I remember when people used to say that Rowling was different because she made her money from writing or whatever.
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Nobody earns a billion dollars through honest work. You don’t become a celebrity billionaire on your own. Creating and maintaining celebrity takes a large team of workers who sees none of the profits created by the celebrity.
Those profits are most often created by being able to demand far greater prices for branded merchandise than the cost of labour and materials, justified solely by the brand and image of the celebrity. This allows them to extract a form of monopoly rent by creating an artificial scarcity in the market.
Celebrity billionaires might not be the most consciously evil billionaires but they are exploitative and parasitic, just like any other kind of billionaire.
I think especially in the digital age you could theoretically earn a billion dollars without exploiting anyone, like if you wrote an ebook or made a video game that pops off like Undertale, where there is little to no labor required for distribution. It’s still unethical to hoard that much wealth and society should tax it away from you. Even if we were to accept the narrative that some billionaire celebrities made their wealth through ethical means (which they didn’t), they still very much have the ability to give it to people who need it and choose not to.
The wealth gap between just being a millionaire and being a billionaire is so unfathomably massive.
Millionaires are believable in a single lucky lifetime, but billions? One thousand millionaires in one person?
The Harry Potter books have sold over 600 million copies. Of course there were a lot of people involved, but I think nowadays with digital self-publishing, it could be possible to have a book series that sells millions of copies while only requiring the labor of a handful of people.
There are no good billionaires. Period.
I am surprised this meme made it here.
The title is sarcastic.
I get that now. I guess it just tire me seeing people who should be allies and friends being blind sided. I am tired of trying to explain a different perspective to friend and family, let alone strangers on the net. I mean words are wind. And yet here we are. I guess I am just ranting now. In another thread on this meme a particular stupid lemming argued there had to be good billionaires otherwise there would be no one to oppose the bad ones
There are Jedi Billionaires and Sith Billionaires. Just wait a little while and the Invisible Hand of the Force will balance things out again
The biggest excuse they use nowadays is that its a billion dollars in stocks and other assets, and therefore there’s nothing anyone can do. As if selling stocks is unheard of. They think we’re stupid.
They say that if they started to sell them the stock would devalue and they wouldnt get full price. But this is true for literally any asset (including raw currency!). The market doing a supply and demand doesn’t mean special rules apply to them only
Rowling made her money from stealing surplus value from people who produce the overpriced commodities based on her shitty racist wizard book, so those arguments never had much merit.
If all she did was sell books it would be different than what she actually did which is create a massive franchise that exploits the labor of countless others. Of course if all she did was sell books then she wouldn’t be a billionaire in the first place. Same thing with all the other celebrity billionaires, they wouldn’t be what they are without systemic exploitation, it’s just not possible.
Even “just” selling books is often exploitative, the publishing mafia is predatory as fuck.
And, unless she edited them herself (which, considering the quality of the writing, It wouldn’t surprise me), printed, bound, marketed, distributed, sold and accounted for all of them, she’s not entitled to all of the proceeds of her books either.
She probably stopped having an editor pretty quickly since I can’t imagine an editor letting “Kingsley Shacklebolt” slide.
counterpoint: the editor was british
“Cho Chang” is close to as bad, but not quite.
I was listening to the audiobook of the 4th book on a long drive (my partner likes the audiobook to relax), and oof. It’s just really rough writing.
This is true of course, but at the same time I also think some billionaires deserve a bit more hate than others.
Honestly had no idea that Rihanna is a billionaire
Apparently she was the first woman artist to become a billionaire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_artists_by_net_worth
I’m sorry. I’m old AF. Who the absolute fuck are the two clowns on the bottom? Serious question. Are those the “good billionaires?” Straight to the fucking wall, the both of them. Nobody on Earth has ever in the history of human civilization “earned” a billion dollars. The wall. Now.
damn I’m 45 and I can immediately recognize Rihanna lol, that’s impressive levels of not paying attention and I’m genuinely, non ironically jealous lol
I know of Rihanna and Taylor Swift. I could name songs of theirs if I heard them. I have literally no idea what they look like. I do not care.
I didn’t recognize either of them either.
Since nobody else has said it so far, the other one is Taylor Swift.
Just pop stars. But yes, if you have a billion dollars and haven’t done anything to cure that condition, I agree - the wall. Now.
Looking forward to Taylor Swift’s cover of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
Pretty sure this take would get you killed in Salt Lake City
Imagine having more money than you could ever, ever spend, and looking at the world and saying “hmm, no I got mine”.
No exceptions.
