Picky Eaters

I saw a YouTube video called “a brief conversation about picky eaters” by the channel WURLD. As the title says, the video discusses why some people have an oddly heinous attitude towards adult picky eaters.

As an adult who is also considered a picky eater, I think part of the hatred towards picky eaters is that many people, especially Gen X and Baby Boomers, grew up in a “finish your plate or starve/I’ll beat you” household. As a result, they internalize the idea that food is such a privilege that no one should ever have the right to be picky, thus becoming resentful towards other people who have more freedom to choose what to eat. Their thought process tends to be, “Well I never got to choose what I ate when I was a kid. My parents would give me a belt whooping if I didn’t finish my plate. So why do you deserve to be privileged?!”

This also brings me to something I’ve observed for years, many parents are terrible at introducing food to their children. Once a child is no longer a baby, parents lose all patience and just force the child to eat food regardless of whether or not they’ll like it. Vegetables are a primary example. While I’m not saying that children should only eat mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and pizza, parents who force their kids to eat vegetables they don’t like aren’t teaching them why eating healthy is important. All it teaches them is that only kids have to eat foods they don’t like while adults can eat whatever they want. Especially if their parents eat junk food right in front of them. Thus they grow up to be adults with terrible eating habits because they have a negative association with vegetables.

My hot take is that no one actually hates vegetables. What they hated was their parents’ bad cooking. A lot of parents don’t bother learning how to properly cook or season vegetables. If a kid was forced to eat undercooked, overcooked, unseasoned, or texture nightmare food, then of course they’re gonna grow up hating it. My mom used to hate brussel sprouts for years because her mom would cook them by just boiling and adding a pinch of salt. Since she grew up in a “finish your plate or starve/I’ll beat you” household, she was forced to eat. Once she became an adult, she avoided brussel sprouts like the plague. It wasn’t until she went to a restaurant that actually knew how to prepare brussel sprouts properly that she realized that they could be good.

Many parents also don’t try experimenting with what vegetables their kids could potentially like. I understand that it can be tedious and expensive to keep buying and cooking different vegetables, but once again, forcing kids to eat any random vegetables with the notion of “it’s good for you” won’t teach them about healthy eating. Once you get it right, getting kids to eat healthy won’t feel like a chore anymore. I’m able to eat healthy despite being a picky eater because my mom allowed me to try a variety of fresh and canned vegetables to see which ones I liked.

People especially hate picky eaters when they refuse to try their favorite food because it feels like they’re judging them. Once again, this attitude starts with parents and kids. Since most parents already don't respect their kids enough to let them choose what to eat, they especially wouldn’t stand their kids having a negative opinion on their favorite food. My step dad was just like this. I don’t like mashed potatoes, but my step dad would always force me to eat them because that was his favorite food. Not only did it not make me like mashed potatoes, it just made me hate both them and him even more.

They’re also the elephant of ableism in the room. Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is a condition that’s usually associated with autistic people. People with this condition tend to become picky eaters. I’m aware that having the ability to choose what to eat isn’t something everyone can do, but generalizing all picky eaters as immature or spoiled/privileged ignores the very real disabilities that make eating difficult for some people. A common rebuttal directed towards picky eaters is “there are children in Africa who are starving.” I’m sure many people, both neurodivergent and neurotypical, who grew up in a “finish your plate or starve/get you ass whooped” household have gotten an earful of that statement. While that’s true, only bringing that up when insulting someone for not wanting to eat a certain food or guilt tripping them into eating something they don’t like only trivializes that issue.

The conclusion to all of this is people need to learn that what someone else eats is no one else’s business. Just because you grew up a certain way doesn’t mean everyone else has to have the same mindset as you. Let people eat what they want. If that makes you angry, then that’s your sign to start unpacking some issues.

Dream Jobs (Or Lack Thereof)

I’m so envious of people who have dream jobs. I’ve never been passionate about anything or certain about what I want to do with my life. Most people who have a dream job will fight tooth and nail to get it. Me however, I have a bad habit of dropping any potential career choices the moment I hit a road block.

My first dream job was to be a figure skater because I was enamored by the performances when I first watched the Olympics. Then while I spent my childhood playing sports, I realized I hated constantly giving up my weekends and all of my free time. So I pivoted. My next dream job was between being a marine biologist or veterinarian because I loved animals and biology was my favorite subject in high school. Unfortunately I wasn’t good at math and science, and particularly hated math. So I pivoted, again. My next dream job was a nurse because I was enamored by hospital procedural shows. Then I realized I’d have the same issue with the marine biologist and veterinarian career choices, in that I’m bad at science and hate math. So I pivoted, again.

