Paristocrat
AKA Celebutante

You prayed it was dead. With the unholy Paris Hilton–Nicole Richie alliance on the rocks, you may have even thought it possible. But the sad truth is that Ms. Hilton represents a kind of latter-day noblesse oblige that goes well beyond her fifteen minutes. The wealthy encourage it because “it gives regular people something to aspire to.” The regular people eat it up because it reassures them upward-mobility is not only possible, but likely. Of course, celebutante status is something more often simulated than actually attained, so expect to continue to bristle at struggling actors who blow their afternoons scouring Chinatown for the least fakey Louis Vuittons.

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Bible-Thumpin’ Lefty
AKA Christian Dove

You’ve heard of the separation of Church and State – here comes the separation of Church and Hate. Whether it’s Anarcho-Protestants, Pinko Catholics, or good old-fashioned Evangelical Socialists, the Christian Left shares one goal in common: to rescue Baby Jesus from the claws of the neocons and His other assorted ultraconservative hijackers. Sickened that Christianity has come to stand for pre-emptive war, the death penalty, and social Darwinism, Bible-thumpin’ Lefties point to Christ’s messages of tolerance, charity, pacifism, justice, racial equality and, perhaps most shocking of all, the fair distribution of wealth. Everything old is new again.

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Urban Monk
AKA Secular Ascetic

Not to be confused with the hedonistic urban hippy, urban monks thrive on the underrated pleasures of self-denial. Taking a cue from the Stoics, Puritans, Sadhus, Spartans and Jains, this eminently sustainable though largely secular creature excels at saying no: no to the accumulation of wealth, no to conveniences, no to cars, no to television, no to meat. Possibly owns a laptop, but harbors deep-seated guilt about that fact. Thrills at issuing personal challenges like 100-mile, raw, vegan, calorie-restricted diets. Some adherents even dabble in the mortification of the flesh, renouncing hot water and room temperatures above 15ºC. They do, however, tend to draw the line at sewing thorns into their underwear.