What Is The "Epstein Class", Exactly?
On movement language and who it serves.
If you've been online in any sort of political capacity lately, The Epstein Files have been difficult to ignore. For example, in my corner of the internet, feminists are discussing how much of a hand that Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy pedophile friends have had in systemically grooming young women around the world to dress like young girls for their amusement. This is, I think, an accurate assessment of how patriarchy works and has worked for a long time; gender norms are made up by the people in power (predominantly though not exclusively rich white men) and everyone else rolls with it.
However.
One contribution to this online discourse, which I cannot trace the origin of, is the use of the term "Epstein class" to describe, well, the ruling class. It seems to be a linguistic strategy to point people's attention to the fact that all billionaires are monsters: they oversee the violent extraction of resources with no regard for consent or ethics.
To quote Cricket Guest of Final Girl Digital, who does not use the term "Epstein Class", at length...
