OK, Whats up with the VIP Room?
Where has our obsession with VIP come from?? You have VIP tickets, VIP lines, a VIP bar, VIP armbands. Now they even have a regular VIP and an ultra-VIP. WTF??? Now dont get me wrong, there are true VIP rooms. The places where stars want to be able to go without getting hassled for their autograph or pictures or getting slipped demo tapes every 5 minutes. I can dig that. I dont mean those places, Im talking about the majority of VIP rooms in every club in every city. Because lets face it, 99.3 % of these VIP rooms have never seen a celebrity grace its doors. Ever.
So what is this obsession with exclusivity? It seems that, at a time when our community needs to come together more than ever, we continuously look for ways to separate ourselves from each other. Is it a coincidence that this focus on exclusivity comes at a time when our cities are more economically segregated than ever? Isnt it odd that as the gap between the haves and have nots widens, we choose to widen it further?
Are we so insecure with ourselves? After surviving slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation, unequal opportunity---being one of the most resilient races of people in the history of the world---do we really need VIP rooms to make us feel special? Dont get me wrong, we all want to feel special, we all like to feel important. (I admit, the few times i have flown first class, I always secretly gloated upon seeing all the poor saps schlepping it back to Coach. hehehehehee. I digress.) But when I see folks spend what they dont have just so they can get that blue armband instead of the yellow armband, when they spend what they dont have to have a bottle sitting in an icebucket in front of them or a reserved sign at their table, I have to wonder, why is so much of our worth more and more centered around stuff?
Why cant we be feel important being good neighbors, or good parents or good friends or because we donated money for new equipment at the library or was the winning coach of a boys club football team or because the kids we are tutoring got an A? Have those things any value anymore?
There are so many ways to stand out in our communities that uplift us all, why do we settle for velvet ropes and bad attitudes to make our mark?
And lets face it, most VIP rooms are full of a bunch of random tired ass people who just paid a grip to sit 20 feet away from everyone else. A lot of people with bad ARM loans about to adjust but nevertheless insist on “ ballin” at all times. That doesnt make you a VIP, it makes you a V.I. Puhlease.
So people, next time you want to feel important, bypass the VIP room for a mentoring program or being a Big Brother or volunteering at a nursing home. Trade in the velvet rope and turn a jump rope for little girls after school or organize a trash clean-up in your neighborhood. And although you may not get a fancy red armband, or pay more for the same bullshit, you will truly then be a Very Important Person. Peace people.
13 comments:
I love this blog and I wholeheartedly
agree with everything you say. Why would you want to be in VIP isolated from the rest of the party?
Check out my blog, http://raceandcrap.blogspot.com. It's interesting.
And I've been telling people for years that conversate isn't a word, use converse. It's futile.
interesting commentary. But you know how we do...it all boils down to our morals, values, and our sense of self...all of which have been shot to shit since segregation.
I agree with every word you so eloquently said. How, I ask, how are we ever going to get beyond our unconsciousness and examine the big picture? Gotta raise awareness. And I try to do that on my blog as well. This was a wonderful and thought-provoking post.
all the big booty is hiding in the VIP... your girlfriend, who had to go to the bathroom? Is actually giving some local newscaster a handy in the back of the VIP. Niggas clothes are a little more expensive in the VIP. Al Sharpton chills in the VIP. I don't have the answer. I'm just sayin'.
i suggest you read up on some evolutionary psychology for the answer to this one.
it's pretty much a way of showing the women how much money you make. i'm not saying it's the fault of the ladies, it takes two to play this silly game, but um....you ever seen how mean women can be to one another over stupid shit like what kind of clothes they're wearing or how big a diamond they got?
what ever happened to humility, charity, frugality, prudence? seriously, this world is headed in a bad direction.
This is hilarious, because it reminds me of when I worked at Republic Gardens as The World's Smallest Bouncer. I worked right next to the downstairs "VIP" section, which was three white leather couches in a semi-circle, with a table in the middle, squared off by one of those retractable barriers.
People would pay $500 to sit on those little-ass couches with a bottle on the table, roped off no more than 5 feet away from everyone else. It looked like it could be titled the "I Need Attention" exhibit at the ignorant nigga museum!
This was a really good entry. Definitely keep it up.
Oh my goodness. I am here just cracking up!!
I feel that way about the club in general though. i think it is so absurd to drive by a club at 12am with women struggling to stand in the cold in too-high heels to impress these too-pretty-for-you men and titilate some bouncer to get into a club.
