Netropolitan: Social Networking For Rich People

Are you a 1-percenter who needs a safe social media outlet to talk about your first-world problems, without the risk of alienating your commoner friends? Now you have an alternative to the impoverished unwashed masses of Facebook. Enter Netropolitan.club, an exclusive digital country club -- essentially, Facebook for rich people.

For a cool $9,000 first-year membership fee (and $3,000 a year every year after that), high-rollers can crowdsource names for their yachts or complain about having to fly commercial to a like-minded, sympathetic audience. Netropolitan is billing itself as “the world’s most exclusive online community,” one that will allow “affluent and accomplished individuals worldwide to socialize in a completely private and secure manner.” With the hefty subscription prices, Netropolitan can afford to be ad-free. And the posts will be moderated by the company's own "professional moderators." Businesses will be able to create groups and advertise to each other, albeit under strict guidelines, according to Netropolitan's information site.

Netropolitan was created by James Touchi-Peters, a composer, performer and former conductor of the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra. Michelle Lawless from Media Minefield, Netropolitan’s PR firm, told the Los Angeles Times Netropolitan was inspired by the discomfort Touchi-Peters and his friends felt when they talked about “certain topics” that could be construed as bragging on traditional social networking sites, where they were “met with a little ill will.” But Netropolitan, she explained, “is designed to be the place to talk about your last European vacation or new car without the backlash.”

Unlike the young and the rich on Instagram (as chronicled on Rich Kids of Instagram, a tumblr that aggregates their shameless bragging on the photo sharing app) the rich of Netropolitan.club will be far more discreet -- limiting their sharing to their peer group.

Perhaps the Wall Street Journal’s recently lampooned video explaining how you can make $400,000 a year and still feel “broke" would have been better suited for Netropolitan.club.