Treehouse: Paradise Lost to the Culture War (Or: How Malibu Forgot Itself)
You know, I’ve been thinking about this place. Malibu. My whole life, right here. Twenty years of salt air and perfect sunsets and everyone pretending like that’s enough.
I was at one of those athleisure stores yesterday—you know the ones. And I’m not even talking about the clothes. I’m talking about the corporate culture behind them. These businesses… they’re in a knock-down, drag-out fight with their own demographic. Like they’re at war with the very people they’re supposed to serve. And somehow, people keep showing up. Keep buying in. Keep pretending it’s all fine.
It hit me standing there. This whole thing… it’s like the mafia. Not literally, I mean—I don’t know the first thing about that world. But the structure of it. The hierarchy. The way you’re either in or you’re out. The way loyalty works. The way people fall in line without even realizing they’ve been recruited.
There used to be something here that felt… I don’t know, real? High society, old money, new money, whatever—there were lines. You knew where people stood. Families that had been here for decades, living a certain way, holding certain values, regardless of what was trending or who was in power. There was weight to it. Substance.
But now? It’s all muted. Flattened. Even the people I’m close with—people whose families have been here longer than mine, who’ve lived a certain way for decades regardless of party—they’re caving. Falling into formation like it’s the only way to survive. Gyms, juice bars, pop-ups with corporate cultures that are literally battling their own customers, and nobody even blinks.
And maybe that’s just how it works now. Maybe I’m the idiot for not getting it.
But I can’t do it, man. I can’t pretend that buying into whatever’s hot this month, whatever brand is winning the war against its own people, makes me part of something. I’d rather be out of the loop. I’d rather sit on the outside and actually see what’s happening than be so deep in it I forget who I am.
It’s lonely sometimes. Walking through these places, seeing people I grew up with become… I don’t know. Casualties. Not of each other, exactly. Casualties of a system that convinced them they needed to be at war with themselves.
I’m not better than them. I’m not. I just… I can’t level with certain demographics. And I’m not talking about the mafia or anything like that. I’m talking about the people who’ve traded in everything that made them different for a seat at a table that’s actively fighting them.