From Goop to Oprah, this year's gift guides may signal the end of the world

The last time Salon cracked wise at the offerings listed among Oprah’s Favorite Things or the zanier items in Goop’s holiday gift guide was in 2019. Two holiday seasons hence would be the first time a stranger casually suggested to me that the world was ending.

These things are not unrelated, because the person inferring this was a waiter advising me to just order the pasta carbonara already. His apocalypse prediction was delivered sans despair or even humor but, rather, in a casual “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” tone of someone who’s way past the freaking out stage of accepting imminent vaporization.

And you know what? It worked. The pasta was delicious, and I had no regrets.

I’d be reminded of society’s imminent collapse many times after that, often by friends and loved ones but always in the context of commerce. Where “you only live once” was the guilt-cleansing mantra of pre-COVID, pre-Jan. 6, and pre-every other anxiety that's happened since those horrors beset us, the new ace card of reasons to eat dessert first may be some version of “the end is nigh.”

This is the only way I can explain why I perused each celebrity’s current advice columns for conspicuous consumption and, much to my shock, found some items that in 2023 seem . . . reasonably priced, comparatively speaking.

Reader, I am not within the same income hemisphere as either of these women or, let’s face it, the people who curate these fa-la-la-la-la flexes. There are vibrators on Gwyneth Paltrow’s holiday suggestion extravaganza that are worth more than 10 times my 20-year-old car’s Blue Book value.

And yet, when I looked at the $396 price tag for 11 pounds of Parmigiano Reggiano “sourced from Valserena Soladibruna, the oldest dairy in Parma,” I found myself thinking: I would hit that. After all, the whole reason I drive a jalopy manufactured during George W. Bush’s presidency is to have an easier time paying for food. Why can’t some of those groceries be absurdly priced every, oh, once in a lifetime? Not to mention, 11 pounds of parm will class up a whole lotta pizza as society falls apart.

After pandemic lockdowns eased up there was a post-COVID luxury spending spree. But since then, inflation made many blingier items further out of reach for most of us, both quotidian and high-end. That may be why this year’s Goop list, and many of Oprah’s 2023 Favorites, feature relatively sensible preposterous items in the two- or three-figure range.

This includes La Paltrow’s always-good-for-a-giggle “Ridiculous but Awesome Gift Guide,” where one might find the aforementioned $15,000 lady buzzer along with the opportunity to purchase a $14,580 backgammon set; a chance to share your life with a $2,000 traditional Heng gong; or a shot at owning a pair of $2,250 limited edition skis sporting a design “honoring the iconoclastic spirit of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” the maker says.

Everything you need, in other words, for a relaxing getaway to the Park City resort of your choice where, if you’re lucky, you might bump into Goop’s founder on the slopes.

That list is where the cheese stands not alone, but beside a 53-piece, $10,000 bar cart. And it’s not even the least expensive ridic offering – that honor belongs to the offer of tickets to Asi Wind’s magic show which, according to Goop, starts at $120. Counterpoint: What’s in it for you?

That may be why the delight we once took in the nuttiness previous Goop holiday guides is not as present somehow in 2023. 

Past versions hawked markers of exclusivity that were impractical, sometimes bewildering and often hilariously vulgar. This time a lot of it looks basic and overpriced. If humanity is in fact gliding towards last call, at least give us something crazier to clutch than a $48 tea towel.

OK, sure, there are those $5,125 Chanel skates, but do they also give you a reflexology treatment while you're wearing them?

We kid . . . somewhat. It’s nice that Goop is generously tossing cake to the commoners by, among other things, featuring worthwhile non-profit organizations such as Women’s Health Access Matters, the Brooklyn Library’s Books Unbanned initiative and The Ocean Cleanup. Feel free to pair that last one with renting an island in Fiji for $39,500 a night – with a three-night minimum to prove you’re not a total barbarian.

Oprah’s Favorite Things list predates Goop’s existence, which means its creators are better at aligning with consumer sentiment – which is to say, they understand we’re feeling broke these days, not to mention emotionally defeated given the destabilizing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

A $999 countertop pizza oven is about as wacky as the ur-influencer gets — and would go great with that parmesan wedge — although Oprah’s hat tip to a $600 drip coffee maker also reasonably tempts those of us who aren’t wealthy, but might want to feel rich a sip or a nibble at a time.

If there’s less about Oprah’s list that’s brazenly comedic – nothing will beat the $45 jar of air that she managed to sell out in 2017 – that’s because many of its items are sourced from small businesses, with a focus on companies owned by people of color, women and veterans.

Most of the things on the 112-item list cost less than $100 and fulfill a proletarian need instead of gesturing toward patrician signaling. The objects that ring up above that threshold, in the main, reflect our post-pandemic, pre-Ragnarok yearning for stylish comforts, such as wide-legged pajama pants you can wear to the market without raising suspicions that your f**ks account is overdrawn.

In comparison, passable versions of items on Goop’s holiday collection that may have had a gleam of rarity in the past can be attained, albeit by more mainstream manufacturers, at a normal shop for normal people near you.

To wit, these Regalis black summer truffles are offered at a decent price point, $30, but how Goop-y is a jarred item that you can score at Costco? The list offers masks, creams and scrubs a-plenty, but so do the bins at a T.J. Maxx or Marshall’s in one of your city’s bougie neighborhoods or suburbs. Don’t even get us started on the $220 “self-care towel set.”

But I get why Goop is trying. As Reuters reported, this year many luxury brands faced slumping sales as escalating inflation and economic uncertainty led aspirational shoppers to curb their urge to keep their drip flowing.

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Haute couture brands pulled back in catering to the sneakers and streetwear market to redouble their focus on luring in wealthier customers. People like my sibling who desperately needs to unclench, and to whom I might send a $17 bottle of “bowel support” listed under the site’s gifts for travel enthusiasts.

Maybe all this is a good thing. (Don’t sue us, Martha.) Or maybe it means that Goop has so thoroughly infected American culture that its holiday list is tottering toward, if not obsolescence, becoming yet another garden variety overpriced catalog, albeit one offering a $1,925 dog house designed by Hermès. But what does it matter if it feels like the world is ending?

For, in case you missed it, a peal of what may or may not have been the archangel Gabriel’s horn cut through the noise a few days ago signaling, ominous, that it’s time.

Or maybe I’m mistaken, and what I heard was this:

Either way, go ahead and order the expensive cheese and $30 jar of truffles. The end is nigh . . . although it has been for some time now.