Kylie Jenner was touted as the worlds youngest 'self-made' billionaire back in 2019 by Forbes, a magazine widely known for its propensity to make lists of extravagantly rich people. This was an achievement celebrated by many of Jenner's customers, I mean 'fans', online as the then 20 year old beauty icon received online fundraising campaigns set up by her loyal fan-base to get her over the all-important line.
Donations. Thousands of dollars of actual money was raised from her non-millionaire fans to help her become a billionaire, that's how important it was to them.
It must have come as quite the harrowing shock then, when the information shared by Coty, the majority stake-holder in Jenner's cosmetics company, showed Jenner's firm is "significantly smaller and less profitable than the family has spent years leading the cosmetics industry and media outlets, including Forbes, to believe", Forbes said. Who would have thought that the Kardashian Dynasty could be accused of 'inflating their own wealth'?
It should go without saying that Jenner has now denied ever seeking the title, but that really isn't the point of this article; what's interesting is why it matters. Why is it embarrassing for the rich to be found out to be not quite as rich as people thought, when they are still hundreds of millions of dollars richer than 99% of the world will ever be?
It seems that in a society that fetishizes wealth, particularly 'self-made' wealth accrued by a successful young woman, there comes with it a potential for shame for those who fall short of expectations. As someone who sells makeup on Instagram, surely being in the hundreds of millions is an adequate amount of wealth to be dubbed 'successful'?
A pretty standard explanation for the Kylie Jenner psychodrama would be that her fans/customers 'see themselves in her, and are inspired by her aspiration'. I think this analysis is a bit patronizing on the young women who follow her career, to suggest that they all think that they too can become world-famous beauty icons, or that they aren't capable of aspiring to something else. Another explanation concerns the idea of prestige; the notion that buyers of Jenner's lip-liner want the product they use to be a Billionaire's product, not a mere millionaires. People who have followed Jenner's makeup tutorials for years want more than her personality, outfit tips, and friendly persona. They want their loyalty, their faith, and the knowledge that they backed a rising star, to be recognized in her tax returns.
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