Do the ultra-rich consume popular media?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Endmaker@ani.social⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Not sure if “ultra-rich” is the right label, since there are probably some of them who are good people, but I’m referring to the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc.

I’m just wondering: do people like them watch movies or TV shows, or read books? In so much of popular media, people like them (i.e. rich, powerful, unsympathetic) are usually cast as the villain.

If they have any self-awareness and do consume popular media, surely they would know they are the bad guys?

My guess is that they simply don’t consume popular media and instead wind down by doing clique rich people activities (e.g. attend parties of only the rich, partake in expensive sports)

I tried doing a quick internet, but didn’t find an answer that confirms my thoughts, so I gave up and turned to Lemmy.

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Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Musk suggested making Starfleet Academy real, so he obviously watches Star Trek and yet doesn’t get it at all.

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- Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  He just loves the little butt-headed dudes with big ears. Wishes he could be just like them.
  
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  - Damage@feddit.it ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nah, those guys actually have rules
    
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  - Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nah, he thinks he’s Q but in reality he’s just Harry Mudd.
    
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  - WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I mean, plastic surgery is pretty advanced these days. The body mod scene can also get pretty extreme. Musk certainly has the resources for it. Fuck it. Let’s all just try to convince him to get himself surgically altered to have giant Ferengi forehead and ears.
    
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- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hey, if he wants to watch star trek, and it makes him want to build a rocket, and fly around in space, and leave this planet, go for it!
  
  Whatever gets him off my planet.
  
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  - WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I would be content seeing him sent to one of RFK Jr’s wellness camps.
    
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- BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Or he watched one (1) JJ Abrams movie and is just trying to use the cool kids’ space jargon in an attempt to get people on his side
  
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Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Bezos bought the Expanse to save the series so he could keep watching it.

Musk does lots of nerdy shit like dressing as Iron Man or referencing Star Trek.

So yeah at least with sci-fi they consume it.

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- Schmoo@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  He just had to know what the true hero of the story, Jules-Pierre Mao, would get up to next.
  
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- cmbabul@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That legit might be the most human and cool thing I’ve ever learned about Bezos
  
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- Thavron@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  And yet he didn’t put enough money into to see the last 3 books? Or have I missed something?
  
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schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Bill Gates has a list of favorite books. Ronald Reagan watched Back to the Future.

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- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The actor? Well of coarse he would watch movies! He’s in the biz!
  
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  - WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Well, it made sense that Reagan was elected in the 1980s. That was the age of the camcorder, the first portable personal miniature TV production studio. With anyone being able to be a TV studio, it was only natural that actors would become presidential candidates!
    
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NateNate60@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The fact that Musk and friends are always complaining about it seems to indicate that they are.

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FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Bezos + Lauren Sanchez apparently binge watch Fallout, Baby Reindeer, Presumed Innocent and Severance…

“My favorite time is when the house is calm and quiet and Jeff and I are deciding what show we’re going to binge that night,” Sánchez told the magazine.

“It takes a little bit of time to decide,” she added. “You can imagine our tastes are a little different. But I love our TV time, we just have the best time.”

Among their favorites is “Fallout” – a post-apocalyptic drama based on the video game series of the same name. The series airs on Bezos’s own Amazon Prime TV. But the couple also watches shows on rival platforms Netflix and Apple TV.

“We recently saw Baby Reindeer, which of course everyone saw,” Sánchez told People. “We also just finished Presumed Innocent, which was incredible. Oh, and we loved Severance.”

qz.com/lauren-sanchez-jeff-bezos-reveal-favorite-…

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- Endmaker@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Among their favorites is “Fallout” – a post-apocalyptic drama based on the video game series of the same name.
  
  I find this incredibly ironic.
  
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  - marcos@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    IMO, Severance is even weirder.
    
    On Fallout they can at least say to themselves that they wouldn’t nuke their city to get more power. But Severance is about exactly the kind of stuff that they do.
    
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- grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Don’t let them watch Severance. They’ll get ideas
  
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Free_Opinions@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

surely they would know they are (edit: seen as) the bad guys?

