The usual kulak/petty burshwá dipshit who "runs the family business" of leeching surplus value and sending some emails is usually proud of it, leave alone the shitstains with 4 surnames and zero heterozigous loci.
Same with PMCs in overpayed jobs, usually saying "yeah I got this job thanks to my uncle/frat top"
But then mediocre overvalued "artists" piss and moan about their daddy owning Sony not being a big deal in their astroturfed careers.
Why? Some people do end up actually liking their music, so who cares if they didn't have to audition a million times and waste their own few money playing virtually for free in shitty bars?
One thing is nepotism in a post war capitalist society like the boomer era USA. You could be way more honest about being hired by your dad to inherit their position. People weren't equal then, but the gulf wasn't as large as someone's grandpa having an egg monopoly over all of China. When you reach feudalism levels of contradiction, a capitalist society develops the top-down demand to worship at the feet of those who own the world by 'their own merit'. There's no room for honesty or self deprecation in a world where HR princes spend half their workday in the gym, the other half in a spa, and must still pretend the economy is in any way legitimate.
The less legitimate the wealth disparity becomes, the greater the need to deny its illegitimacy.
This is why capitalism is so often eugenicist and white supremacist. Because the wealthiest in society are so wealthy that claiming it’s because of their actual ability and personal productivity becomes absurd, so the justification becomes that they are innately superior.
British royalty or billionaire breeding kinks, it’s the same eugenics. They are wealthier because their blood is better. They inherited their superior position and so they actually do assume their higher value comes from their DNA.
In a society that tries to keep up the facade of meritocracy and authenticity, the idea that your favorite indie musician is actually the son or daughter of a movie star, studio exec or record producer kinda becomes anathema.
I remember the bitterness I felt once I understood it didn't matter how talented I was or how hard I worked, that there was no way I could survive and also have the time and mental energy required to make art at the level I knew I was capable of. The artists I most admired at that time, I started understanding they had their basic needs provided for them, allowing them to pursue their craft for as long as they wanted. They could create freely without the constant mental and emotional stress of affording food and rent.
I admire working class artists who manage to do it anyway. I have my own issues, and my faculties allow me to either work enough to afford my art with no time to make it and/or output becomes depressingly low quality, or I barely work at all and have as much time as I need but poverty is a material and mental burden, knowing there is a very short countdown before I am homeless, so I just go back to work. I have artist friends who married high earners. I couldn't live with that kind of power dynamic in a relationship.
It breaks the facade. I got my first fake job because my dad made a phone call. That phone call has done more for my career than any actual work ive done for myself.
More pressing question, why did you choose to move to Denver
Obviously she's an evil satanist who wanted to join the NWO and sacrifice children beneath the blue horse demon statue.
:foucault-madness:
IDK but same experiences here. I hypothesize that for my case at least theres just a lot more Background Radiation Transphobia there. As soon as covid severed any financial anchor I had to the place I dipped. Had only been there abt 2.5 years but they were very lonely and miserable
Yes, but you can always talk over about how you had to "work hard everyday nonetheless", which is true for most cases.
Even if i did actually work hard (since then i really havent), it had no impact on my outcome. The only reason i was considered for my most recent job was the place that first one had on my resume
I got my current job because my old boss knew the guy who was starting an experimental course for unemployed IT people right as my old workplace went bankrupt. It probably also helped that my girlfriend went to highschool with one of the partners.
You mean the hexbear admin hierarchy isn't a meritocracy?? Deleting my account rn in protest 😤
This thread reminds me of a story about JFK having a conversation with a coal miner or someone who did hard labor to get by
"Looking at you, I feel like I've never done a day's work in my life" He says.
"You're not missing much" the miner replies.
Can't find it exactly, and I might be misattributing the hell out of it, but just eat the slop.
I'm pretty sure I've read the same story, and in my memory it was JFK addressing union members during a campaign. JFK was no leftist but that kind of honesty and directness seemed to be pretty effective for him.
Wasn't JFK quite good friends with most of the Union higher ups, partly because of Democrat-loyalty and partly because JFK's dad was a massive influence for the mob, which the unions used to "discourage" scabbing?
