Forbes glorifying Kylie Jenner

[civvver]

Forbes posted a cover article about Kylie Jenner and how shes on pace to become the youngest billionaire ever. In the headline they call her self made. Her company which she solely owns sells makeup online. Everything is outsourced, the production of the makeup, the order processing and fulfillment. The only thing her company does internally is come up the product ideas and market them. It works cus Kylie Jenner has 110 million followers on instagram. Read that again. 110 MILLION people are following this 20 year old reality star. I just question the whole direction of society at this point when I read that. But anyway, she posts herself wearing makeup that they sell for like $30 and reportedly they've sold over $600 million worth of product. That'd be like 20 million units, or less than 20% of her instagram followers. Idk if that's a high rate of sale or not, though I'm sure the amount of people buying is way less but buying multiple kits.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...t-a-900-million-fortune-in-less-than-3-years/

So of course a bunch of people went on twitter to rant about how non-self made she is.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertain...naire-on-magazine-cover/ar-AAzXpDK?li=BBnbfcL


I actually agree with them. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, a family that's already insanely wealthy with a reality tv show. The article says she invested $250,000 of her own money from modeling gigs. Ok that's cool, but do you think if her family was not omnipresent in the news she would've been "discovered" as a model at like 16 like she was? Doubtful. And since they're fabulously wealthy already she can afford to drop that much money on a venture without taking on any investors and retaining 100% of her company.

So I applaud Kylie Jenner for figuring out the business of social media and how to market her brand seemingly without harmfully exploiting anyone (I don't know anything about how her makeup is manufactured however, but I'll give benefit of the doubt with it being safe for the environment and doesn't exploit labor etc). It really is pretty shrewed when many hollywood heiresses don't do anything except party like Paris Hilton. And I'm sure she's a hard worker and disciplined to get all this going. But she's also extremely lucky.

When comparing to a common person and a common person's opportunities this is an extremely depressing case of the rich get richer. How many average, middle class young women have connections to find a makeup producer, or have any presence on social media to market this? Practically zero. Maybe if they worked really hard they could line up some investors and hire some celebs to promote it and follow this kind of model but they wouldn't be able to own the whole business that's for sure.

I guess I get kind of sick about hearing about who guys like Kevin Durant want to move to Oakland area so they can become venture capitalists after the nba. I do not care about celebrities becoming richer off their celebrity status. I tire of the media not just reporting it but glorifying it. I'd much rather read articles about guys like the founder of Dave's killer bread. Look up his story sometime for a good read on a real self made millionaire (although even he had some help from his mom and pop bakery his parents owned but he expanded it). Although he sadly has a lot of personal issues he is dealing with, his success is inspiring.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/2/27/17055800/daves-killer-bread-dave-dahl-feature

 

[Lexicus]

Singling out Kylie Jenner as not self-made smacks to me of straight-up misogyny. The truth is of course that all billionaires become billionaires through voracious robbery of the working class.

 

[Zkribbler]

Singling out Kylie Jenner as not self-made smacks to me of straight-up misogyny. The truth is of course that all billionaires become billionaires through voracious robbery of the working class.

More precisely, most billionaires become billionaires through inheritance...from ancestors who robbed the working class.

 

[Lexicus]

More precisely, most billionaires become billionaires through inheritance...from ancestors who robbed the working class.

I actually don't know whether this is strictly true on the number of billionaires today. I would guess that most billionaires today inherited some money, but most of them probably weren't born into billionaire status.

 

[Peuri]

Where is that fake psychologist hat of mine? Oh, there it is.

People rather watch other people's (fantasy) family life on tv, than face their own family. By buing these products you can become symbolically a part of the family of your dreams by wearing their tribal colours.

 

[Lexicus]

It should be pointed out that Kylie's robbery is considerably less damaging to society than the depredations of guys like Jeff Bezos.

 

[Synobun]

I just really couldn't care less. I won't begrudge anyone's financial success unless they seek to maintain it through harming others. We don't clamor for "setting the record straight" if someone credits God for their success. No point in doing so now that it's a Kardashian/Jenner and they're crediting themselves. Nobody is self-made. It's impossible to achieve wealth without taking from others. Some get a head start, some don't, but each follows a path of providing less in exchange for gaining more. Sometimes this can be done ethically, most of the time it does not.

Kylie Jenner is just another rich person until evidence proves otherwise.

 

[civvver]

It should be pointed out that Kylie's robbery is considerably less damaging to society than the depredations of guys like Jeff Bezos.

Yeah I don't think Kylie Jenner has done anything harmful to people, she just leverages her celebrity to sell a crap ton of makeup with virtually no overhead so it's insanely profitable. If it hurts anyone it'd be makeup competitors and possibly brick and mortar retailers but that's the free market. She's not like suppressing wages or lobbying congress for special tax breaks as far as I know.