Then the club, which is NOT full, will hold the line and make you stand outside just to make it SEEM like its a hot club.
THEN, women go inside to give out lap dances to songs calling them bitches and be bent over for the enjoyment of men who don't even have the decency to tip them, lol while the rest of the dudes stand around in a huddle holding their drinks (too classless to buy a lady a drink)and watch the show in their button-downs and hard-bottom square toes, proving they are a cut-above.And these are the educated folks. Horrific!!
The whole thing baffles me!!!!! Read a book, please.
Too true, too true. I agree with and love this blog, keep up the proper work!
VIP sections are usually full of low-rent types who are so insecure they have to flsh their money to try to get laid. Real bro's are able to score by kicking game, conversing, and interacting, not merely by purchasing drinks.
One good thing about VIP though, is when you roll to the club with a few of your boys, and you're flossin, and you don't fell like getting hated on by the REAL low rent types out on the floor. So, sometimes it's good to be able to avoid the "I'm so broke and ignorant that I'm going to start a fight with the shinin-est dude in here to prove my masculinity"-types who fill up too many clubs around here.
Yep, it's mainly about showing off how much money you have. Even though most VIP sections are full of the "I'm driving my net worth" type of brothers, you know the ones who have a Land Rover and a Land LORD at teh same time lol! Spend $200+ just to go out on a Wednesday, but have to holla at their baby-mama to borrow some rent money on Monday! Don't get caught, ladies!! "Flossin ain't bossin!" I.e. just because homey has a big necklace and a $300 outfit on, does NOT mean he makes any type of money, has any real wealth, or even any class - it just means that he has his priorities messed up
One thing about our people...we want status for the wrong reasons. There's a hairshow that was coming up in Detroit...VIP table $350. My question was: who'd want to sit at a table full of chickenheads and roughnecks ?! VIP was meant to keep "undesirables" at bay. Now it's the undesirables scraping money together, or peeling off their dope money at the door for the tables! give me a break...i'm down with you...bump VIP. They'll pay $500 for a table, but make payment arrangements on lights and gas. $500 for a table, but now can't pay rent cuz that money WAS the rent money. 4 DVDs in your truck, but it stays on 1/4 tank, and has fake insurance..WTH??
$500 for a table wearing black, burgundy, blonde weave, with an outfit and shoes from the beauty supply store (or strippers store) with that atrociously obligatory BLACK wet n' wild eyeliner traced around the lips topped off with white frost on the eye lids (can you say "blend?!) That look screams "I live in the housing projects!"
Jam...why did you start this post??
Let me go b4 I get started...FOR REAL! :)
yeah...VIP can kiss my ass. I live in Atlanta...been here since I was 4. I love my city and the culture. But it seems like ever since the ASG came in 03...its been getting bougie as hell. I messed around and let someone talk me into doing the VIP thing at Club Visions, that shit was wack as hell. No one dances, everybody just stands around and looks at each other. That's why I don't even go to club down here anymore. Everybody is on that VIP shit...art shows and bowling is better.
First of all, I'm playing catch up. I've been stuck in the writing cave, so forgive my influx of "late-as-hell" comments...but I say, agian, that you are on point, so much so...I was screaming this same stuff to people during the All Star Game in 2006.
People were spending HUNDREDS of dollars on designer outfits, getting their hair done (it was raining that weekend, go figure the logic in that) and renting flossmobiles so women would swoon and give them head in the parking lots like they were special just because they have a Chrysler 300 on 22" rims...and other guys would be jealous of them...like unecessary debt is something to be jealous of.
I asked my friend, a Sheriff's Deputy who was working Club Visions (it's closed, here in Houston, now, because they played the Bougie role too hard and people stopped going) to let me in. It's fun to be in "VIP" for free because then you get to "inside laugh" at how much all the people in there paid to be there...and to see that look of "unfun" they have on their faces when they realize it's nothing like they imagined and less than what it's all cracked up to be.
When celebrities are in town, women are in there hoping to get wified up by the star-types. Men go into VIP hoping to catch some of the Hoochie Fall-Off when women realize they might not be chosen by the celebrity but that MAYBE some other guy in the vicinity has money they can hoe up on.
It's all just so ridiculous and useless. I don't even deal with VIP unless it's offering something useful that you can't get in "regular population" like free All-U-Can-Eat shrimp or free drinks...and even then, I don't bother, unless I get in for free...then I go back out and party with everyone else who isn't too flyy to have a good time and party like it's 1999.
There is no sex in the Champagne Room(c)Chris Rock,lol.
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