Secret Billionaires. Age-Gap Marriages. Plenty of Revenge.

Photo: Jamie Lee Taete for New York Magazine

After a flight to New York from my home in Tokyo last year, I stumbled across a professionally filmed microdrama that played out in bewildering, minute-or-two-long installments on my Instagram feed. Early in Money, Guns, and Merry Christmas, a defense-company CEO is asked by his date how much money he makes. As he says “Fifty or 60-,” she interrupts him: “Sixty grand — I cannot believe my daddy set me up with someone so poor.” We know the CEO...