Famous by Kevin Stadler

#SELTERING 4 #RICH

HKIDS 12 #MODEL 18

JEN SE

This Instagram star has an enviable

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E LT E R

e rear - and over 3 million followers

#seltering |

It was a 30-degree December day, but to the 25 bystanders shoving their iPhones 3 inches away from Jen Selter’s butt, it was hot hot hot. Selter, a 20-year-old Instagram star, famed for her large derriere, was demonstrating her squatting technique for the New York Post atop a subway railing in Midtown, clad in nothing more than a sports bra and hotpink yoga pants. “Is that real?” one guy panted. Another asked for her hand in marriage. Three Hasidic Jews looked on in awe. The police came. And then stood there and enjoyed the show. Selter didn’t even flinch.“I’m recognized wherever I am,” says the 5-foot-6, 112-pound Selter, who, since joining Instagram in March 2012,

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has amassed more 1.3 million followers, including Rihanna, football player Terrell Owens and basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire. “I don’t really go to public gyms anymore just because it is a whole big scene when I’m there,” says Selter. “I don’t like being watched.” But she doesn’t mind being “liked.” A seductive post of hers on the photosharing site — most of which are selfies of Selter in skintight gym wear — can easily rack up more than 70,000 likes. “I don’t really post a lot of face pictures,” admits Selter, whose handle is @ jenselter. #seltering |

“I mainly do body selfies. Not that I care what people think, but they don’t care. They don’t want to see my face,” she says. Selter, who skipped college for Internet stardom, won’t disclose how much she’s made on her fanny fame thus far. But deals with NYC water company NY20 and nutrition supplement company Game Plan Nutrition, for which she is a spokeswoman, have helped her rake in “a lot more money than a graduate would be making,” according to Selter. She plans to further capitalize on her success with her own line of workout wear — and maybe a chain of “like cool gyms, like with some glowing stuff,” she says, imagining a paradise akin to David Barton gyms. “I see myself motivating and inspiring everyone around the world,” she explains, maintaining that her photos — like the close-up shot of her sitting atop a workout ball — will remain G-rated. “I’ll never post a raunchy pic. There’s a difference between a porn-site picture and gym wear or bikini wear. Everything’s usually yoga pants,” says Selter, who, despite her sexed-up image, is a surprisingly naive and soft-spoken girl who uses the word “dope” and lives with her mother on the Upper West Side. She owns more than 150 pairs of yoga pants. “Yes, it can be showy, but I’ve seen a lot worse. And if it motivates people to get their butts up and go to the gym, why not?” The Roslyn, LI, native has gained a cult following for her unique ability to simultaneously serve as inspiration for tens of thousands of women and a sex symbol for hundreds of thousands more men.

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“My initial impression was sort of like a fascination,” muses 28-year-old NYC fashion photographer Ben Fink Shapiro, who started following Selter on Instagram three months ago. “It’s sort of like a silent, miraculous observation. Like, how is a body shaped like this?” asks Shapiro, who says his girlfriend is “equally as fascinated and obsessed with her.” “She’s so skinny. She doesn’t have any hips, and then, BOOM, this ass comes out of nowhere, like, God damn!” To Selter, the fame was a sneak attack, too. After graduating from high school, she took a smattering of cosmetology classes while holding side gigs at a plastic surgeon’s office and at a gym at the Roosevelt Field Mall. Selter started working out — and her butt began ballooning. So she did what any millennial would do: She took some belfies (that’s butt selfies, for all the ancients out there). “It’s cool seeing your body transform. That’s what motivates me,” says Selter, who stresses that “fitness isn’t just about looks. It’s about how you feel.” She started posting workout selfies on Instagram in March 2012. She noticed people were reposting her images without credit, so she reached out and asked to be tagged. Before Selter knew it, her fan base got as plump as her rear, amassing nearly 200,000 followers every month. (She quit her gym job when she hit 500,000). “I’m very proud of her because this is a girl who #seltering |

