Social Commentary: Clubs in Pop Culture

Cold, hard, unfair fact: Celebrities get paid to party.

Lindsay Lohan is perhaps one of the most famous cases of a celeb who gets paid to party. (Though after a while she was seen simply because she was dating DJ Samantha Ronson, and I don't know how often she's solicited for club appearances post-rehab.) Whatever the case, celebs are often paid to "host" parties. They get big fat paychecks just to attach their names to clubs for one night. Now how awesome would that be? Not only do actors get paid to pretend to live other people's lives on film, but they can also make extra bank just for showing up somewhere and consuming free drinks.

Must be a good life, eh?

Digest this: The Hilton sisters--that's Nicky and Paris--were paid $500k just to "host" a New Year's Eve party at Las Vegas night club LAX for '07-'08, according to Forbes Magazine. Also, according to the same article, a pre-rehab Britney Spears was paid $350k to ring in the 2007 New Year at Pure. The higher you are on the list, the more you're paid, but even F-listers like Jon Gosselin can get paid to host a party, like the one he just backed out of at MGM Foxwoods in Connecticut.

According to Boston.com,

Reality-show trainwreck Jon Gosselin, of "Jon & Kate Plus 8," bailed on a paid nightclub appearance at Foxwoods over the weekend. The tabloid regular had a deal with the MGM Grand club Shrine to show up on Saturday night, but Gosselin canceled at the last minute, saying through his agent that he didn't want a paid nightclub visit to damage what's left of his image. As if he reputation could get any worse.

Ugh, really Jon Gosselin? Really?

But that's not all. Tao Las Vegas hosted the 21st birthday of Demi and Bruce's daughter, Rumer Willis. (She's C-list at best. It's nothing personal, she just needs to start making better movies than Sorority Row and The House Bunny. After all, you can't keep riding on your parentage forever.) And how creepy is this poster for her party anyway?


Well, I'm going to let you all in on a little secret: you don't have to be a real celebrity to be paid to party. There are these things called Club Promoters. You just have to be really pretty, or at least know a lot of pretty people, to be hired. There are thousands in New York City alone. They collect the contacts of the beautiful--normal people and models, but mostly models, and all female. The whole point is to fill restaurants and bars with gorgeous women, presumably to lure men in to buy drinks for them (models don't eat, you know). Club promoters can be male or female, so long as they have an address book as long as Santa's naughty list, and so long as those contacts are hot.

The club world plays an important role in Pop Culture, and big clubs need the media exposure to stay alive. Aside from the promoters and their entourage of hotties, clubs get a considerable amount of promotion through celebrity attendance, often thanks to the likes of celebs hosting parties, but also just having a celeb seen at a club gets its name on blogs and in print rags. And that's how all the normal people know where to go. Celebs draw people in, and that's why it's important and even necessary to pay them to show up.

As for getting into clubs without a promoter, there are two simple rules: 1) do NOT be rude to the door man, and 2) hotties are guaranteed to get in...eventually, but don't dress too skanky. It really just helps to know someone or make friends with the bouncer beforehand and get on his VIP list, like I did at Pure in Vegas. Clubs just want to fill the floor and the bars--they have to in order to keep running. Clubs, like D-listers, flare and fizzle like 4th of July sparklers. It's hard to stay hot and it's a guarantee that a club will only stay hot for so long. One minute Marquee is the hottest (2005), flooded with an A-list crowd, the next minute it's TenJune (fizzling quickly). Suddenly normal people start getting in and before you know it, even the B-listers are gravitating elsewhere (right now I hear it's Avenue). As for the once-famous Bungalow 8? That's strictly Bridge & Tunnel territory these days. (Kidding, kidding!) Britney Spears had her birthday party at TenJune in June 2008, but now it seems like everyone is going there. (I should know--even I was there in the spring. It was wild, but from what I hear from an inside source, it's mostly office drones and has-beens lining up to be caught dead there these days.) If you want guaranteed entry, try one of the fizzled clubs.

Clubs of Las Vegas and New York seem to get the greatest amount of celeb rag exposure--which, quite frankly, strikes me as odd because Hollywood is really where the celebs are. In Vegas, Tao, Pure, LAX, and Prive are the hottest and they're right on the strip. There are a million clubs in New York, but TenJune might be the best spot to try if you want a celeb sighting, but you're likely to spot a C-lister at best. If there's a celeb attached, bloggers like Perez Hilton are going to let you know about it, so pay attention to those. (Or, in the case of Perez, he'll blast you with notes about parties he's "hosting" himself--I went to one of his "birthday parties" last April in Vegas. He just sat lamely at the back of the club sucking on a lollipop and ignored everyone while DJ AM spun some awesome tunes. I suspect this is what it's like at most celebrity-hosted parties. Side note: DJ AM was the best part of that night. He actually played tunes people want to dance to.)

A Note of Warning:

Remember when Lindsay Lohan was going to have that amazing two-day celebration of her 21st birthday in Las Vegas, but wound up going to rehab instead?

I do.

Contrast that with this year's birthday celebration in which she looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster (left). I wish this kid would go back to rehab (again!) and stick with it. I guess when your star has fallen and clubs are paying you to show up, it's probably hard to resist the free alcohol.

Anyway, too much partying will lead to this kind of thing:

(Note the AA chips hanging from the window -- sad.)

The point is: If you can pay to party, awesome. If you can party for free, that's even better. And if you happen to be one of the beautiful people who get paid to party, rock on. Just don't overdo it! Be smart. Clubs are super fun, but no one likes a 24 year old Club Rat. Really.