If you want to witness a society’s end-stage decadence, look at the Met Gala
Once, the Met Gala was about upper-class women dressing up in nice clothes. Now, though, it’s a scene of ugliness, perversion, and debauchery.
Andrea Widburg for American Thinker
The Met Gala, which began in 1948 to benefit the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has always focused on clothes, but the original focus was on the museum’s costumes, not the attendees’ fashions. In the early years, the clothes the women guests wore, while very luxurious, were about beauty, elegance, and femininity. The men, of course, wore tuxedos. That’s changed, with many of the famous attendees trying to outdo each other with ugliness, perversion, and debauchery.
Images from early Met Galas are copyrighted, but you can get an idea of how guests dressed by looking at this retrospective of the 1960 Gala. While celebrities attended (I think one of those photos shows Joan Crawford), the guests were mostly wealthy New Yorkers supporting the arts, and they looked normal.
Things have changed since then. The Met Gala is now a place for the rich and famous to see and be seen. But they’re not there to show how elegant and beautiful they are. They are there, instead, to shock people. There’s an unpleasant Weimar vibe about the whole thing, with America’s bored, wealthy people competing with each other for shock value in a dying culture.
Here’s a small collection of the weird and ugly. My favorite in that category is Cardi B, in part because of Mario Nawfal’s perfect comment:
Cardi B at the 2026 Met Gala looking like a large intestine…pic.twitter.com/AmkIwZDXt5https://t.co/RaSUkJkx1u
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 5, 2026
Ah, Cardi B. The devoutly Catholic bisexual performer who used to make money as a stripper and by drugging and robbing men (something for which she feels no remorse). Culturally, she started off Weimar-ish and has gone downhill since then.
Meanwhile, as you see, Madonna borrowed from Morticia Addams, adding a plague ship as a headdress. Morticia would have ditched the headdress and looked a thousand times classier (and less dead).
Or how about Sam Smith, who famously claims to have transcended the normal sexual binary? That costume does not flatter him, but it’s better than aping the devil:
Sam Smith arrives at the Met Gala pic.twitter.com/Y2NfexWWQK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 4, 2026
Sam Smith wasn’t the only “I know better than God” person there:
🇺🇸 This is how “gender fluid” producer Jordan Roth showed up at the Met Gala.
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 4, 2026
The theme this year was “Fashion is Art”… but this just looks like a rejected horror movie prop.
Creepy doesn’t even begin to cover it. pic.twitter.com/XPCdc4VYEM
Connor Storrie’s bio does not proclaim him to be an alphabet person. Seemingly, he lost a bet:
Connor Storrie (whoever the fuck that is) at the Met Gala 2026 humiliation ritual. pic.twitter.com/Cjy4LVyBaR
— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) May 4, 2026
Rihanna and Rocky (but not the good Rocky) put on a good show. He’s in a pink bathrobe with Tuxedo stylings (a good gag gift for a 10-year-old girl), and she’s emerging from something that reminds me of the worm monsters in Tremors (one of the best comedy horror movies ever):
Rihanna and Rocky Met Gala pic.twitter.com/LnH14Prlgb
— Met Gala 2026 (@2026MetGala) May 5, 2026
Beyoncé dressed as a chandelier that had engaged in a fierce battle with a now-bald ostrich:
Beyoncé at Met Gala 2026! pic.twitter.com/DhLijZnnDG
— Met Gala 2026 (@2026MetGala) May 5, 2026
Kim Kardashian, whose whole shtick is shock, arrived in a sprayed-on plastic orange swimsuit—at least, in the front. It was bagging and pouching in the back. It was the worst of all possible worlds, since it was both boring and unsexy:
Kim Kardashian for Met Gala 2026 pic.twitter.com/cugPllAEN6
— Met Gala 2026 (@2026MetGala) May 5, 2026
Kylie Jenner, refusing to be outdone by her half-sister, arrived in a sprayed-on plastic flesh-colored swimsuit:
Kylie Jenner is rising and 𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰 as she makes her way into the #metgala. pic.twitter.com/0i10uMxSTz
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) May 4, 2026
These sisters’ assets have been so over-exposed that the shock value is gone, and nothing of value remains.
Doechii saved most of her costume for her head, with a bare nod (and I mean “bare” literally) to her body:
Doechii at Met Gala 2026!! pic.twitter.com/P56cTXEpEZ
— Met Gala 2026 (@2026MetGala) May 4, 2026
Margot Robbie, to her credit, opted for class. The dress was boring and unflattering for such a beautiful woman, but it really stood out simply by not being offensive:
Margot Robbie at Met Gala 2026 pic.twitter.com/KXP7XHwYkC
— Met Gala 2026 (@2026MetGala) May 4, 2026
Not all of it was about spectacle. Sarah Paulson, worth around $12 million, opted for social commentary so hypocritical it’s almost an art form in itself:
Sarah Paulson wears dollar bill over her eyes to call out the ‘One Percent.’
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 5, 2026
The actress, who is worth an estimated $12 million, used her outfit to call out the world’s elite while attending the $100,000 per person Met Gala. pic.twitter.com/jWfIPdtWTn
Rachel Zegler also covered her eyes, but she did so as a dramatic recreation of Lady Jane Grey’s execution. Zegler seemed to be struggling with a TMJ problemaffecting her jaw, or maybe she was just using her acting chops, such as they are, to convey the horror of a principled young woman facing the headman’s axe:
Rachel Zegler took her #MetGala fashion inspiration straight from art, referencing 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey' by Paul Delaroche. pic.twitter.com/pDJEpypise
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) May 5, 2026
This video compiles some of the weirdest clothes, including many I haven’t shown here:
Wildest looks from the Met Gala 2026 red carpet pic.twitter.com/M8gU7w4seC
— The Independent (@Independent) May 5, 2026
The best, of course, was the imaginary Marco Rubio costume:
Marco Rubio arrives to the Met Gala 🔥 pic.twitter.com/GFQ43EjuUm
— DFF (@DumbFxckFinder) May 5, 2026
I could do this indefinitely, because there is so much fodder. It’s amusing, but also deeply depressing. Our cultural leaders are morally corrupt, tacky people.
But there is hope. Just as the debauchery of late 18th- and early 19th-century British high culture was eventually wiped away by the morality of the Victorian middle class, there are signs that, underneath America’s rot, cultural normalcy is reasserting itself. The most obvious sign is young men returning to church. It’s hoped that young women, finding that a life of being angry and having cats for their only companions, will go where the boys are.
Image created using AI.