didn’t want to go to college, and she was able to build up this social media in such a way that she has become famous and she is an inspiration and motivation for so many people,” says Selter’s mother, Jill Weinstein, who only asks that her daughter doesn’t end up in Playboy. “We can’t even get down the street without people stopping us and saying, ‘Oh my God, is that Jen Selter? Can we take a picture?’ ” But with fame came the haters. Selter’s been accused of having a surgically enhanced booty and has been called everything from a “butterface” to, well, things that would make porn maven Jenna Jameson blush. Selter doesn’t let the negativity bum her out. “I’ve seen fake butts, and they’re very nice,” says Selter. “They look nothing like mine. I see it as a compliment.”

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Selter’s signature move #seltering, involves her planking on anything from subway handrails to hallway walls.

“My body’s all real . . . from boobs down,” adds Selter, who was profiled about her high school nose job in an April 2010 People magazine article about teenagers going under the knife. “I grew up in Long Island. I’m Jewish. Jewish girls have big noses,” she says. “Probably 1 out of 3 girls I know [has] a nose job.” A single Selter is keen on keeping her head on her shoulders and her butt (and dreams) as high as the sky. “I didn’t sign up to be a model or some Instagram person who everyone is judging and looking at,” says Selter. “With hard work and dedication, anyone can get to where I am.”

#seltering |

#RICH

Lifestyles of Instagram 12 • #famous • Spring 2014

By David

HKIDS

the Rich and m-Famous Hochman

#richkids |

hen you are 25 and absurdly wealthy, the usual rules of apartment hunting don’t apply. Pool cabanas, wraparound terraces, valets—all that’s a given. But for your starter princess castle in the sky, you want a few intangibles. “Let’s check the selfie lighting in here,” Morgan Stewart says, flipping a golden curl. Her bosom bestie, Dorothy Wang, who’s eyeing the $3.5 million Beverly Hills pad (her dad’s a Chinese department-store billionaire, don’t worry), holds out her bunny-eared iPhone and clicks. The pic of them in high-fashion skanktops goes out to Dorothy’s 17,000 Instagram followers with the caption “L’Oreal, you can call us . . .” A couple hundred likes later, dwanngg is ready to close escrow. Only there’s more meta to the madness: As dwanngg and boobsandloubs_ shoot each other, a camera crew is shooting them. In a world where we’re all shamelessly enthralled watching the witless and wealthy, it’s only natural that “Rich Kids of Instagram,” a Tumblr sensation in which insanely privileged youths flaunt #privatejetbirthdays

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and palatial closets full of reptile-skin shoes, has given way to #RichKids of Beverly Hills (which premieres on E! January 19), a series about the real-life trust-funders behind the hashtags.

The “Rich Kids of Instagram” became instant celebrities. Here they participate in the NOH8 campaign, which promotes marriage, gender, and human equality.

Ogling the filthy rich never gets old. From Jay Gatsby and Jay McInerney to the Housewives and Shahs, they’re the ones we love to hate loving, until we can’t anymore. And so, as ratings for Keeping Up With the Kardashians have sagged, we are being served this new class of Richie Riches. Rather than make noises about social value, the show’s makers unrepentantly hawk the spectacle, income disparity be damned. “You don’t come to TV to watch your own problems,” explains Jeff Olde, E!’s executive vice president of programming and development. “You come to watch, you know, someone agonizing over which $15,000 calfskin purse to buy.” If social media tells us anything, it’s that the #RichKids love to overshare. “We have such an awesome, crazy lifestyle that we can’t not show it to people,” says Morgan, who, with winning snark and a model-perfect profile, projects as the queen bee. “I mean, it’s like if you buy an amazing shoe and don’t post it, it’s almost like you didn’t actually buy it, right? Life’s too fabulous to keep everything to yourself.” Such generosity of spirit is what fueled the Tumblr phenomenon that gave rise to the show. In mid-2012, an anonymous poster began collecting Instagram photos of the young and moneyed behaving brazenly. Among them was a post by stewartlife12 of an old master’s canvas in the back of a sports car with the caption: “Out to the Hamptons, bringing the #daVinci #LeonardoInTheRari #weneededcompany #renaissance #stillridinghorses #1497.” As E!’s Olde says, “it’s privilege without apology. How can you not eat that up?” Some of the stars will be recognizable from the Tumblr meme, particularly Wang, the high priestess #richkids |

