Public lives, necessary secrets, and the rich kids of Instagram

Five-figure receipts from the club or clubhouse. Bracelets from several top designers on the same wrist. In on of the few instances where champagne isn’t being used as a shower, a man shows off the bottles as he floats in a bathtub with his gold American Express card between his teeth. “Rich Kids of Instagram” is an example of how to translate Keeping up with the Kardashians for the internet audience: bite-sized posts showing a life few of us will experience, posted with casual hashtags the hoi polloi might attach to a compact Honda or a well-made salad. And unlike the Kardashians, we rarely see the subjects as people — instead, they’re anonymous vessels for envy or entertainment, like almost anyone who becomes a meme.