Blogocentric Formulations

This Just In - July 15

Is Kylie Jenner really a 'self-made' millionaire?  
Written as part of "This Just In..."   for "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 

This article from Bryan Lufkin at the BBC is actually a response to another, earlier news item where twenty year old Kylie Jenner was not only included on Forbes' list of "America's Women Billionaires" but was also featured on the cover. If you're not a Kardashian devotee, Kylie is the youngest of the children and has amassed a $900+ million fortune for herself with a cosmetics and social media empire, and that's certainly an accomplishment worth noting. Where this whole thing got a little out of hand, though, was the subtitle of Forbes' list, which notes that the "America's Women Billionaires" feature is actually a list of "the 60 richest self-made women." The Forbes' cover goes on to rave that, "At 21, she's set to be the youngest-ever self-made billionaire."

Quite a few people have taken issue with Forbes' characterization of Kylie Jenner's success as "self-made," considering that Kylie didn't quite start her business empire truly from the ground-up. She didn't exactly get her start in a Los Altos garage or a Harvard dorm room; she got her start as a member of (arguably) the most famous reality show family of all time. The family that has a long history of leveraging their celebrity for profit and business opportunities. Can someone like Kylie Jenner (or Donald Trump, to cite a similar case), really be considered "self-made" when they were, as the saying goes, born on third base?

Nothing should detract from someone's accomplishment in building and/or growing a business. If you turn a several-million-dollar loan from your father into a business valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, or if you capitalize on your fame to garner hundreds of millions of followers on social media that in turn support your business and turn it into a juggernaut, those are not small things.

But this isn't about mere business success. It's about characterizing wealthy people as being "self-made" when they're really not. The article notes that Dictionary.com amusingly tweeted a link to the Forbes story along with a definition of "self-made" which is, "having succeeded in life unaided." The issue I take with calling people like Kylie Jenner or Donald Trump "self-made" is that it furthers the illusion that the so-called American Dream is easily attainable for anyone. Income mobility in the United States is historically low, and yet studies show that most people still spend much of their lives believing that they will be the exception. In some cases, this causes irresponsible fiscal habits that exacerbate the problem and further entrench them in their existing (struggling) financial situation. The world doesn't need more sensationalist reporting about rich celebrities becoming richer, and packaging those stories as if these people are just Average Joes and Janes who started with nothing, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and succeeded against the odds. The odds were already in their favor.

Ultimately, I think this article does a good job of presenting both sides of this story. I do think it's irresponsible to report on the 1% becoming the 0.001% as if they're just hard-working normal folk who followed the yellow brick road. They were already the 1%! But I also think it's important to not completely discard the value of what Kylie Jenner has accomplished. There are enough hurdles out there for professional women, and poor choices by Forbes in how to present the article shouldn't entirely discount the value of featuring women who have accomplished impressive feats in the business world. I just wish they would have avoided this whole mess by not calling her "self-made." Then it could have been a really great, honest feature that everyone would have reason to celebrate.