of the #funemployed. But all her castmates at least rank as #fabuluxe. Jonny Drubel is the boy-crazy music mogul in training who wants to be the next Usher (“Or better yet, Celine Dion”). Roxy Sowlaty is a raven-haired Persian kitten whose parents are threatening to cut her off (“You’re my poor friend,” Morgan likes to tell her). And Brendan Fitzpatrick is the chiseled brooder of the bunch, who’s angling to be a whale on the 90210 real-estate scene (“I’d like to own Los Angeles”) when not angling to get into his girlfriend Morgan’s tailored pants. Then there’s E.J. Johnson, the six-footsomething, caftan-wearing, Hermès-purse-toting shopaholic who posts as ej_antoinette but is best known as Magic Johnson’s big gay son (signature greeting: “Hi, princess. How are you-ewww-eh?”). One morning, the five #RichKids—minus E.J.— gather for a promo shoot in Culver City. It’s been a typically grueling week: parties, magnums of Moët, a private jet to Cabo—all for the benefit of E!’s cameras. The rare attempt at do-gooderism, a charity blood drive organized by Dorothy and Morgan, went badly awry.

The girls of Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, from top, Dorothy, Morgan, and Roxy.

“I passed out, which was awkward,” Morgan says. “Literally, I was sweating from my asshole to the top of my head. It was not pretty.” Even before that, the planning for the event set off a teary-eyed hissy fit after Jonny called Dorothy a “homophobic bitch” for supporting an organization that shuns blood donations from gay men. Wounded, Dorothy said, “It got very VH1.” E.J. had Dorothy’s back: “If someone said that to me, it would have been o-vah.” And Morgan consoled her gal pal: “Please! It’s 2013. Nobody’s homophobic unless you’re from Kentucky.” What’s remarkable (and adds another layer of meta-ness) is the cast’s post-Snooki savvy about the business of reality TV—their pursuit of fame smacks of calculation, not desperation. Dorothy, for instance, sounds like a real-life Elle Woods talking about the

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ventures she hopes to piggyback on the show’s success: a clothing label, beauty products, style apps, bathrobes, doggie gear. “The misconception about me is that I just want to be spoiled,” she says. “I’m not all about which Birkin bag goes with which outfit.” Predictably, higher-brow haters are already calling #RichKids the true zombie apocalypse—the website LAist met the show’s announcement with the headline BARF, and Vanity Fair preemptively labeled the Instagram kids “completely self-unaware”—which misses the point: Dorothy, Morgan, and the gang are as quaffable as a Laurent-Perrier brut rosé. Even if all the bubbles do make you belch afterward. As Morgs vamps for the cameras, it’s hard not to lap it up. “You are such a camera slut,” Dorothy tells her. Later, Morgan waxes strangely philosophical. “Why are we doing this?” she says finally. “I mean, why does anybody do anything? I just watched a documentary of Valentino. He’s fucking fantastic. Fantastic! The camera wasn’t following him at one point, and he was like, ‘Where’s the camera?’ I was, like, ‘Exactly!’”

Boarding a private jet is just a typical day in the lives of the “Rich Kids of Instagram”.