I didn’t know what to pursue in college, so I chose a degree in business administration because my mom said it’s a universal degree. I majored in hospitality because my student advisor said one of the jobs I’d qualify for was travel agent, and my newest dream job was to work for an airline company so I could fly for free. Then COVID happened, my germophobia amplified, and I realized I didn’t like traveling as much as I thought I did. So I pivoted, again. My new dream job was to make advertisements since I’ve always been fascinated by commercials due to being a TV kid and an early adopter of the iPhone. It was too late to change my major, so I made marketing my minor. Then Gen A.I. came along, and made the majority of entry level marking jobs either unobtainable or thoroughly unpleasant. So I pivoted, again. My new dream job was to work for a non-profit because I’ve always been interested in volunteering at animal shelters and soup kitchens. I don’t even mind doing the less than desirable jobs like cleaning cages and sweeping and mopping floors. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that non profits barely pay livable wages for non executive level employees. So I pivoted, again.

Now I’m striving for an administrative/office assistant position. I’ve always had a knack for organizing. I also can sit still and do the boring repetitive tasks that no one enjoys doing like writing emails, sorting documents easier than others. It’s not what I’d consider my dream job, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get that spark of passion that people with dream jobs have. However, getting paid for doing what I know I’m good at is still a good step in the right direction.

There’s No Such Thing As An Ethical Family Channel (Even If The Family Is Strict)

I watched a video by YouTuber jewelamina about the family vlogging channel Vidya and Pookesh. They’re parents who became famous for their strict parenting methods, and people debating over whether or not they’re good parents.

My opinion on them is that strict anti phone family vloggers demonstrate the same hypocrisy as trad wife influencers. They moral grandstand about how a woman’s duty is being a wife and mother and they should never strive to have jobs or earn money. What are they doing while propagating that message? Earning money through their jobs as influencers. You know, the very thing they claim to be against. The only way it wouldn’t be hypercritical is if they’re giving every single penny they earn to their husbands to have complete control over, but they’re never gonna do that because they’re smarter than that. They know how dangerous it is to have their husbands control all the money, yet they have no problem telling other women to do the opposite. A real trad wife would have no social media presence at all, hence why you never see a trad wife influencer over the age of 40.

Vidya and Pookesh can pat themselves on the back for how great they are at raising their kids all they want. The way I see it, if you don’t allow your kids to have screen time while actively turning them into screen time for other people and profiting off of it, you’re a hypocrite. If their kids aren’t allowed to use the same social media platforms their parents are posting them on, then they’ll be completely oblivious to their parents profiting off of what’s essentially their humiliation. Getting yelled at, scolded, and grounded by your parents is embarrassing for kids. I’d imagine most of us wouldn’t want that to be filmed and posted. Imagine when Vidya and Pookesh kids become adults trying to get jobs, and the interviewer says they’re a fan of their parent’s channel they reference something very personal from their childhoods. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d be horrified if a stranger knew something personal about me. I’d especially be horrified and angry if I found out my parents have been posting the most vulnerable moments of my life for millions of strangers to gawk at. Family blogging is a direct violation of the kid’s privacy because kids can’t consent. Given how Vidya and Pookesh pride themselves on their strictness, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t care about their kids’ privacy.

I also just plain don’t trust any parent who films and posts their kids being punished because there’s a pattern of the parents who do that end up being revealed to be abusers. Look no further than 8 Passengers. Folks were praising Ruby (and to a lesser extent Kevin) for their strict parenting. They never gave their kids smart phones (and eventually no phones at all), and punished them with chores and exercise whenever they got bad grades or misplaced important items. Then the cracks started to show after the infamous “Chat’s bed was taken away for 6 months for pranking his little brother” video came out. Eventually Ruby (and her negative influence/affair parnter Jodie) was arrested for child abuse and child endangerment. The same happened with the Duggars. They weren’t family vloggers, but they too were praised for being strict with their kids. No phones, no videogames, limited tv, etc. Not only was the oldest son outed as a rapist and pedophile, the parents forced the daughters (aka his victims) to take full blame and do public damage control. Not to mention, none of the kids saw a dime of the money that was earned through the show, despite them being the reason the show was profitable in the first place. Vidya and Pookesh are already rich, but where is all of that money they’re earning by filming their kids going? Are they gonna put in a savings or college fund? Or are they gonna be like every other family “strict” channel and keep it all to themselves and leave their kids high and dry with college tuition because they “don’t believe in handouts.” Hot take, but at least 50% of the money earned through family channels should belong to the kids. No matter how much work the parents put into planning, filming, and editing, their channel wouldn’t exist without their kids. Yet many of those parents respect their kids as people enough to think they deserve the money that was earned off of their labor. Since the kids of family channels aren’t classified as child actors and don’t benefit from the Coogan Law.

Another uncomfortable truth that doesn’t get brought up when it comes to family channels that emphasize strictness, is that a lot of people genuinely hate kids and love seeing them be punished, even if the punishment isn't warranted. The biggest example of this is DaddyOFive, one of the OG popular family channels. Mike’s fans reveled in watching him “pranking” his kids to the point where they’re in tears. He got away with it for so long because he framed it under the guise of discipline. Looking at videos that criticized DaddyOFive, the comments sections were riddled with the most disgusting and disturbing insults and violent fantasies directed towards the kids. Some were even giving suggestions for harsher punishments for the younger kids. Mike and his wife knew this, and that motivated him to keep making those videos all the way up until the law stepped in.

At the end of the day, posting kids online at all is inherently dangerous. Not all social media platforms are built the same, I personally don’t think posting kids on Facebook is that bad. However, TikTok is an extremely public platform. Part of the reason why TikTok gets the most reach out of all the social media platforms is because the algorithm shoves every video in everyone’s faces regardless of whether or not they're interested. This is what leads to the wrong types of people finding family vlogging channels. It’s common knowledge that the silent minority of family vlogger’s fans are pedophiles. Even if the parents never post videos of their kids in swim suits or eating phallic shaped foods, pedophiles will still save and share those videos with their friends for the purpose of satiating their disgusting paraphilias. By choosing to make content featuring their kids, Vidya and Pookesh are actively feeding their kids to wolves whether they intend to or not. Stalking is also an issue. There’s a disturbing amount of grown adults who build parasocial relationships towards the kids of family channels. Many family channels aren’t shy about their full legal names or where they live. All it takes is a handful of details for a stalker to figure out where their kids go to school, or any other locations the kids like to go. Not to mention, thanks to Gen A.I., pedophiles have an easier time making, selling, and sharing child porn. Where do they get the reference material to build the models for those videos? From family channels. There’s nothing stopping a pedophile from taking Vidya and Pookesh’s videos and making child porn of their kids.

So sorry, I’m gonna be a hater and say I don’t trust Vidya and Pookesh and don’t think they’re “good patents.” A good patent would NEVER be a family vlogger and violate their children’s privacy for attention and profit. They just raise their kids in private, OFFLINE, and let how they grow speak on their parenting itself.

As Shari Franke said, “There’s no such thing as an ethical family channel.” No exceptions.

Kids Deserve Safe Online Spaces, Whether You Like It Or Not

I absolutely can’t stand the "kiDs ShOuLdN’t bE OnLiNe aT AlL” rebuttal whenever internet safety for kids gets discussed. Those people refuse to understand that kids who are part of any marginalized group or victims of bullying rely on online spaces for community and support. Having good irl friends and being accepted by the community you were born into is a privilege that not every kid has. As someone who is black, queer, and has niche interests, trying to make friends as a child was an arduous task. I didn’t start making real friends who truly understood me until I got involved in online spaces. I’m annoyed by kids on the internet too, but still think they deserve to be protected while online. This is why I wasn’t happy when I heard the news that Roblox might be shut down. Online safe spaces for kids are kinda extinct. Without Roblox, all those kids will have nowhere to go. If a kid’s only social media platform is Roblox, and the only way they can talk to their online friends is Roblox, if it shuts down, all those friendships will be lost. Plus it will only encourage kids to be more involved on mainstream platforms like Twitter and TikTok. Roblox may not be a “kid friendly” online space, but it’s literally the closest thing to an option kids have nowadays.

The internet is also a valuable resource for kids who are abused by their parents. Loving, responsible, understanding parents are also a privilege that not every child has. I see at least one teenager making a post about how they need money to leave their terrible living conditions every other day on multiple social media platforms. Folks love to dismiss those posts and tell those teens to just get a job. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but the job market in the US is terrible. First of all, you need at least a GED to qualify for the majority of minimum wage jobs; there are no one bedroom apartments in the US that are affordable on a minimum wage salary. Second, even jobs that usually hire teens like the fast food industry raised the hiring standard to unreasonable levels. Dominos now requires people to write cover letters to qualify for store front jobs. Third, thanks to A.I., entry level white collar jobs that don’t require a college degree like telemarketing are becoming obsolete. The barrier of entry with jobs is hard enough for able bodied neurotypical people with high school degrees. Imagine how much harder it is for disabled and/or neurodivergent teenagers who haven’t graduated yet or are homeschooled and don’t have diplomas at all. So for the majority of teenagers, art commissions and asking for communal support through donations are the safest, easiest, and most readily available options for them to earn money. Both of those revenue streams wouldn’t be an option if they were banned from being online.

