That category of New Yorker is known above all for its sameness, and no one I spoke to could identify precisely what set Williams apart—what delicate mix of aspiration and relatability she had concocted—but I heard some guesses. “I mean, unfortunately, a lot of it is kind of opening yourself up to parasocial relationships,” says Lex Decker, a Manhattan creator of gluten-free content who also works in influencer marketing. “I think the success is making people feel like they know you and are your friend. And that could be really invasive at times when people come to you with these things. I have people that DM me about their date and they live in Georgia, and I’m like, Okay, congrats, but I don’t really care.”
From a young age, Williams took an interest in ’80s and ’90s nightlife: Polaroids, Dash Snow, Mario Sorrenti. “You could see in the photos that the people were living,” she said. Part of what she wanted to do with her platform was to show post-COVID nightlife doomsayers that “you can still have these fun experiences,” she said. “New York is not dead.”
Still, as much as she loved the documentary Studio 54, she figured a club offering such high-glamour debauchery wouldn’t be possible now—or for more than a few days, at least, until it was overexposed. “Yeah, you can’t.”
The next phase of Williams’s arc—“Ellie for the Girls 2.0,” as she put it—will focus on microtargeting. “I’ve been playing around with making the interview hooks niche,” she said. “Where are the cool creative girls going?” (Tigre, a cocktail lounge on the Lower East Side.) “Where are the Australians in finance going?” (Old Mates Pub in the South Street Seaport.) “And that immediately hooks someone in to be like, Okay, if I like Australians in finance, I want to know.”
