In a time where corporate billionaires can seize a space in celebrity circles, how do we relate to a popular culture that growingly seems exploitative by definition?
I truly adore Kim Kardashian. Staying-power in celebrity circles and society magazines is one thing – a careful dance guided by the ongoing and constantly-changing calculus of good PR strategy – for which one has to admire/loathe her mother and ostensible business partner/agent Kris, the would-be matriarch of the putatively-dysfunctional and inexhaustible Kardashian-Jenner alliance.
Kim, however, is the centre-piece of her endlessly-serialised media, makeup, snake-oil empire precisely because she represents the paradoxical nature of the occupation she now defines: celebrity.
Yes, I know, it’s not a job in the sense of the one you or I may work but consider the image in your mind of the archetypal celebrity – you have one, don’t you? One predicated, perhaps, on the outmoded notion that, well, celebrities “earn” their status, don’t they? In one or another of the myriad professions and pursuits “deserving” of fame. Leonardo DiCaprio, Kanye West, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paris Hi-
See? Define for me, too, just exactly what, for instance, DJ Khaled does to warrant the constancy of his pudgy presence on your twitter timeline?
There’s an element of constancy, of visibility and splendour to these creatures we call celebrities and our estimation of them has and always will be proportional to the inaccessibility they represent. In essence, a considered and continuous form of work. As Eilidh Hargreaves of the Tattler remarks: “Social power has always been about being in the room — and photograph — with the right people.”
Kim’s is a balancing-act. Inaccessible enough to capture the imagination but innocuous enough that comments such as “Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” Doesn’t cause Marie-Antoinette levels of class-based social paroxysm.
The question is… why shouldn’t it?
Why have talent when you can have money?
In 1883 Alva Vanderbilt, wife of railroad billionaire William K. Vanderbilt, threw the most extravagant ball of an age defined by tasteless frill and socially-mandated self-indulgence. The superfluity of the imagery was such that the name Vanderbilt became synonymous with a decadent elite.
Artists, musicians, broadway thespians flocked the Caen stone walls and ornate French panelling, regaled doubtlessly by live bands and tet-a-tet conversation about industry, high-art, Mrs. Simpson’s piano recital.
It marked the ceremonious beginning of the “Gilded Age.” Coined by Mark Twain but embraced by the New York elite, it described the eponymous era of political corruption, racial violence and deepening economic inequality juxtaposed against the decadently bohemian lifestyle of the new american aristocracy.
If it sounds familiar, perhaps it is because you remember in 2022 when it was selected as the Met Gala’s theme. New York Mayor Eric Adams attended, I’m told in a wonderful Victor Mohan three-piece, chatting with media luminaries and musicians whilst city police were busy attending to his directive to clear homeless encampments.
Wealth, politics and high pop culture are static by nature. Only, there is a new and unfortuitous turn for this generation of pop culture critics to consider. One that, unlike the Vanderbilts or Rockefellers, isn’t content to fund the party’s extravagances but be its centrepiece.
“These people aren’t superhuman.” An important reminder, I should think, from an indispensable source. Candace Simpson; equal parts writer, podcaster, polemic and activist has seen the best and worst elements of politics and high culture writing and recording her podcast and website, “What She Said” from her Ottawan home.
Thus she was not surprised to find herself under attack on social media this year past for an audacious attack on billionaire Warren Buffet.
The “Giving Pledge” is one dimension of Mr. Buffet’s broader image of philanthropic vigour. A pledge, amongst and from the ultra-rich, to dedicate over half of their wealth to charity. The pledge has raised $600 billion thus far, roughly the GDP of Argentina, and boy am I feeling it.
Wealth inequality, corruption and climate disaster. As Mr. Buffet, a nonagenarian, eeks closer year-on-year to his centenary, still clinging onto the vast majority of his wealth ($140 billion), Simpson imparts us the old adage familiar to many women: “If he wanted to, he would.”
I should think, however, that her story is potent in that she should need to offer a response at all. The social media attack to which she was subject, she says, was conducted by “finance bros”, a not-especially auspicious term describing a new breed of internet organism permanently orbiting the subjects of cryptocurrency, stocks and a broad range of grifters from MLM executives all the way to Mark Zuckerberg.
