Capitalism and Personality worship
https://www.tobiolabode.com/blog/2020/12/9/capitalism-and-personality-worship
I watched a YouTube video about Elon fanboys The video was from my favourite angry youtuber Buckley. He said the worst fanbases on the internet are BTS Stans and Elon fanboys. Which is something I can whole heartily get behind.
As I listen to K-pop but I hate listening to the drama of K-pop stans. Love the innovation that Elon musk’s companies are doing. As a person with great interest in entrepreneurship and science. But the Elon fanboys are annoying. Some make YouTube videos about his companies. Which some are very good. But after a while, it gets boring fast. As every video is the host explaining how much of a genius Elon musk is. When I subscribed to any of these channels. Any decision made by tesla. There was a video about the announcement was a 200 IQ play. And we mere souls could not comprehend them. The only one I’m subscribed to is hyper change. As he is a fantastic financial analyst. While I don’t watch all his videos for the reasons I mentioned above. He does good interviews talking about industries of the future like battery mining or electric cars.
I always wondered why Elon has fanboys. I understand why people view him as aspirational. That’s due to his world-beating achievements. But that does not explain the rabid fanbase online. Were any sight criticism of Elon. Is a personal attack. And go out of there way. To show you how you’re not smart or rich as Elon.
I think this has to do with our values in society. In our capitalistic world. People who have wealth are viewed favourably. But has money is the standard yardstick to measure people’s wealth. We look up to people that have the highest yardstick. As people want success in improving their yardstick. people will try to emulate some of the details. Which makes people feel like they are doing something about their yardstick. But it tends to be superficial actions. Not doing the work of starting a business. And researching how to make a product that will sell.
This reminds me of the quote humans make gods in their image. As capitalism is one of the forces of our society today. The gods we will look up to. Will be the ones to fill these values. People have argued rightly that celebrities are modern-day gods. Due to the excessive love and adulation of celebrities. Like massive crowds and trying to get autographs. We do not treat them as people but objects to faun over.
What I think separates Elon musk from, other rich famous people. That he has tangible proof that he is changing the future. Which people look up to. Which had been lacking for a long time. Probably since the financial crisis. So people feel he is the only one helping us make a better future. So anybody that goes against that is a bad person. And making a better future via capitalism is important to many people’s eyes. Hence the worship of his work ethic and his wealth.
His marketing does a good job. In getting people interested in what he’s doing. And it may be sightly polarising as people have a propensity for Elon antics will love him. People that don’t turn away. But like religion, you need to wrap it under the banner of the common good. And have a good way to clearly define in-groups and out-groups.
Celebrity worship started to rise after popular TV. See Neil postman. This is just the latest iteration. Social media makes people into polarising characters. Which develops a cult following that lies in the character. Elon business tends to highly visual. Electric cars and rockets. So in an image-based society. That gains traction as they are highly visible items. A faster car is visual than a faster computer. Even for Elon companies. With PayPal, he wasn’t as famous as he is now. As PayPal was just a payment processer. Which is fantastic but not as visual compared to his current companies. And did not have a cult following.
