I Met My Idol on the Street

Photo by Michael Discenza on Unsplash

See if the parable of, “Don’t meet your heroes” applies

The year is 2009. I’m 21, and it’s a Monday night. That means there’s only one place in the world where I could be.

That’s in front of the TV watching MTV’s, the City.

A brief asterisk for those of you not in the know. The City was a spinoff of the Hills, which starred Lauren Conrad, the Empress of Millennial Girls.

The City followed her coworker, Whitney Port, as she launched a new life as a fashion designer in NYC. And what a life it was! Whitney was showing her sketches to buyers at Bergdorf’s, partying alongside Zach Posen, and yes — throwing a fashion show by season’s end. For her own collection, no less!

At the time, I didn’t realize that MTV was pulling the puppet strings of this stylish marionette. I think that to my 20-year-old brain, Whitney was just slaying on a continuum, and somehow they caught her on home video.

I also thought she owed a lot of her (crazy, insane) success to her mentor…