"Artists" today, perhaps more than at any other time in history, are extremely image conscience. You have to be. Its almost impossible to be working in any sort of artistic field without some kind of social media presence. Audiences are sophisticated enough to understand that who you are on camera isn't who you are off camera logically but we're human beings so its impossible to detach the two emotionally. I often think that actors especially play a character as much in interviews as they do on the movie screen. Nobody wants their image to be "nepo baby" even if its true...because as an artist your image is your brand.
Also: on a personal note I'm sure its frustrating for them because a lot of them probably do put in a lot of work on their craft. Nepotism can get you a long way but I imagine even with those legs up it still takes a lot of work to have a successful career. The shapiro siblings also had a classical arts backround and they are both cringe-worthy to watch perform.
Shit it's the same for movies with actors and directors, all nepo babies all the way down.
Yes, but why are they so defensive against it?
The kulak who was handed down capital loves boasting about it, usually sided with their own "oh so hard work", but it's all stolen surplus valor!
But why some people are afraid of saying "yeah I won those first key castings cuz my moms" if they ended up with an Oscar anyways?
Of course, the Goop ghoul wouldn't have won her Oscar if it wasn't for her parents, but she was the one acting, and it is her name engraved in that statue
I think it's because boater kulaks are more craven in their approach to defending their ill-gotten gains while hollywood types tend to be more liberal and open to understanding that the general public would be off put by their nepotism.
The kulak who was handed down capital loves boasting about it, usually sided with their own “oh so hard work”, but it’s all stolen surplus valor!
I guess you've never listened to "How I Built This" then? The NPR podcast where successful entrepreneurs sheepishly admit in the third act that the business they started in their own garage was bailed out with a billion dollar loan from mommy and daddy's friends?
Because it's a political statement. If you have to admit that your success is (comparatively) unearned, which is not particularly difficult for a humble person to do, you are also raising the question of why that is possible to begin with. Celebrity status will probably always be hereditary to some extent, but looking at the fact that it's still possible to inherit organizations that are large enough to rival small countries (eg Wal Mart), and that Ivy League aristocracy pretty much runs the entire fucking world economy and state apparati, one has to wonder whether we ever abolished hereditary rule at all or just did half of the work and spent the next few centuries deluding ourselves.
Hmmm I wonder why people might chafe at the implication that they didn't really "earn" their status, even if it's completely true. :thonk:
Chalk it up to the protestant work ethic if you like. In the American consciousness, at least, suffering and toil are virtues inevitably rewarded by success, at least once you've done your time. Skipping in line by being handed something for nothing might spark internal conflict ("I didn't really earn this, did I? Am I a fraud?") and external scorn ("They hate me because my dad got me this job.") To avoid that perception, people often invent their own delusions of bootstrapping to convince themselves and others that they and they alone are responsible for their success, sometimes offering up a token factor of luck so as not to seem too self-important.
I think because artists might feel like they need an inspiring background in some way to be popular. That does not benefit you as much if you are like a dentist or something
They've convinced themselves that they have inborn talent instead of their parents being rich enough to afford to support their children's interests and connected enough to put them into the spotlight
To admit otherwise means that they're not actually that good and have stepped on the heads of countless others to get to where they are
After all, do you think Max "My dad killed three people on the set of The Twilight Zone movie" Landis would ever admit he's really bad at writing?
Max Landis
Writer of "Bright"
kjjjjj, he doesn't need to admit it, the movies speak for itself
Even those open nepo babies like to pretend that their dad just noticed their exceptional talent or something, but they are certainly less ashamed of it.
The reason might have to do with the (historical) identity of the profession. If most artists etc were in recent history the first of their family to do the job, and it didn't look like they could start a dynasty, they would naturally develop an ideology of independent merit being what matters. In comparison, in industries where most people likely inherited the job and were looking to give it as inheritance, an ideology of dynastic might being important would tend to prosper. These ideologies would then spread through shared social circles even to the minority who were of the less common origin.
Once the idea of how a person of your identity should be sets in, it is easier to just start genuinely believing you are also that way, even if it is clearly not true. Then someone mentioning your connections becomes an insult to your identity, which people generally do not enjoy.