#richkids |

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Instagram Star Leah Kelley

on Plus-Size Modeling, Body Image, and Never Reading Comments. By Kate Winnick

When plus-size model Robyn Lawley announced she was designing her own swimsuit line, girls of all sizes rejoiced—and that was before they saw the structured, flirty pieces Lawley created. Just as cool were the line’s first digital photos, shot in a bathtub full of blue water (dyed with food coloring) and starring fellow model Leah Kelley. And we’re not the only ones who loved it—the photos became Instagram hits mere minutes after being posted, and landed on hundreds of blogs within 24 hours. We telephoned Kelley to talk about accidental Internet fame, getting blue dye out of your hair, and how to pose like a pro in your bikini. Your swimsuit shots have become an Internet sensation. How did the shoot happen? It’s been totally crazy—we definitely did not expect this to happen. We didn’t even expect to get a good shot. Robyn just wanted to do something with food dye and water. I went to her house on Sunday night, and we’re both big zombie fans so we did the shoot 15 minutes before The Walking Dead started. She had a white swimsuit in her apartment that happened to be from her line that she was okay dyeing. I took off my makeup so it wouldn’t run everywhere, we did a fewshots, threw in a little food coloring, and took the photos in just #model |

a few minutes because I was afraid the dye would stain my hair. Robyn was standing over her tub with one light, and during the commercial breaks she edited it and posted it online. We were astounded we got a good picture to begin with. I was excited to show my agents a new picture for my book, and then the next morning, The Huffington Post had it. It wasn’t a shoot for her line, we just wanted to shoot a portrait. I can’t believe it happened. She’d made this banana bread with Nutella on top—Robyn has a food blog and she has this list of everything she’s making up on her fridge. So that’s why I was really there, for TV and banana bread. How did you meet Robyn? We met years before at Heidi Klum’s Halloween party. Some people just stand around and talk, and there was this girl dancing and having a blast and I was like, “Oh, she’s fun.” We danced all night, and we’ve been friends ever since. What do you think of her line, now that you’re an unofficial spokesmodel? The cuts are great; you don’t have to “suck in” the whole time. You’re held where you want to be held. The quality is really good. I do a lot of swim[wear modeling], but it can be kind of dated. This is really top of the line, it’s not just covering you up. People love to complain that “plus-size” models aren’t curvy enough. And model Tara Lynn said she feels like Robyn gets criticized because her proportions make her look more like a “traditional” model. How do you feel about that as a plus-size model? People say that I don’t look like what a plus size model should be, but the world isn’t only size 14 any more than the world is all a size 0. The fashion industry as a whole should showcase the variety of types of bodies, not just tiny or plus size. What about a size 8 model? There are so many people who are a size 8, and there are no size 8 models! I want people to say, “Look at Leah Kelley! She looks great!”

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Models aren’t mannequins. [Brands] should choose us for our personality, too. I’ve heard that I’m not “plus enough.” I’m tall, so my size 12 is stretched out, but it is my size, it is considered plus-size and I have no qualms about that. I have naturally thin friends, and they’re people too; they’re beautiful on their own. We need more flavors! It’s not just size. For example, why does everyone have to be 18? Why isn’t there more racial diversity? I’m 26; I’m old in the modeling world, but I feel like a woman, more so than the 16-year-olds sitting around onset in lingerie. 30-year-old women buy lingerie. They’re more likely to show off that lingerie than teenagers. People will always have issues with models. I’m just glad people want to talk about this. Are you okay with the term plus-size, if it has to cover such a wide variety of bodies? I’m fine with it. I do fit into the plus-size category, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I work in Europe a lot and I’m definitely plus-size in their eyes. This is where I am at a healthy stage, and one of the things I like about my agency [Wilhelmina] is they’re supportive... I can’t control what they call me. I’m just happy that I can be my size naturally and not be told to gain or lose weight. I won’t work for every client, but I get to work with people who support me at my healthiest size. I was skinny in high school and I’ve weighed 200 pounds. This is where I’ve come to be naturally. How do you feel when you hear public debates about plus-size models? If they just put “model” in the headline of a story about me, some people say I’m too fat; other people say I’m too skinny. We’re all fine as we are. One thing I will say, though, is when you look at Robyn’s Instagram, there are a lot more “likes” on the picture than comments. I think people only comment when they’re unhappy. I don’t usually comment [online]. I only do that when it makes me angry...You can’t read the comments. #model |

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Spring 2014