Ahh yes, the trustafarian. The classic NYC archetype. Having been in similar crowds in NYC (especially Brooklyn), I don’t know if I would say that these are “fr

Ahh yes, the trustafarian. The classic NYC archetype. Having been in similar crowds in NYC (especially Brooklyn), I don’t know if I would say that these are “fronts,” per se. It’s just that most trustafarian’s don’t openly out themselves as such because it’s impolite/uncouth to out oneself that way. In LA, people with rich parents flaunt it, but on the east coast, it’s better to keep those things to oneself. That said, as you figured out, it doesn’t take long for people to identify who the trustafarian’s are in a group. I’m solidly upper middle-class myself but I grew up around a mix of old-money and new-money people, so it didn’t take long for me to figure out, once I got to New York, that any Smith grad working as a busker or doing burlesque while living roommate-free in a 1BR in the West Village or a 2BR in Prospect Height, had rich parents. Because only people with benefactors can do that. But I didn’t know too many trustafarian’s who would pretend to be self-made. They just didn’t advertise that it was daddy who was paying the Amex bill. But if you’re 25, working as a candle maker, and you have a Platinum card, well, we can all do the math and know what’s up. Also, if you went to an elite college and aren’t actively working in a high-paying industry, let alone in anything associated with your nebulously-defined liberal arts degree, well, again. Of course you have rich parents. Also, those are the people who are never complaining about student loans, unlike the gaggle of very vocal NYU, Columbia and New School grads who are trying to figure out how they can pay off $250,000 in loans while working at Vice. (The answer is most of them cannot and will wind up taking corporate jobs within 5 years.) But NYC is even further different because there are so many levels of inherited wealth/rich parents. The person who has parents paying for their nice apartment and lifestyle, but is still pursuing a niche creative pursuit, is very different from the uber-rich young adult who has a job — even if it is in name-only — at the family-controlled business or who devotes their time to being on the board of a charity or museum. These are the people that have private planes and summer in the most exclusive parts of the Hamptons, have European vacation homes, where expensive (but understated) clothing and jewelry, attend frequent black tie galas, grew up in Greenwich and hang out almost exclusively with other people just like them, who come from families with hundreds of millions of dollars. Which are further different from the more west-coast like people that are children of parents who made their millions in tech or Hollywood and flaunt their wealth with zero pretense of where it came from, all over Instagram. Which is further different from the non-European foreign-born rich kids whose parents might have more money than everyone else, but don’t have the social class acceptance of that second group.