Cards on the table
Hi!
“What’s In My Bag” videos are as empty-calorie as press tour content gets, but for reasons I won’t waste time justifying, I have a sweet tooth for them. If you’re unfamiliar, these are videos where a celebrity unpacks their luxury bag to flaunt wealth, sell lip gloss, and insist that preferring wired headphones or carrying a lot of granola bars somehow makes them quirky. The brands in the bags vary, but the packing lists are the same; famous people might have nicer versions, but we all carry around similar stuff. Dua Lipa has her phone, keys, and wallet in her Birkin — go figure!
I can’t tell the difference between a counterfeit Kelly and the real deal, but I do know that everyone lies in these videos. What’s inside these bags might be based on the contents of the person’s actual bag, but they’ve been cleared of anything embarrassing and loaded with sponcon. “What’s In My Bag?” isn’t just a rhetorical question, it’s also what Hailey Bieber asks the producer handing her the Saint Laurent shoulder bag she’s about to unpack on camera. If the Vanity Fair lie detector test weren’t bogus too, I’d say strap ‘em to that at the same time and watch that thing light up.
How do I know they’re lying? Well, they’re not always trying very hard to hide it.
I don’t mind being lied to in this context — in fact, I welcome the challenge of recognizing the deception. AI will be good at fingers soon and I need my critical thinking skills as sharp as possible; viewing these videos through a skeptical lens feels like doing mental crunches. A mascara wand is plucked from a purse and I ask myself: does this feel like a genuine recommendation, a brand partnership, or both? The more I practice, the more I resonate with the vintage Kyle Richards tagline: “I’m an expert on luxury, and I can always spot a fake.”
Sunglasses, makeup, candy… Most things could authentically live in the bag or not, but there’s one item my gut tells me is planted 100% of the time. It could be in Mother Teresa’s tote bag and I’d still stand by my conviction. Let’s call a spade a spade: anyone who claims to carry a deck of cards with them is even more full of shit than their bag.
I don’t believe it for a second. You’re not playing cards — you’re checking Instagram. Be for real: you’re someone who is out and about but still has enough downtime to play a full card game? And you’re with someone else who’s willing to play? Neither of you have emails to catch up on? You both know how to play gin rummy?
“I don’t need someone else, I play Solitaire!” Yeah, on your phone. What flat, clear surface are you placing those card down on outside of your house?
I can believe you keep yarn in your bag to knit on the go. I can believe you’re actually reading T. S. Eliot and not just plugging your book club. I can even believe you carry and occasionally use a tarot deck, but I draw the line there. WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!
If you’re not lying about carrying cards in your bag, you’re at least lying to yourself about how often you use them. I own three decks and the only time I’ve ever used one was to pin my angel number to my bulletin board. I understand the fantasy of carrying cards juuuust in case, but honey, you’re never pulling them out. Those cards are down in the unplumbed depths of your bag along with an RXBAR that’s fused with its wrapper, a mask that probably isn’t healthy to put anywhere near your face at this point, an expired travel packet of ibuprofen, and a used tissue. If you had to choose one item to remove from your bag, it would be the cards. Even the used tissue is more useful to have on hand in a pinch.
What’s behind the lie? For one thing, it’s something dynamic for people to do with their hands in the B-roll.
There’s no affiliate link for playing cards, so the viewer is lulled into a false sense of authenticity. They’re not trying to sell me anything! Everything else must really be what’s in their bag! The best sell of all is the story the cards tell of the bag-holder: someone who is cerebral, sociable, screenless, classy, classic — an aspirational individual who deserves that Loewe bag.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the cards are a private jet thing, or a parent thing, or I’m in more danger of an amateur magician asking me to pick a card than I ever thought possible. All I know for sure is that the only time I regularly played cards was as a Boy Scout, and that was mostly because we were in the woods and our cell phones didn’t have service.
Don’t get me started on pizza ovens in Architectural Digest tours…
im SCREAMING at the screenshots david. i'd add that any deck of cards that has been in a bag for more than 1 hour has very soft, very nasty dark gray corners. none of these decks are nearly beat up enough to be believable