Not unlike the new “Tech Bros”, the term is distressing (and altogether repugnant) principally because it names a phenomenon with which we, as a social culture, have never had to contend. A celebritisation of billionaires.
Not only do all three of the preeminent celebrity billionaires – Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos – regularly feature on magazines, newspapers and “ten most famous people” postings, but their conduct suggests a proactive but alternative media strategy.
Since 2020, Joe Rogan, everyone’s favourite shill, has hosted corporate billionaires on his podcast 12 times – Musk, Zuckerberg and Marc Andreesen a collective nine times – whilst Jeff Bezos grotesquely parades William Shatner around his Blue Origin space shuttle.
Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Musk, and numerous members of the Trump family are (or were) regular features at Met Gala catwalks and Hollywood after-parties and, if you somehow haven’t noticed, the last two post tweets with probably-fascist overtones every half-a-second.
Discouraging too are the labels of “genius”, “entrepreneur”, like the sentiments of hard work and the American idioms of pulling up one’s bootstraps which are invariably an element of all of their supposed stories. No mention, of course, of their parents’ financial aid, such as with Bezos and Musk.
Thus are Simpson’s warnings. Not geniuses or visionaries. Not gods. Not capable of holding ten CEO positions earnestly. Not the type of people who deserve their “Stans” and not the most powerful men in the world because they set their alarm for four AM.
“I think there is a hunger for something more serious, something progressive, a hostility to a celebrity culture of billionaires.” Joseph Kishore is the leader of the American Socialist Equality Party, and his words may be proved prescient in time.
For now though, his warnings reflect a disturbing undercurrent in contemporary pop culture.
“There is a significant problem in social consciousness, in class consciousness.”
“Celebrity culture is built up by the media and the political establishment. Take someone like Trump for instance – his stupid, backwards show.”
A marxist in principle, Kishore describes a growing trend of billionaires garnering prestige not just in public circles, but political circles, writing for the World Socialist Web Site of the development of a new oligarchy of popular tech/financial billionaires such as Musk. The nature of this new establishment? The economic exploitation of the American people to the benefit of the billionaires they are presently uplifting.
Kishore suggests however that the limelight may come to burn. As billionaires more actively socialise their agendas, “Their socio-political character will become more nakedly exposed.”
For now, however, those of us who watch the future and character of pop culture will look on and, frankly, laugh. Even if to save from crying whilst Musk’s meticulously curated Twitter timeline endlessly reproduces some new PR stunt.
One curious but important consequence of this phenomenon to discuss however is how it changes our relationship with not just a corporate elite in pop culture but with all of it.
“Millions of girls grew up listening to Taylor Swift and have had their feelings captured by her and that makes it even harder to reconcile the argument that maybe Taylor Swift isn’t an ethical billionaire.” Sára Debreceni, of the feminist, sustainability-focused Greenstocking Society YouTube channel, is one of many afflicted by this new dynamic.
The social element is significant. For some, billionaires are not merely individually wretched, but subversive by definition, a marker symbolising the type of wealth that can only be gained through exploitation. As Debreceni remarks “There’s no way you’re not screwing over someone along the chain.”
If it can be said to be true therefore that all billionaires, whose number counts icons such as Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Lebron James and Jay-Z, are exploitative, then what does it say about us?
For her part, Sara says that activism can be isolating, exhausting even, and reminds us to be more merciful to ourselves in a system we can’t control: “They want you to think that you’re the one responsible and it’s not us, but actually them.”
Mariana Kebaso, similarly a content creator, reminds us of the broader system at play and the nature of the real enemy. On disproportionate criticism against Rihanna for unsustainable business practices, she remarks: “It’s a lot harder to blame a corporation. When you have a female, people are quick to jump on the bandwagon.”
Whether or not there is resistance to the growing visibility of these figures in our cultural life – or apathetic capitulation – is too soon to tell. Doubtless however is one thing: money cannot, apparently, buy taste.
