THE BILLION-LIAR?
K
ylie Jenner, who everyone thought of as the runt of the Kardashian/Jenner litter has found herself on the cover of Forbes magazine as potentially the youngest ever self-made billionaire. If her Lip Kit empire manages to make 100,000 dollars this year the title will be hers. The Internet and morning breakfast show panelists were torn over whether or not Kylie Jenner deserved the title of self-made given the status of her family.
The biggest piece of evidence that Kylie isn’t a self-made billionaire (or almost a billionaire), I’d say, is a quote from the article where she said that she borrowed 200,000 dollars from her mother to start her business. Now, this isn’t to say that Kylie Jenner like the rest of her sisters doesn’t have savvy business acumen and didn’t use her looks to her advantage (well, her lack of what’s considered to be an Insta worthy beauty, that she then paid for and then used in a morphed Cinderella plot to her advantage to sell her lip kits). All that stuff is pretty smart – but it by no means entitles her (when she’s entitled to so many other things) to the title of ‘self-made’.
In fact, Dictionary.com’s twitter handle (which is a pretty shady and savage reminder of the true meanings of words within the context of current events and pop culture) re-tweeted the Forbes story with the comment: “Self-made means having succeeded in life unaided. Used in a sentence: Forbes says that Kylie Jenner is a self-made woman.” Hilarious. Funny twitter man Mark Leggett also tweeted the following: “Back when I started this company, I only had $17 in my pocket, $300,000 in another pocket, and the vast fortune of my family to fall back on.”
It boggles the mind that some pretty intelligent people out there are willing to argue that Kylie Jenner is self-made and that everyone is pretty much aided in some way, shape or form. I suppose that makes the term ‘self-made’ obsolete? Based on Dictionary.com’s definition I think we can all conclude that the word unaided means being unaided by money and fame. I would even argue that a percentages of that lip kit money should go to Kris Jenner for being an evil, cold hearted genius, to Kim for really putting the family on the map and passing the baton to Kylie and to Ray J who, well . . . we all know why.
The truth is we’ve all been duped. Not just by Kylie’s lips and whatever is in those kits but by Forbes magazine. I don’t actually think they care if Kylie Jenner is self-made or not – they just wanted her on the cover so that every local news outlet and the Internet would talk about them. Many traditional publishing houses and brands that have been around for years are struggling to be relevant and interesting to young people. It makes sense that brands like
Forbes would put Kylie on their cover not only for mentions, retweets and likes but also to re-introduce themselves as a cool magazine that’s worth aspiring towards.
MAAN JALAL
Pop culture enthusiast, Willy Wonka Golden Ticket hunter and Hogwarts Graduate Class of 2001