Free Watches
Showed up to some G-Shock thing at the Admiralspalast because free drinks and celebrities sounded reasonable. The wristbands they handed out were white plastic and absurd, but everyone wore one, so I grabbed mine and headed straight for the vodka.
The crowd was pure Berlin circuit—models, bloggers, MTV personalities whose faces I recognized but whose names meant nothing. Palina was there, some No Angels members, the usual rotation. I did the rounds with a few German fashion bloggers, those conversations where you’re both just waiting for it to end, and then the dancefloor actually got interesting. Amanda Blank was up there, some MTV guy, Lady Sovereign. They knew how to work a drunk crowd. People were dancing like they meant it, not the careful posing you get at the wrong parties.
There were girls in green tops floating through the VIP section like part of the furniture, sweet and half-interested in whatever was happening. The Ochsenknecht brothers were somewhere fighting over the last bottles. By the end, someone was throwing G-Shock watches around like they cost nothing, and I kept one out of habit or spite or that dumb logic where free shit proves the night was good.
The MTV Europe Music Awards were the next night—months of advertising promising Beyoncé and Eminem, the whole manufactured hype machine. I didn’t believe it for a second, but I went anyway. You always go anyway, even knowing better.