Betty Sue makes $286,000 per month on Etsy. She started with nothing, and now she’s filthy rich.
Come on, man. The chances of that happening to the average person are close to zero. Stories like this give people unrealistic expectations.
Work hard for your boss every day and you, too, can be rich! Bootstraps, people.
Keeps the poors content
I think other people covered the main points, but when I haven’t seen mentioned yet here is the fact that, for the news to catch your attention, it has to be something exceptional. That shouldn’t be true, but many publishers believe it. They compete to have what’s new or different or exciting.
I blame this mostly on the big media companies, and also partly on consumers who believe that consuming news is a passive activity when in reality it’s an active choice. They could go find online websites and create their own RSS feed, for example, and then they wouldn’t be stuck listening to drivel. But it does take some work and some awareness.
For example, and I don’t want to go into details about specific political parties, think about all of the polls about the election. Those are mostly meaningless. We’ll find out exactly what public opinion is on Election Day. It’s not that you couldn’t have a poll, but if you’re posting new polling data every day it’s because you’re desperate to cover up for the fact that you don’t have anything new to say.
Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
Because people will read them?
Nah everything is a conspiracy.
Because people would believe them instead of taking actions against the billionaires.
People are more likely to accept an inherently flawed economic system if they thing they have any chance of “beating” it. Stories like this, although actually very rare, help reinforce that narrative.
Yep, many also think they’re exceptional, and so they’ve convinced themselves they’ll be the exception.
I have had someone tell me that they’d rather live in an economic system “like we have in America” where people have a chance at rags to riches, than a system “like Germany, where the social safety net means the average person doesn’t have a chance at making it big.”
If anyone ever tells you wealthy people are intelligent, don’t believe them.
Gotta keep that dream alive. Besides, why would I want to tax the rich when I’m this close to being rich myself! /s
People like to read those stories because it gives them hope it also happens to them. Media print stories that you want to read, that’s how they make money.
Other stories people like to read: how to world is going to shit (evolutionairy important to prepare to survive), what someone that’s familiar to you did (evolutionary important to be social to work together to survive), stories about how someone else did something stupid (complaining about that toghether gives yoh a sense of belonging) and stories about how a pet cat was retrieved (tickling that instinct to care for others again).
As you can see, media is looking for stories that tickle your most basic insticts and needs, because they know that’s what you will be interested in, making you read their stories so they can make more money.
Welcome to capitalism, you are the product.
Filthy capitalists, giving people what they want!
Indeed, instead of what they need. It’s like only giving sugar to your kid to eat instead of vegetables, because that’s what they “want”. Oh wait that’s actually what happens as well
That only confirms my hypothesis that leftists don’t want a system of governance, but mom and dad…
I just want the climate not to collapse.
Gotta keep the American dream alive.
Give people hope.
People with hope don’t revolt because they still have something to lose.
Wouldn’t want a class war brewing.
The irony is that far right IS actually people revolting
They’re doing it wrong I think
They rage in favor of the machine Rage Against the Machine rages against
Yo dawg…
It’s pretty common that angry revolutionaries are used by another rich bastard to get into power by usurping the movement. The classic “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
The peasants are revolting… They certainly are!
-Monty Python
Well, they certainly are revolting, I’ll give you that.
More that they are generally revolting people.
It isn’t ironic that they are revolting people, though…
Isn’t that the case with all news? When a self-driving car kills a person it’s newsworthy but the million times it doesn’t is not. By definition the event needs to be something out of the ordinary for it to spark the interest of most people.
They use sensationalism to make things sound worse than they are.
They selectively report information, leaving out details that don’t fit their agenda.
They use misleading headlines, knowing that people often only read the headlines. They use words like “horrifying,” “catastrophic,” and “viral.”
They manipulate charts, graphs, statistics, and photographs.
Balanced reporting isn’t balanced if it pits a scientist against a conspiracy theorist.
The chances of that happening to the average person are close to zero.
That’s the whole point. People don’t watch the news to hear “dog bites man” they watch it to hear “man bites dog”.
No one wants to watch a 2-3 hr long movie about someone’s regular Tuesday at the office they want to watch something that doesn’t happen everyday like an adventure, the perfect couple meeting, or the world ending.
Fair enough
To pacify you by convincing you that you could be next, as opposed to you are regularly fucked by the rich.
Its the US version of Arbeit macht frei
Yes, reporting on a success of an individual is practically the same thing as openning the gas valve… Jesus F. Christ !
It’s the bullshit of hard work will result in success and money. The bullshit propaganda of ‘built out of their garbage’ its so easy anyone can do it, if only you work hard enough. And if you are not a successful independently wealthy individual you didn’t work hard enough and you are to blame, not the system that’s designed to keep large segments of society poor for the benefit of the rich.
It’s the bullshit of hard work will result in success and money.
That’s funny, because it’s not the liberal leaning folks who glorify the hard labor.
Neither do conservatives, they vilify labor
Communists and fascist are the conservatives on my side of the planet though. They both appeal on “the good old times, when the world was right”. Both equally glorify physical labor and fight against the intellectualism.
If they are conservative they are not communist
Work sets you free. Something like that.
Sensationalism sells.
Something wrong with inspiring stories?
The chances of that happening to the average person
Pure lemmy right there. Hard work is useless and derided. Only chance determines success. What a miserable way to navigate life. Is there a word for “economic incel”?
Can I assume by that comment that you’re also a self-made millionaire?
No? Oh, why are you so lazy? After all, it just requires hard work. There are over a thousand self-made millionaires in my small town alone. The media call us a “statistical anomaly” but they just don’t see how easy it is if you just put down your 9-5 and get to work.
/s
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe that hard work can get you there but it is very, very uncommon. I work bloody hard, have a good paying job, no debt and investments but will only have enough for an ok retirement.
Friends with their own business who are more driven, work even harder and longer than I do and are absolutely better off, but they’ll never earn the level of money like this article suggests.
My issue is with the disingenuousness of the article. This sort of success requires a huge amount of work, a once in the lifetime (for most people) idea or market to kickstart and even then often still requires a bucket of 7-leaf clover levels of luck. But it’s sold by the media as others have detailed “if you just work harder…”
We prefer “corporate burnout victim” or something like that.
