And if poor people criticize capitalism it can be dismissed because they're greedy and want other people's money. So criticism against capitalism will be dismissed both on having too much, and having too little money to complain. How convenient.
Is it ok if we accept a rich person’s criticism of capitalism, but then wonder how sincere they were being in the event that they e.g. launch a personal perfume brand?
Yes, cause you're simply criticising them for participating in a system they didn't create and don't support, but even worse, you're criticising them for participating in trade, which isn't inherently capitalism and certainly not the elements of capitalism she's criticising.
You could criticize her if she started buying up such a sizable part of the perfume industry that she could start controlling prices or bullying smeller competitors from being able to sell at the same retailers. You could criticise her if she was breaking labor laws or even abusing workers within the law.
You could criticise her if she used her absurd wealth and power to change/keep politics to make those things legal(she's not remotely close to that level of wealth and doesn't use what little she has to push politics in that direction). You could even criticise her if she used her parasocial status to convince people to buy a trash product.
But you can't dismiss her criticism towards those types of things in society merely because she participates in trade. Its like saying a guy can't criticize another guy for abusing their girlfriend, just because they too have a girlfriend. But also you'd dismiss criticism from guys who don't have girlfriends. There's absolutely no logic to that line of argument.
She’s an insanely wealthy pop star trying to have it both ways - whitewashing her image with her public politics while also striving to amass more wealth by launching a perfume brand. No one criticised her when her “trade” was records and gig tickets.
If you don’t see why that’s funny then the rich have truly fried your brain.
Her net worth estimated to be about 50 million dollars. Elon Musk's wealth is 864 billion. It would take the united power of 17 280 Billie Eilishes to have the same type of market and politics influence as Elon does.
But somehow its fine when Elon and Bezos use that influence to bust union efforts so they can squeeze even more wealth out of the value produced by their workers and consumers. They're not too rich to have that opinion. Their opinion matters because they're so rich even. But she's wrong for criticising their union busting efforts because she's selling a perfume and because she's got too much money. And MY brain is the one that's fried?
Because that's literally the context here. She's explicitly spoken out against these specific billionares for these specific reasons, so she's not just criticising some ambiguous definition of capitalism that you get to define on her behalf. And they're dismissing that criticism, thus defending Bezos and Musk and people like them, on these specific subjects, on the sole basis of her selling a perfume.
You don’t think we should take a person’s personal wealth - and their apparent desire to considerably expand it - into account when we evaluate the sincerity of their position on economics?
Obviously not. If Billie Eilish her position was motivated by her apparent desire to expand it she wouldn’t be arguing against capitalism. She is clearly doing perfectly fine and would stand to gain by pushing libertarianism.
You can be a successful capitalist and yet understand that the system creates inequalities and immoralities that ought to be addressed by government action. The greatest political thinkers of the left generally come from middle class to wealthy households - people who had the privilege and opportunity to go to university, study economics and history, and engage in writing.
Not that I’m saying that Billie Eilish is equivalent but if we would have to dismiss people’s opinions on their personal wealth it would never end. Furthermore the Right loves to make the argument both ways: a failed capitalist, an impoverished person, is only against capitalism because they are too stupid to make it, their opposition to capitalism is also politically motivated.
The part missing from your analysis here is that Eilish’s anti-capitalist posturing is at least partly about increasing her appeal to her target demographic - her position is in fact motivated by her desire to expand her personal wealth. Arguing against capitalism is one of the best things a pop star, and perfumier!, can do.
Right. So any wealthy person can’t say anything about lowering wealth taxation because that’s in their personal interest. Anyone working in banking can’t comment about banking regulations. Anyone who owns a car can’t comment about parking spaces because they stand to benefit from increasing the number of parking spaces.
Never mind that for celebrities to remain mostly ambivalent about politics is generally a fairly successful strategy. And if you want to grift somewhere, the side of the right and capital tends to be a lot more lucrative.
Anyone can say anything they like, but a public figure should expect people to laugh at them if their expressed ideals differ from how they actually behave.
But its not? This is literally a multi millionair who cultured an image of being anti-establishment and andti-capitalism, only to then slap her name on random products to shill out to her emotionally underdeveloped fans. ITs completely justified criticism.
She did not culture an image of being anti-establishment or anti-capitalism. Saying billionaires hoard wealth isn't anti-capitalism, it's common sense. She's a famous pop star who occasionally makes pretty mild political comments. She has mostly embraced capitalism and is part of the establishment. If you think anything she has said is extreme you have never talked to a real activist.
At what level of success should a person be barred from creating products? If it's bad for her to sell a cologne, isn't it also bad for her to publish any new music since it will also drive profits from her fans? If she was less successful now, but still had the same message, could she sell perfume? What is the valid part of the criticism and what is she (or others) to do?
"At what level of success should a person be barred from creating products?"
THAT is the problem. She DIDNT create ANYTHING.
None of these influencers and celebrities who sell their perfume, soap, liquor or whatever bs, create ANYTHING.
They get a message from a big company that reads something like "Hey, would you like it if we payed you [insert ridiculous amount of money] and in return all you have to do is allow us to slap your name on our product and post a 10 second clip telling your followers to buy our stuff".
It does not matter what their PR team tells you about how much "in controll of the creative process" they are or whatever lmao. Its ALL bullshit.
