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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28340 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Why is anyone paying attention to them?

One of the richest men in the world is throwing a scandalous marriage with a classless woman, and you wonder why gossips everywhere are talking about it? The story is basically tailor made for that market. Only Prince Harry's shenanigans could surpass it.

One of the richest men in the world is throwing a scandalous marriage with a classless woman

Bezos was born in Albuquerque (before Breaking Bad, known mainly as the place Bugs Bunny took a wrong turn at), to recently-wed teenaged parents who divorced shortly thereafter. Class? Why would you expect it?

Oh, this is the new Gilded Age. New money and self-made men, and breaking into the upper classes (elite or not, hard to tell) by sheer shedloads of wonga. It's very funny - if these weren't the guys also steering the direction of the global economy and society which affects all the rest of us, and they've got the tastes and inclinations of when they were seventeen and that hot girl in high school didn't even look twice at them. Now Jeff is living the dream of having that hot girl finally on his arm and in his bed.

Forty years too late, maybe, but he went through a transformation in his early fifties so he can afford to buy more than a sports car to fit his new buff image, and the hottie girlfriend and megayacht is all part of that.

It's very funny - if these weren't the guys also steering the direction of the global economy and society which affects all the rest of us, and they've got the tastes and inclinations of when they were seventeen and that hot girl in high school didn't even look twice at them. Now Jeff is living the dream of having that hot girl finally on his arm and in his bed.

No. Besides marrying the quite attractive MacKenzie Scott Tuttle at 29, he dated a girl named Ursula Werner at 17. You can sneer at Bezos for embodying revenge-of-the-nerds fantasies, but you'll have no factual backing for it. (Same goes for Musk, BTW)

7 zillion people do far trashier things every week. Is it because he's rich? We abandoned the whole "leading by example" idea for aristocrats ages ago, and Bezos is no aristocrat.

Humans naturally imitate those of higher status, which means that de facto aristocrats (/celebs/billionaires/influencers/sportsmen) will continue to lead by example whether they want to or not. What we abandoned was requiring them to put some thought into it.

Yeah, the lives of the rich and powerful are a common source of mass entertainment especially if one can feel a rare and probably undue sense of superiority to them.

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