The brats of Byron Bay: Cashed, trashed and rocking paradise

Byron Bay locals are sledging Insta stars as “brats” and “f**kwits". James Weir parachutes into town just as the tsunami  hits.   

Australia’s hottest and most hashtagable holiday destination Byron Bay is overrun by celebrities, money and-

“F**kwits?” blurts one host at Loft, a hip upstairs bar on the main drag of town where shaggy straw pendant light shades and timber finishes match the relaxed-but-not-really style of the once sleepy, surfy town.

“D**head Australians who couldn’t go anywhere else in lockdown, so they came here. Last night I was walking home and there were 40 of them outside a kebab shop singing.”

A group of cocktail-fuelled 20-something girls wearing co-ordinated outfits – white high-waisted linen flared pants and strappy, booby tops that require constant yanking to keep them in place – start slapping their acrylic-nailed hands on a long timber tabletop while chanting over the thumpy music that’s playing on the sound system.

It’s a Tuesday and locals are exhausted after a summer like no other.

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“It’s the most bizarre holiday period we’ve ever seen,” says Michael Visser, who manages the retro Bay Motel that looks out over Main Beach.

“Byron is now a meme,” concludes a lanky hipster resident. His name is Snake.

He's sitting on the timber floor of Wreck Surf – one of the last-standing long-running businesses that remain in town – in a part of the shop that owner Bert Reid has converted into a cafe to keep up with the increasingly trendy demo.

“If it’s a place where celebrities go, then rich people go there and then vacuous people who follow celebrities will go there and wanna be seen,” Snake continues.

“They’re spoiled brats,” Bert labels the new wave of young, image-conscious holidaymakers. “I think social media and Instagram … they’ve got a lot to answer for. It’s like, ‘Come to Byron and get ya photos!’ We’re, like, just be normal.”

The #ByronBay hashtag on Instagram has become a new around-the-clock reality show of bikini-clad and musclebound bar hoppers.

Byron Bay is in the grips of an Insta invasion.

Down at Wategos Beach, one guy with a meticulously crafted beard and who's wearing cream linen everything looks to be filming himself as he struts along the road. His fedora suddenly blows off and flips across the bitumen, tumbling into the path of a Rav 4.

He continues filming while chasing it before going back inside the trendy waterfront bar Rae’s – a stylish refuge for influencers – where his group is lunching and documenting every course of the meal on Instagram.

When it's time to leave, he reclines his body over the hood of a Lexus that's parked in the restaurant driveway before a waitress comes out and says something to the group about a card being declined. The bearded guy abandons his mates to chase a scrub turkey down the street.

Seconds later, he’s back with two of the boys and they huddle together – wrapping their arms around each other as they take selfies and look out at the waves crashing in the orange haze of the setting sun. They’re just like the Entourage bros, except all of them are Turtle.

They rope a passer-by into taking a group photo of them that’s later posted to Instagram where Francesca Packer – Kerry Packer’s eldest grandchild and heir to a billion dollar fortune – will comment on the snap with a series of flame emojis.

L-R: Turtle, Turtle, and Turtle.

I interrupt the bro-out and the bearded guy is quick to detail why I should know them.

“I’m @JoeyAndHisBeard on Instagram,” he announces, giving his social media handle in place of a name. “That’s Jad from Gogglebox ... And that’s Ibby from MKR.” He points to his two mates, who are also wearing cream linen ensembles.

They’ve been in town from Sydney for a week and the party is almost over.

“I start shooting tomorrow,” the Gogglebox guy shrugs, mentioning the upcoming series of the reality show he features on.

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Their Instagram accounts are a comprehensive archive of the alcohol-drenched week they’ve enjoyed – endless videos of them slamming together tequila shot glasses in cool local bars and restaurants. Later, more clips will be posted of the bearded guy holding court at Rae’s while giving a loud, impromptu speech to the entire patio of confused diners. This will be followed by a video of him grabbing the microphone off a local busker to address the gathered crowd on Main Beach.

“All I want to do is make billions and be in the best shape of my life,” reads the caption of an old shirtless photo posted to the Instagram account of My Kitchen Rules finalist Ibby.

@JoeyAndHisBeard treating confused diners to an impromptu speech.

“Byron Bay is almost comical,” the skinny hipster Snake laments. “It’s a place to be seen, not to come and experience. People just wanna say they came to Byron.”

Wreck Surf’s Bert Reid describes scenes that occurred just days ago at the sushi joint across the alleyway where a group of people swarmed some guy who posts funny videos on Instagram.

“Everyone was going crazy,” he sighs with an eye-roll.

Mel Sainsbury, who has owned the Essentially Byron toy store off Jonson Street for 16 years and lived in the region since the age of three, says she recently overheard one sentence that describes the new crowd swarming the shire.

“I heard a lady yesterday and she said, ‘Oh, I just saw so-and-so from TikTok!’ And that’s the sort of people we’ve got here now,” she says. “That summed it up – that’s exactly our demographic at the moment: That person from TikTok.”

Byron Bay is “definitely at Hamptons stage,” one national newspaper recently declared, comparing it to the upper class seaside community where affluent New Yorkers and celebrities holiday.

“More like Bali’s Potato Head,” a local scoffs.

She's drinking coffee in the “edible gardens” of Harvest Deli in Newrybar - the hinterland community where Liam Hemsworth dropped $6.5 million on a property last month.

The warm breeze blows over the sweet-sour smell of a nearby compost bin.

“There’s definitely now a Byron Bay look. All the girls are wearing the Elsa dress,” the local says, describing the billowy, floral-printed dresses worn by the wife of the town’s most famous resident, Chris Hemsworth.

Girls taking selfies in their Elsa dresses.

Dressing for Byron Bay is now like dressing for music festivals – everyone’s wearing costumes they’d never wear in their regular everyday lives. But instead of appropriating native American headdresses, they’re all swathed in linen shirts and linen shorts and Elsa dresses. Always with some kind of fedora and braided leather bracelet. Sometimes ‘70s-style ensembles picked up at second-hand stores. Occasionally those fake vintage band tees.

“What’s your favourite Iron Maiden song?” I ask a 20-something blonde girl who's wearing a T-shirt with the iconic band’s name splashed across the front.

“Who?” she replies.

“What brought you to Byron Bay?”

“The vibe.”

The vibe?

“The viiiiiibe,” another girl slurs later outside a kebab shop. She’s up for the week with mates from Sydney. “It’s just a … vibe. The food is a vibe, this kebab shop is a vibe. The only thing that’s not a vibe is the cost.”

Turtle, Turtle, Turtle and some girl at The Farm restaurant.

The holiday season has been raging for weeks. Now, it’s Australia Day – and the town is almost breathing a sigh of relief. The wave has crashed into shore and it's about to pull back out to sea.

Most bars are starting to close for the night. Loft, The Mez Club, Balcony – where former Home And Away and Nova radio star Kate Ritchie was papped with her new baby-faced boyfriend just days ago. But the Beach Hotel remains open to revellers.

Out the front of the pub are two of the white high-waisted flared pants girls who were at Loft the other night. They’re standing on the footpath and one is yelling at the other for ditching her for a boy.

The hit of the summer, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams – made famous again after a recent viral TikTok video – drifts out into the street and a young guy wearing John Lennon sunnies drives by in a white Audi SUV.

“Elly, you’re f**king r**arded,” one of the girls screams. Let’s call her Clarissa. “That’s not how you treat a woman. I would never treat a woman like that. No, don’t say you’re sorry! Babe, it just sounds very ingenuine (sic). It’s ingenuine (sic).”

A nearby hotdog street vendor gives them a dirty look, as if they’re lowering the tone of his business. They are.

“I’ve been waiting 10 minutes! Babe, I’m just telling you, you left me waiting 10 minutes,” Clarissa continues.

Elly clasps her face in her palms. “He was someone I cared about but he won’t date me because I’m weird!” she pleads.

Clarissa doesn’t back down. “I don’t care! You’re supposed to have a brain. You think you’re a smart girl but you’re dumb! A normal person would have a brain cell! You left me waiting eight minutes! That’s so rude, babe. It’s rude. Rude. Eight minutes.”

Wasn't in 10 minutes?

“F**k off!” Clarissa screams. 

They stagger down the street and disappear like one of the crystal visions Stevie Nicks is singing about.

Inside the pumping Beach Hotel (the iconic pub that sold for $100 million in 2019), the fedora-wearing bearded guy in cream linen everything is once again drawing attention.

He’s talking to one girl and then another girl and then everyone’s comparing where they’re from.

“Oh my god! You’re from Sydney? I’m from Sydney! Everyone here is from Sydney!” 

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