ve been at Pacha when the CEO is there, and that guy looks like he’s having the time of his goddamn life owning Pacha, as you should. Mr. Pissenem, the owner of UNVRS, has all the charm of a cinderblock in your face.
And yet: Much has been made of Dalio’s age, and that a man of his age going to the club in Ibiza tells you everything you need to know about Ibiza, supposedly. But as Max already (hilariously) pointed out: “It’s one of the few places I’ve be to with true intergenerational clubbing, it’s not weird to see a pretty broad age range at the club.”
It’s true! My first time at Pacha, the thing that stunned maybe more than anything else was when, at 5AM, in swans a couple in their mid-60s, completely assembled, not at all sweating, dressed immaculately, smiles on their faces, looking like they just got a few kids off to college and a sinecure or a board seat or two to keep them busy, but otherwise, living incredibly well. I — saucer-eyed, drenched in sweat, feral fucking goblin mode — thought this was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen, and like everyone else in that crowd, made room for them to move to the front. I still thought it was wonderful a week later when I got back, and told someone who’s been there a bunch, and they shrugged like: Yep, there’s a bunch of that. Good for them, right? Subsequent trips would prove it to be true. As such: Don’t spend your time making fun of Dalio for his age, make fun of him because he went to UNVRS, which sucks. That said, if he went to Pikes, I’d probably be pretty goddamn upset, but the worst ones never would. Ibiza, you know?
Okay, that’ll do it, we’ve done more than enough for one day. Hope you’re off to a truly lovely weekend. Remember: The days are getting shorter. Here’s hoping you get some time off this phone or computer to go make the most of it, really. Peace to William Orbit. Don’t forget the radio.
His name is Pissenem! Come on. Sometimes, it all writes itself, you know?
Thanks, as ever, for reading. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without you all.
As ever,
-f.
They also threw Token Gay Andy Cohen in there, but that’s to throw off the scent.
….hamotzi lechem min haaretz, HAIL PAIMON.
Especially us sneaky media Jews. Who do you think put that Habibi City cover package together that enraged all the Jews? Have you seen these people? Cut out a headshot or two and it looks like a Ramah Darom roll call. It’s called craftsmanship.
Just do a tight parameter search on the phrase “everyone knows that—” on Substack and you’ll see an entire cottage industry of this shit.
Or — as you’ll remember from two footnotes back — THE JEWS!
To my good friend/circumcised dick who’s been in my ear/texts all week over that Habitbi City cover story, ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? And no, I haven’t read it yet, and no, I will not get angry about it no matter what’s in it, not when private equity scumdicks are being lionized in any way.
But we do need another season of Alien Earth, which, uh, absolutely kicked ass. Great soundtrack, too.
Yeah, the owl had a name. Did I have to look that up? Doesn’t matter, he’s dead.
I won’t even mention journalism, here, because the fact that private equity has fucked up journalism more than it was already fucked up is…actually, on some level, kind of impressive.
Especially in genpop. Lemme be a booth ho for the night, though, and yeah, I’d probably do it.
As a certified Old Guy In the Club I will merely assent that (judging by my single visit) Pissenem's Ushuaia is ... not my vibe. Or anyone's?