There's a lot to take in with this picture, today. I feel like it's sort of symbolic of the Obama-era American elite aristocracy and status quo at the time. The swan song of celebrity culture and the Hollywood superstar. The climax before the death of the monoculture. It reminds me of the New Years Eve party Louis XVI and the French nobility held for themselves at Versailles in 1789.

In the decade since this picture has come out Hollywood has completely collapsed, the whole LA area has become a burnt out husk, the Obama-era neoliberal status quo has fallen to pieces, and the hollywood celebrity has been reduced to irrelevancy.

I'm not even saying it's a good thing imo, I think our current culture of hyper-division and everyone trapped in their own social media bubble getting everything they know from mostly false vaguely demonic memes on twitter and tiktok is even worse.