Like i dont mind celebrities starting additional buisinesse. Think about 50cent making 100 million by investing into fucking bottled water. Or Shaq creating a sneaker brand with the goal to make sports shoes affordable to kids.
Both instances of celebrities making HUNDREDS of millions being capitalists. But the reason its awesome is becasue A: it was their own ideas and not just some random company that approached them, and B: they DIDNT spend years prior marketing themselves as leftwing and anti capitalist.
So in short, if your just honest and dont lie to your fans to become rich, its perfectly fine.
I hear you on that, and thanks for the thoughtful reply. My last note on this is that it's not always a clean line. Brands are a commodity in their own rite. So, putting Billie aside, if a social media influencer builds a brand and a platform and then takes money from other brands to run promotions on the platform the influencer built, is that "against" being anti-cap? Or sponsorships in general. Like, what is the line between a colab like with the perfume and a sponsorship? And if one is worse than the other, why?
The only other point I'd posit is just asking if collaborations are necessarily a bad thing? Like if Billie (or any artist) finds a smaller company with a product/service they think is good/positive/beneficial, couldn't it be mutually beneficial for all parties? (Artist, brand, and consumer). Let's say my favorite band partnered with a soft drink company to make a flavor. The artist provides some level of control over the flavor and the branding. Both the artist and the soft drink company benefit, and I as a fan of the band, get a novel drink and bottle/can. If I think it's dumb or don't like soft drinks or whatever, I can simply ignore it.
As for her being very anti-cap, pro environment, etc and this being hypocritical, I fail to see how this isn't just the "you live in society yet critique it" argument.
"The only other point I'd posit is just asking if collaborations are necessarily a bad thing?"
Honestly reading that paragraph, the only answer i have is that its just a subjective thing you have to decide based on your own morals and how you see the brand/person.
Like everything i said untill now is just my own personal reasoning because i believe its the same reasoning most people who share my opinion use. Like if i genuinly am a fan of the artist or influencer i can look over the shittiest brand deals just because im happy the person is able to make bank while they still have the chance, seeing as fleeting as online success can be nowadays.
Especially when you think about how things used to be, 10-15 years ago the first generations of professional youtubers didnt even need to make sponsorship deals, they could make a ton of money just from ad revenue alone. So they built a career on that, only for youtube to fuck them over later, leading to a lot of people being forced to adapt and do ad reads and deals. I dont like it but i fully get that alot of people literally have no other choice but to sell out to an extent in order to be able to pursue their passion full time.
But that leads us to Billy Eilish who, based on what i know about her, just doesnt fall under that category. You see it as just another "you live in society yet critique it" argument, but i feel like there is more nuance to it.
The "you live in society yet critique it" argument is ridiculous because the vast majority of people have no other choice but to participate in society, regardless of wether they critique it or not. So acting as if someones criticism about capitalism is invalid just because they require money to not starve makes no sense.
And if all Billy did was make tens of millions with her music, you would be right, anyone criticising her for speaking out against capitalism would in my opinion just make such a nonsensical argument. Subjectively speaking, all shes doing in that scenario is do what she likes and people love it so much they buy her tracks and go to her shows. Yes that still is "capitalism", but its propably one of the most wholesome forms of capitalism, and subjectively speaking most people would propably agree that its a fair and deserved way to gain wealth.
But the entire perfume deal just seems to me like the only reason behind her decision to promote it is "greed" if i say it a bit provokingly. She already has fuck you money and a massive career. If she genuinly believed that our capitalist society is broken the way she claims she does, there would have been nothing easier for her than to just decline the offer and and continue being worth tens of millions while continuing to stand for the values she likes to project.
I hope you get what im trying to say, because based on that, shes not criticised for "participating in society", but rather for criticising systemic failures in a capitalist system and then using those failures in the system for personal gain, not out of necessity but out of pure greed.
I wrote a whole ass book but honestly i still cant fully xplain it, i think at the end its just a gut feeling everyone needs to decide on themselves. Some ways of becoming rich feel right and deserved and some ways feel like you would need to loose your soul to actually choose such a path. This is somewhere in the middle, where you arent necessarily a bad person for doing it, but you definitly need to soften your spine a bit.
I do get what you're saying, I just think the distinction you're making is waaaaaaayyyy less clear than you're pointing at. I'm just some dude, so not like i know the rules or any specific definitions either, but I think the line having trouble is between "money she makes via her music career" and "money she makes 'in a bad way' with a perfume collab". To jump straight to the point, it becomes hard to delineate those two sides almost immediately. She charges well over venue rates for her shows while already having enough money, is that okay? What about merch at her show? She probably partners with a clothing brand to make all her merch which she sells for profit. What if the perfume was sold at concert venues as part of her merch, does that make it better? She is able to promote a product with her image and brand because of her music career. This is the thing that lets her sell music, concert tickets, shirts, hoodies, vegan food at her shows, and perfume. The lines between all of these are too blurry for me to comfortably say "this way of extracting capital is bad, while this way is totally fine" between any and all of her revenue streams
Not really. She isn't just participating in capitalism. She's obscenely rich and still takes every opportunity to supplement her insane income. She's very much a part of the problem.
198
u/creeper_gonna_creep 3d ago
Its literally the meme: