Why does the media print rags to riches stories?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Kintarian@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

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.

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FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gotta keep the American dream alive.

Give people hope.

People with hope don’t revolt because they still have something to lose.

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wouldn’t want a class war brewing.
  
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- otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “Bread & circuses” is an ancient protocol, and hasn’t been absent from government policy since the invention of bread, beer, etc. /#TheMoreYouKnow
  
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- Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The irony is that far right IS actually people revolting
  
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  - KingJalopy@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They’re doing it wrong I think
    
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  - cowfodder@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well, they certainly are revolting, I’ll give you that.
    
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  - Atin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    More that they are generally revolting people.
    
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  - iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It isn’t ironic that they are revolting people, though…
    
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  - Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The peasants are revolting… They certainly are!
    
    -Monty Python
    
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FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fair enough
  
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- otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Warhol, Kaufman, et al’d like a word.
  
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  - MolochAlter@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Neither of those people were ordinary in any way tho.
    
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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
To pacify you by convincing you that you could be next, as opposed to you are regularly fucked by the rich.

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- otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “Momentarily embarrassed millionaires” is the target market, yep.
  
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ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Capitalist propaganda.

“Aspiration” to be more precise, it’s one of the ways capitalists convince large segments of the public that they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires, who just need to pull their bootstraps up hard enough, and they will make it, like the people in the programme did (conveniently they never address things like racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, and other barriers that many people have to face just to survive, never mind thrive, and the fact that all of these barriers are artificial and created by people who benefit just as much from dividing society up and pitting us against each other, as they do from selling us rags-to-riches bullshit to get us to work harder to make them money).

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ve never understood “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” which is impossible. No matter how hard you pull, you can’t, say, jump a fence. The rich are inadvertently telling poor people that becoming rich by working hard is impossible.
  
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  - ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think that’s the point, just like with “a few bad apples”, the original intent of the saying has been subverted to help those in power keep the rest of us down (if you just do this impossible thing, you’ll be just like us! Why don’t you just do that impossible thing already, you useless lazy bastard? And so on. It’s part cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel like they’re “self made”, part gaslighting convincing us we’re just not trying hard enough).
    
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  - reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think it may be subtle way to say fuck you
    
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Electric_Druid@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- MrMcGasion@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- aesthelete@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yep everyone also thinks they’re exceptional, and so they’ll be the exception.
  
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2ugly2live@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gotta keep that dream alive. Besides, why would I want to tax the rich when I’m this close to being rich myself! /s

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- hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Image
  
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  - Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    How TV Ruined Your Life - Episode 3 of 6 - Aspiration
    
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angelmountain@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Filthy capitalists, giving people what they want!
  
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  - angelmountain@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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
    
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hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
First of all, the vast majority of media cares only about crafting and publishing stories that people want to read, instead of stories that people should read. Think about clickbait articles. Their purpose is to get people to read the story and therefore give them money (either by seeing ads, buying a physical magazine/newspaper, or signing up for a paid subscription), as oppised to actually informing the public about things they should know

Second, capitalism needs the working class to think that they can get rich too if they just work hard, and thus people spend their lives working because they’ve been told that they can get rich. Allow me to illustrate: Image

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ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Its the US version of Arbeit macht frei

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Work sets you free. Something like that.
  
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- deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, reporting on a success of an individual is practically the same thing as openning the gas valve… Jesus F. Christ !
  
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  - K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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Grayox@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Its Capitalist Propaganda.

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Rhoeri@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because people will read them?

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- johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nah everything is a conspiracy.
  
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RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sensationalism sells.

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AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Keeps the poors content

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khaleer@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because people would believe them instead of taking actions against the billionaires.

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OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For-profit media sells whatever makes them the highest profits. (Those who won’t, make way to those who will, or remain in obscurity e.g. how many people have even heard of Ian Danskin of Innuendo Studios.)