My point is just that I hate to see people who are basically extremely lucky marketed as somehow being this business savant. Guys like zuckerberg I respect a lot more. Sure he was pretty well off too, he was going to harvard, and he's kind of a douche and I don't like him or facebook, but he had the genius to put it together the way he did. Guys like wozniak and jobs built amazing computers and marketed them right. Kylie Jenner? Became a celeb cus of her family, had seed money and makes a very easy to copy product.

I just really couldn't care less. I won't begrudge anyone's financial success unless they seek to maintain it through harming others. We don't clamor for "setting the record straight" if someone credits God for their success. No point in doing so now that it's a Kardashian/Jenner and they're crediting themselves. Nobody is self-made. It's impossible to achieve wealth without taking from others. Some get a head start, some don't, but each follows a path of providing less in exchange for gaining more. Sometimes this can be done ethically, most of the time it does not.

Kylie Jenner is just another rich person until evidence proves otherwise.

My point is I find it almost dangerous to glorify celebs in this way as business leaders over real business leaders. I worry about the impression it leaves on our children, having two young kids myself. Although I guess I can always point out how you leverage what you have, so even though you don't have celebrity you can leverage something else and work hard. Maybe it's not so terrible.

 

[stinkubus]

She does have a real business and she is a real business leader. The fact that you don't see value in what she sells is irrelevant.

 

[Narz]

It should be pointed out that Kylie's robbery is considerably less damaging to society than the depredations of guys like Jeff Bezos.

What's so evil about Amazon/Whole Foods?

 

[Synobun]

My point is I find it almost dangerous to glorify celebs in this way as business leaders over real business leaders. I worry about the impression it leaves on our children, having two young kids myself. Although I guess I can always point out how you leverage what you have, so even though you don't have celebrity you can leverage something else and work hard. Maybe it's not so terrible.

It's really easy to crash and burn, even if you have immense wealth. That she's grown her name and business exponentially likely implies that if she isn't herself capable of notable business acumen, she's backed by a team that is.

In general though I question the "impression it leaves on our children" approach, as I feel this relinquishes control of perspective from the parents. Obscuring these realities of life doesn't help a child, but contextualizing them does.

 

[Lexicus]

What's so evil about Amazon/Whole Foods?

Is this, like, an actual serious question?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think many kinds of purchasing decisions people make with their money are ridiculous, but it's not my decision to make.

I don't see how what she's doing is any more or less legit than effectively any other legal entertainment/discretionary spending. Prior to this thread I didn't even know about this, but it looks like enough people did and cared to toss money her way. Good for her.

Media is trash but this isn't even a blip on the radar as to why. There's no evidence of scripting, threats, selective reporting, pushing narrative, straight up lying, pushing legislation (alongside prior tactics) to pass laws muscling out competition, etc apparent in this case. They're just reporting something you don't care about. If that's all the media did they wouldn't be so bad.

 

[stinkubus]

What's so evil about Amazon/Whole Foods?

Amazon's labor practices are atrocious. If you work in one of their DCs you can't take a few minutes to use the bathroom without missing quotas and potentially getting yourself fired. Bezos' own newspaper, the Washington Post, ran a story last year about one of their facilities in the southern US that had to contract with the city to keep an ambulance on site 24/7 because workers were literally collapsing from exhaustion.

 

[Narz]

Is this, like, an actual serious question?

I don't waste people's time.

Yes, what makes said companies worse than their competitors?

My old boss hates Amazon because they make it really hard for brick & mortor small businesses to stay afloat but that's the inevitable trend anyway. I think it's a positive, stores are boring and will have to evolve to more exciting places than merely building in which you can buy items.

 

[Narz]

Amazon's labor practices are atrocious. If you work in one of their DCs you can't take a few minutes to use the bathroom without missing quotas and potentially getting yourself fired. Bezos' own newspaper, the Washington Post, ran a story last year about one of their facilities in the southern US that had to contract with the city to keep an ambulance on site 24/7 because workers were literally collapsing from exhaustion.

How is this worse than Apple's labor practices, fashion-industry labor practices? The fact that it's American workers who are suffering?

 

[stinkubus]

How is this worse than Apple's labor practices, fashion-industry labor practices? The fact that it's American workers who are suffering?

Apple is probably worse. What does that have to do with anything?

 

[Berzerker]

I've cut down on my bread intake but I buy Dave's... And he hires ex-felons

no pics of her?

 

[Lohrenswald]

Singling out Kylie Jenner as not self-made smacks to me of straight-up misogyny. The truth is of course that all billionaires become billionaires through voracious robbery of the working class.

I'm not sure how many people criticise Jenner but not say Trump or Musk or whatever.

Thing is maybe that those dudes get lambasted (I hope that word means what I think it means) like constantly, but Jenner only in this moment, so the media reaction has some sort of novelty sense.

Though I might be wrong

 

[Narz]

Apple is probably worse. What does that have to do with anything?

What does Benzos have to do with Jenner?

We all put up with evil for convenience.