I’m not a fan of the cutesy, strained, recently coined words that the legacy media regularly cycles through and leaves for dead like Adam Sandler movies.
Affluenza was stupid. Othering is annoying. The non-mocking use of the term Micro Aggression will hopefully be met with actual aggression going forward. Nepo Baby was big for a minute, but it’s on its way out.
Still, I’ve been molding a concept which up to this point has no name, and so I’m forced to create a new word, Selfotism.
Nepo Baby, of course, refers to someone who is mostly useless and attained their position through familial connections, and there are a million examples of this: Prince Harry, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Rashida Jones, Nicole Richie, Hailey Bieber, the Kardashians, Brooklyn Beckham, Colin Hanks, Apple Martin, Jaden Smith, Kelly Osbourne, Anderson Cooper, George W. Bush, Jenna Bush, MBS, Mitt Romney, just far, far too many to name.
Conversely, there are an awful lot of people polluting our culture who did not benefit in any way from nepotism and are entirely self-made, and yet their continued employment and visibility is completely inexplicable.
These people are Selfo Babies, and their existence points to an American grit, still heavily reliant on independence from a king, from a dictator, even from family.
They are admirable for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, likely working very hard in the process.
The problem is that certain gatekeepers failed to notice that they also happen to be some combination of milquetoast, annoying, histrionic, boring, stupid, uninteresting, lifeless, vapid, corny, and feeble when offering them contracts.
It’s like a wheel that just keeps turning, rolling downhill, and building momentum.
The more visible these people become, the more we, as Americans are hammered over the head with their existence on a daily basis, the more likely we are to accept that they are somehow deserving of their position, the less likely we are to say, wait, why the fuck does Steve Harvey have a show again?
Examples of people benefiting from Selfotism are the aforementioned Steve Harvey, James Corden, Machine Gun Kelly, Lena Dunham, Piers Morgan, Whoopi Goldberg, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Ryan Seacrest, Dr. Phil, Kid Rock, Nick Cannon, Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, DJ Khaled, Ja Rule, William Shatner, Pitbull, Kenny G, Toby Keith, and Kamala Harris.
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