This is a popular view only on left-wing social media. The vast majority of people just see them as wealthy individuals, without thinking of them as particularly bad. If I didn’t visit Lemmy, I wouldn’t even know how many people dislike them. Everywhere else, I mostly see people looking up to them. Criticism does exist, of course, but it’s usually focused on specific traits - like Elon’s Twitter addiction - rather than condemning them as a whole.

To answer your question, Elon Musk plays a lot of Diablo IV and is actually quite good at it. He claims to be in the global top 20, though that’s debatable and hard to verify. However, he is ranked in the top 20 on the leaderboard at helltides.com.

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- pressanykeynow@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  If I didn’t visit Lemmy, I wouldn’t even know how many people dislike them
  
  “Many” is probably an overstatement. Lemmy echochamber is probably like 1% of ultra-leftwing Americans. Even among their country left wing is a minority. And overall the US is less than 5% of the world population. So for every person hating Musk you will probably find ten thousand who adore him. Just not on Lemmy.
  
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BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You mean besides coke and underage girls?

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Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You need to start considering the motivation of the villains of the mainstream media that the ultra-rich are rubber stamping. The whole “Hero’s journey” lends itself to Libertarianism. Kingsman is a good example of a Libertarian morality tale, but compare how often an environmentalist is the villain vs how often they’re the hero in other media.

I had to stop watching the Flash tv series because of the causal disregard of the rights of the villains in the first season. Why did the writers mean by having Team Flash run a private, secret prison where the inmates are in perpetual, solitary confinement with no access to a lawyer and no expectation of a trial? The writers really didn’t need to create that scenario.

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- Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a good video about this from Wisecrack_2 on YouTube: youtu.be/294qm3oV60s
  
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zbyte64@awful.systems ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Consider that many people who watched the Joker and idolize him didn’t get that the movie was speaking against the character. Fascists don’t understand camp, and so they don’t get that it’s a critique unless the director explicitly tells them so.

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ogmios@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Talked to a mason once who informed me that one of the first rules they have is to never watch TV or listen to the radio.

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- phdepressed@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t think there are many Freemasons around anymore and most of lodges that remain have probably adapted their rules.
  
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- clif@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’ve never met a mason that didn’t watch TV and listen to the radio but my sample size is only a few hundred.
  
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iii@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

In so much of popular media, people like them (i.e. rich, powerful, unsympathetic) are usually cast as the villain.

If they have any self-awareness and do consume popular media, surely they would know they are the bad guys?

I’m missing the connection between the first and second sentence. Or is it implied that, when something is presented in popular media, then that must be true?

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- Endmaker@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Thanks for pointing it out; edited phrasing.
  
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Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The Queen apparently watched the amazing 80s Flash Gordon movie every Christmas. And it’s about overthrowing a tyrannical monarch…

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- angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If I made such a kick-ass sound track for it, I’d watch the movie every Christmas too ;)
  
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infinite_ass@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The center of the bell curve. The most popular of popular media. The true fast food. Probably not.

Because being rich frees you from many of the stresses and concerns that define the populace. Your tastes are different then.

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takeheart@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sure, for many things there’s a deluxe version (clothing, cars, food, housing) but they tend to be physical. Since media is largely digital these days and has fantastic marginal distribution costs the rich consume the same stuff when it comes to popular media. Ie there isn’t an alternate Hollywood studio just for the rich, itunes doesn’t have a separate server, the new york times website is the same for all, etc.

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stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I doubt they are skipping out on popular media, they probably even watch similar Youtube channels like you do if they happen to share your interests.

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- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Man…now you make me hopeful that Obama has seen the Game Grumps impression of Obama.
  
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  - stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Just imagine Biden watching PewDiePie…
    
    Obama seems like a guy who’d watch Calum, Peter Dibble, and Wendover Productions, combined with other channels as well.
    
    GWB jr probably watch war documentaries, with somw general interest documentaries scattered in his watch history.
    
    Clinton seems like he would enjoy music performances and travel videos.
    
    GWB sr, no idea…
    
    Raegan, interviews with actors, republicans and millitary men, he probably enjoys the PeninsulaSrsVideos channel.
    
    Carter, if he was younger, would be making science/educational videos, but probably enjoy good science/history content, he’d probably be a fan of Calum, Peter Dibble and Wendover Productions.
    
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The_the@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
yeah

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