Interests
[archive]The Roundtable
Feb 07, 2026
What are the worst traits a person can have, like personality wise? On one extreme lays the psychopath with no empathy, no regard for others. Some people are narcissists, and self absorbed. There are those who are lazy, lack willpower, the list goes on and on. Afterall, no one is perfect. The irony however, is that for some of these examples, people with these frowned upon traits are rewarded for having them. No doubt the business world is dominated by individuals better described as monsters than people. There's nothing virtuous or admirable about being one of the richest people on the planet but we still use words like success to describe them. We now also live in an age where we reward the most self absorbed, more than ever before. Social media has created an ecosystem where the most histrionic type of person can demand more attention in one day than most would recieve in a lifetime. I'm not really trying to explain why this is bad or anything related to the topic of a declining culture. Rather in an era of viral moments and celebrity, cult of personality, parasocial relationships, and the emergence of the influencer class I'm left wondering how much of this, if any, is new?
Several months ago an old clip from The Simpsons appeared on my YouTube homepage. For some reason I clicked on it and for reasons I still do not fully understand, I fell in love with it. I recommend watching it but to make a brief clip even briefer, it's Homer Simpson being a cosmopolitian fancy dinner host. Something about those 15 seconds make me yearn for this kind of socializing. I want to dress up and entertain guests with whimsical quips. "So I said, I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini" Homer says. The video has stuck with me for many months it seems, evidenced by tonight. After making dinner and helping myself to a generous glass of wine, I recalled the video and watched it no less than 5 times in a row. I went to the comments section hoping to learn of similar clips, inspirations for the clip, or source material. Little did I know a comment referencing the "Algonquin Roundtable" would lead me to spend hours searching for and watching decades old documentaries.
As it turns out, the martini line did not come from The Simpsons writing staff. Everything in this scene was parody, though not of an old movie or tv show, but rather a small group of real life writors and friends in New York City in the 1920s. Starting in 1919 and lasting until about 1930, the Algonquin Roundtable as it was latter dubbed, was a gathering of yet successful newpaper and magazine columnists. The name came from the hotel they would meet at to eat lunch everyday. I do mean every single day. For over a decade, at a large roundtable in the hotel, numerous screenwritors, critics, columnists, and poets would meet for one most admirable purpose. To roast each other. Seriously. Almost every single sentence included a targeted attack, dressed up with fancy wordplay. The group was not viewed favourably, many considered them to have inflated egos, to be overly harsh and critical of others. Regardless, this table was the birthplace of observational comedy, self deprecation, and many other comedic tropes that continue to be utilized everyday. It's impossible to say for sure that they were invented here but this group no doubt developed and popularized them. Over the span of the decade about a half dozen pullitzer prizes would come out of this group. Some of the first oscar nominated films, numerous broadway plays, novels, and famously, the New Yorker magazine were born from the roundtable. However what's interesting is that even before any of the members would go onto achieve these things, a never before seen following would emerge surrounding them. This group contributed much of the writing that was printed everyday in New York City. Details of their lives, their conversations, and their roundtable antics would make it into these columns. This functioned almost as a precursor to social media. Pre-internet content.
I would consider the members of the Algonquin Roundtable the social media influencers of their day and the group as a whole something like an antique influencer collective/network. Some similarities that immediately come to mind are the combination of exclusivity with accessbility. That is to say, the published daily interactions made the public feel involved despite obvious distance and lack of acquaintance. Think of the streamer or daily vlogger who benefits from appearing accessible and friendly to fans but would obviously never consider one of these fans to be in their circle. During their rise, the Algonquin Roundtable was not obviously talented. They found little success from writing. It was instead their daily interactions that were sought after. I'm sure all of us can think of a million podcasters or tiktokers who really don't have any skills, talents, or reason to be on the world stage. Yet they are, just for their personalities. Finally, we saw with the Algonquin Roundtable that in many cases their involvement in the group served as a launchpad that helped them to achieve all kinds of serious artistic accomplishments or at the very least major financial success. For almost two decades now, we have been seeing the rise of the influencer in music, in hollywood, and in business. It's for these reasons that I see the Algonquin Roundtable members as the influencers of their time. Perhaps this brief period in the 1920s foreshadowed the reward system that society would go onto create for the self-absorbed.
Simpsons ClipWonderful Nonsense: The Algonquin Roundtable
The 10 Year Lunch
