‘Let them eat Coachella’: tone-deaf celebrity and influencer culture

Students and professors discuss the double-edged sword of privilege and viewership 

By VRITI SHAH — [email protected]

The widespread ecosystem of catered advertisements and trends in the media largely comes from celebrity and influencer culture, according to Forbes. Amidst the influencer and celebrity universe of brand deals and paid, pushed microtrends, there have been numerous moments where content creators have made out-of-touch statements, colloquially known as “let them eat cake” moments. 

Although many believe that the statement “let them eat cake” was famously said by Queen Marie-Antoinette after being told that her starving peasants could not afford bread, Julia Simon, a professor of French at UC Davis, detailed that its true origins are not from the French Revolution — rather, the quote may have been from a previous queen. Whether or not “let them eat cake” can be attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the statement became an anecdote that followed out-of-touch influencers, as Claire Goldstein, a professor of French, described. 

“Regardless of whether or not Marie-Antoinette said, ‘let them eat cake,’ which she probably did not, the truth is that she was probably one of the first […] kind of influencer[s],” Goldstein said. “There’s a scholar called Caroline Weber who wrote a book called ‘Queen of Fashion’ [that] documented how Marie-Antoinette sort of made her luxurious life more available to the public than previous generations of rich people.”

UC Davis students and staff have their own varying opinions on the “let them eat cake” moments celebrities have had. For example, Coachella — a “once-scrappy” music festival in Southern California — is now one of the most popular events of the year for influencers, even having been described as the “influencer Olympics” by the New York Times. In fact, the 2026 festival had 125,000 attendees per weekend and over 160 performers. 

Coachella’s ticket prices range between $549 and $649 for the weekend, as well as additional fees for shuttle passes ($130 to $180), on-site camping ($150 to $400+), service fees ($50 to $100), travel, lodging and food which can roughly range from around $800 to $2,000+ per person, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Although the high prices make it so that Coachella has become unattainable for most individuals, many influencers are paid to attend Coachella through fully-funded brand trips. During the festival, they film content for their sponsorships and network with one another. 

However, some Coachella attendee influencers are under fire for displaying their privilege during an economic downturn. For example, influencer and TV personality Kylie Jenner shared a video showing off her Palm Springs mansion that she stayed in during the three-day music event. 

While some fans applauded her wealth, others argued that the boasting of her home during an economic decline was “tone-deaf” and even “dystopian,” according to Cosmopolitan.     

Another example is actress Vanessa Hudgens, also known as the “Queen of Coachella,” who took to an Instagram livestream to object Coachella’s cancellation due to the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020. 

“Even if everybody gets it, like yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible, but inevitable?” Hudgens said on the livestream. 

The comment immediately spurred backlash, with fans claiming that the statement was tone-deaf, considering that the virus had already reached 8,000 deaths and 200,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to BBC News.    

“Well, the tone deafness, I think, really relates to the bubble that these people are in,” Simon said. “And particularly, if they’re influencers to some degree, [they] must believe that they represent a certain segment of the population. Certainly, political folk believe that they represent […] the population. And to feel the tone deafness when they make these remarks makes that bubble clear […] that there’s this enormous gulf between the life that they lead and the life that the rest of us lead. And I think those remarks are helpful.”

The influencer “bubble,” as Simon detailed, creates a barrier between viewers and content creators. However, when that “bubble” becomes visible, there is an open gate to the backlash from social media users, as explained by Goldstein. 

“It’s a really apt parallel,” Goldstein said. “So the Internet gives the public more access into the lives of influencers and that’s how influencers are making bank on this. And at the same time, it’s their weakness because it can be targeted as hateful […] and we can see their lack of empathy.”

Goldstein also pointed out the differences between celebrities and wealthy people, highlighting the influence each has on society. 

“Although the income gap has accelerated in the recent decades, there have always been very, very wealthy people,” Goldstein said. “But the difference with influencers is that they are inviting the public into their lives as a way of kind of, like, leveraging some sort of public identity — which financially serves them, right? They’re making money off of the products that people buy or the clicks that people make.”

An influencer magnet similar to Coachella, the Met Gala, an annual charity event for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, gathers roughly 500 celebrities and influencers to dress in high fashion brands with a different, extravagant theme every year. Although the gala is centered around charity for the arts, some have emphasized its tone-deaf quality for being exclusively for the rich — with many comparing it to the excessive fashion shown in the dystopian Hunger Games’ Capitol.

More of these claims followed after billionaire and founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, donated $10 million and became an honorary Met chair member. With a history of employee abuse, Bezos was met with backlash for his involvement in the Met Gala. In protest, an anti-billionaire group projected video interviews of Amazon workers sharing their stories on the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building and Bezos’ own penthouse. 

One projection read, “If You Can Buy the Met Gala, You Can Pay More Taxes,” according to the New York Times. 

Simon explained how public rallies were significant in the French Revolution, contrasting from present reactions of celebrity insensitivities. 

“The context of that [‘let them eat cake’ remark] is, I mean, a little different from the Met Gala or even with [what] you see from influencers,” Simon said. “Because the price of bread was rising, and people are actually demonstrating getting into riots, doing a march out to Versailles and demanding bread, right? They’re demanding to be fed. And they understand the king as providing like a father that would provide bread to the family.”

At the 2024 Met Gala, Haley Baylee wore a Marie-Antoinette-themed dress and filmed a TikTok quoting the infamous “let them eat cake” statement. Prior to the event, Israel carried out airstrikes on Rafah amidst the genocide in Palestine, leading to many viewers calling out the content creator’s out-of-touch behavior. 

“I wonder if the woman at the Met Gala [Haylee Baylee] is being satirical,” Simon said. “Was this a parody? Did she not understand? I mean, Marie-Antoinette for sure didn’t understand. She had, at Versailles, this big farm that she played on, and she pretended to be like a shepherdess and so she really […] led a really super sheltered life. She really had no awareness of what [was] going on.”

Some students, like Jazelle Jarmon, a first-year molecular and medical microbiology major, argued that everyone should be held accountable to move forward and create a genuine impact. 

“Change needs to happen,” Jarmon said. “And if we’re just going to allow this to happen, then what’s the point, right? There’s also this side where it’s people like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t care because it’s my favorite influencer’ [so] they don’t really address it. Or, it might not be as prioritized to them.” 

Goldstein expressed the similarities between present day influencer tone-deafness and Marie-Antoinette’s out-of-touch downfall. 

“I mean, people follow [influencers] because they have these extraordinary lifestyles, which are fake and performed,” Goldstein said. “But, although the media was different, the context of the French Revolution [was] the availability of print media [that] really was exploding in the years prior. So that, in a similar way, made the royals more accessible to [the public] and also allowed [a] whole genre of vilifying depictions of Marie-Antoinette that circulate[d] before the revolution.”

Goldstein also detailed how influencer privilege and viewership can serve as both the rise and downfall of influencers. 

“One of the things that brought Marie-Antoinette down was the very same dynamic that created her popularity with the public,” Goldstein said. “Which was the availability, in her case, [of] prints, like engravings that circulated, or just her changing fashions or her availability as a public icon. [That] was the thing that allowed people the access to critique her and vilify her.”

In the end, the press was a tool to greatness for Marie-Antoinette, but also her own double edged sword — similar to influencers on social media platforms, according to Goldstein. 

“So, [Marie-Antoinette’s] power and her mystique are created by the press,” Goldstein said. “Like these press images that show her fabulous lifestyle, but also the thing that brings her down are these really vilifying images that […] circulate. So it’s very similar [to] the Internet.”

Written by: Vriti Shah — [email protected]