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https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/when-you-know-youre-impressive-just
FdB has a really interesting substack post up today about people downplaying their success after they got it. He is putting the irony and self-deprecation as a sort of humble brag, as a way to say “yes, I’ve achieved money and success and a family, but it’s all a joke.” I don’t quite agree with his thesis on why it happens that all of these rich and successful individuals are treating this sort of thing as a joke, something that doesn’t matter.
I’m suggesting that this meme might well be an attempt to protect oneself from others. And it serves two purposes. First, it paints the picture of a person who might well be on the loser’s side on things. After all, I get that I didn’t really earn that, so I’m not one of the stuck up people who think they’re better than the working class people who are not getting theirs. This is much like the old noble classes choosing to wear less ostentatious clothes and holding less decadent galas and parties. The losers, whether they earned the fate or not, are easily convinced to see displays of wealth as a target. It’s often good for the family longevity to avoid sending wealthy person signals.
The second reason is to create a layer of cultural mulch around the pathways to success. The truth is that nobody actually gets success without an extremely strong drive to strive for it. If you want your college degree to not be a very expensive but useless poster on your wall, you have to strive to form social networks, strive to get excellent grades, and strive to get work experience in your field to get into position to apply for a good job. And even after, you have to strive to get and keep a good job, or to get a business off the ground. You have to strive to keep up with the skills you need, and if you’re working for others, you need to be constantly looking for ways to upgrade your skills and get a better job. But here again, the meme suggesting that striving is a joke appears to be adaptive. If it’s all a joke you’re a fool to earnestly strive. And if you don’t strive, you’re not competing for the jobs. And they of course don’t need to worry that you will be the one applying for the next position they want. I think this is also why the media doesn’t like Tiger Mothers. Those women and their kids unironically believe that striving is good and that puts them in competition with their betters. The Asian kids who study more than you are trouble. And if white parents start doing this as well, it’s a problem.
My friends and I talk about this all the time.
"The only true privilege of the poor is hating on the rich. Therefore, it is the moral responsibility of the rich to hateable."
No, don't be relatable. Don't denigrate yourself in front of me. Don't be physically embarrassed of your stature. You've spent your whole life trying to not end up like the poor. You have a visceral dislike for that life. You go live in your world, and the poor hate on you like it's their god given right.
If I ever end up super rich, I'll be sure to fulfill my responsibility.
This seems like a terrible attitude to have. What do you think you gain by making the world around you worse?
Doing good things and being hated aren't mutually exclusive.
First part of being hated is about optics. If you own a Bugatti, then drive it with the entitlement of a Bugatti driver. If you purchased a Manet, took it off a Museum shelf and popped it in your living room.... then don't act 'terribly sorry for taking it off the shelves'. Own it. Be hate able for doing hate able things. This is especially annoying when rich people disguise themselves as poor people to avoid judgement. They sneakily avoid the challenges that inter-poor camaraderie authetic. You don't struggle to make rent, don't act like you empathize.
Second, it's about saying the wrong things. You're rich enough to not be fire able. Say the annoying things that gets normies cancelled. It makes you hate able, but is in line with your values. It may even result in good outcomes, but it doesn't make you likeable. You can be the person who gives hard truths to the young, because it doesn't affect your stature in society.
So yeah, it's about living authentically. Just doing that will make you hate able.
As far as I can tell, there are only a handful of people wealthy enough to both be visible and actually do this (Musk, Thiel, Rowling would be at the top). Being richer than the culture war is a very high bar.
As for me.... I try to drive my sports car like a sports car, but the local police will bust me for it the same as the poor slop in the clapped-out Toyota.
It’s not just being rich, it’s being rich and useful and disagreeable. What do Thiel, Rowling and Musk have in common? First, that they do not care particularly about being part of mainstream Anglo-American ‘high society’ socially, and therefore don’t sweat some missed invitations on the basis of their politics. But secondly - and much more importantly - they retain enough of a use to the former group that they can’t be fully put out in the cold. Musk is useful to the state department’s foreign policy aims, and to NASA (although they don’t have much of a say). Thiel is important to defense. Rowling can’t be truly cancelled in Hollywood because against the ongoing comic book movie collapse Harry Potter is Warner’s most valuable franchise and prints amusement park revenue for Universal, and she has an absolute veto over any use of the IP so they literally can’t afford to say anything that could annoy her in any way.
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