They will sell anything it seems, with little to no regard for facts. Then they leave it to you to determine the lies of omission, while hunting for the real truth, i.e. to do the true work of journalism. But usually unpaid, painstakingly, and again you’ll never be able to share that message by virtue of being in conflict with the for-profit sources. Or if you do, who would even understand you, especially among the sheeple who either cannot and/or also will not bother to read anything at all.

Some people like Jon Stewart have railed against this for decades… but he lost, and it’s worse than ever before. Adjust your expectations accordingly. This is the world.

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Massive corporations own the media along with the likes of Rupert Murdoch. If you don’t dig deeper, you will only believe what they want you to believe. The talking heads on TV are not journalists; they are paid actors reading whatever they are paid to read. Modern news is entertainment no better than the National Enquirer.
  
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  - OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Exactly that. Which ironically doesn’t mean that everything that they say is false… but it does mean that everything that they say is suspect.
    
    We need a billionaire to swoop in an save us. Which won’t happen, so we need a grass roots effort from the ground up to save us. Which won’t happen so we need a spaghett monster or god to save us. Which won’t happen bc e.g. the Christian God allows free will hence consequences… so we need aliens to save us. Which won’t happen bc they do not exist - that we can demonstrate.
    
    It is a lot easier to destroy than to create, and it will require enormous efforts to maintain constant vigilance to know things in the future, in this our mis- and worse yet dis-information era.
    
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VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Propaganda.

That’s it

That’s literally just it.

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shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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”?

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- meathorse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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…”
  
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- HK65@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We prefer “corporate burnout victim” or something like that.
  
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militaryintelligence@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Work hard for your boss every day and you, too, can be rich!

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orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
  
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recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
By highlighting singular instances of a sharp rapid success story; people can be shown a mirage-like image which encourages others to follow suit.

If by following the formula it works, then there should be an explosion of successful entrepreneurs in the market. This is untrue otherwise the market distribution would look unlike how it currently is (probably more mid class, less low income class, higher top income bracket).

The reality is that most of the time (>60% I’d approximate), replicating “rags-to-riches” strategies does not produce the same successes as the highlight primarily showcases exception cases. Sometimes a person stumbled onto gold, and by putting a spotlight on that instance you’re showcasing only the business ventures that happened to pay off, sometimes it’s skill, perhaps a combination of both, other times pure RNG🎲.

To me “rags to riches” are a prime example of a combination/parallel of a couple of things:

Survivorship Bias

Focus Group

Misdirection Propaganda

by repeatedly showcasing exception cases, the perception of common norms is deliberatly changed (“this is how people usually get rich”)

If rags to riches worked, I and many others would be millionaires if not billionaires.

I don’t trust the systems that these stories are built on and displayed as. I think the shows are entertaining but only that and nothing more.
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- Kintarian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I will remember survivorship bias. If hard work led to success, then a poor person working three jobs should be rich. I’ve noticed that a lot of these stories are closer to “from rich to richer.” Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard because his family could support his “hobby.” He didn’t have to work three jobs to pay rent, but he is set up as a rags-to-riches story, using elbow grease and grit to become the mogul he is.
  
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  - ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I will remember survivorship bias
    
    The just world fallacy is another one worth remembering, in the context of your post, but also generally.
    
    Also
    
    If hard work led to success, then a poor person working three jobs should be rich.
    
    You got George Monbiot’s quote almost exactly word for word: If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”
    
    He didn’t have to work three jobs to pay rent, but he is set up as a rags-to-riches story, using elbow grease and grit to become the mogul he is.
    
    Lastly, you’re right, but it’s important to remember what he does have, and why - privilege, and lots of it (being a white man from a rich background, with a supportive family to boot? They all put his starting points miles ahead of most others), which he is given by white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, which is why he (and many others, even without the billions, privilege is one hell of a drug) will never work to end those systems and work towards creating a world where everyone has equitable access and opportunity.
    
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burgersc12@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It would feel hopeless if they didn’t give you some “feel good” every once in a while. Just feels like the orphancrushingmachine sometimes

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