The rebuttal to all of that is always that kids should just use irl resources to help with their plights. As someone who was abused by their step father, people severely underestimate how truly alone and helpless children are in those situations. The people who say that kids should talk to other trusted adults fail to understand that adults don’t listen to kids. Whenever a kid tells an adult that they’re being abused by their parents, they’ll either be told they’re lying, they’re exaggerating, or they’re just simply being disciplined and they deserved it. Guidance counselors don’t do anything besides just telling kids to stand up for themselves and tell them to stop or walk away. Neither of which are an option when it comes to someone who holds absolute power over them. Other adults in the family tend to be complacent or apathetic. Many of them operate on a “not my monkeys not my circus” and “keep that in you home” mindset, which basically leads to kids getting ignored. In worse cases, the other adults in the kid’s family will advocate for or absolve their parents of abuse: “They wouldn’t do that. You don’t know them like I do,” “They had a rough childhood, so cut them some slack,” “You think that’s abuse? That doesn’t hold a candle to the stuff my/our parents did me/us,” “They’re doing their best, so quite being so judgmental and ungrateful!” Child Protective Services doesn’t really do much for abused kids either because 9 out of 10 times, they take the parents’ side. The rare times parents do get punished by CPS, they get a few months of probation and maybe anger management, then just get sent home unmonitored. CPS only really helps when the child has visible scars, even then parents can lie about where the scars came from because it’s always a “he said she said” without evidence, or when the child is already dead. Most abusive parents also isolate their children, so going to friends isn’t a viable option either. Even if the kid had a friend they could confide in, their friend is a kid too. There’s only so much a kid could do to help another kid in that situation. Not to mention, if the kid’s friend’s parents are friends with their parents, then the same situation I mentioned about how other adults in the family aren’t always helpful will happen. his why the most common “solutions” for abused kids before the internet were to either to grin and bear it until they turn 18, run away and risk being trafficked or die from the elements, or commit suicide. 

All this to say, banning kids from using the internet and not bothering to make online spaces safer for them isn’t a good option. It’s actively counterproductive to the most vulnerable demographic of people in the world.

Self Control and Social Media Regulation

One time I watched a YouTube video about the possible end of the influencer economy. She talks about how influencers are contributing to the shrinking attention span and rise of financial illiteracy with people. While I agree that influencers aren’t blameless, I think the root cause of all these problems is that folks are realizing that they have no self control. I’ve had a smart phone since I was 10, and I never developed a social media addiction. Why? Well, for one, my mom raised me to practice self control. For two, I’m one of the few people who actually gets bored of short form content. I like long videos because they give me more to think and talk about and provide more passive entertainment for longer. Short videos should never be anyone’s main form of entertainment. Short videos are like candy. Candy is great, but eating it every day for every meal will have negative effects on your health. It’s also important to note that not all short videos are the same. There’s a big difference between binging educational videos from animal sanctuary channels, and binging videos from a millionaire make up influencer. One has actual substance and can help you learn something new and start a conversation, and the other is consumerist slop that no one outside of the internet would care about.

Folks whose main source of entertainment is TikTok are extra annoying when they go to YouTube. I always roll my eyes whenever I see folks complain about a video being too long in the comments section. It’s even more telling when they say that about 30 minute videos. If your attention span is so broken that a 30 minute video is too long for you, then that’s a sign to get off the internet and reset your brain. Go spend a few screen free days engaging in something long, boring, or tedious to train your brain to deal with boredom. Read a 500+ page book in one sitting, sew or crochet something, do yard work, organize and clean one of the rooms in your home, go for a mile long walk, etc. Even spending all day watching 2+ hour movies without checking your phone is better for your brain and attention span than scrolling on TikTok all day. Those types of comments are even more hilarious because it’s as if folks forgot that the pause button exists. YouTubers don’t expect people to watch an hour + long video in one sitting. You’re allowed to pause the video and come back to it when you have more time. You know, like TV. Did those people forget what tv was like? Kids I understand, but there are 30+ year old adults who can’t sit through a 30 minute video. The shortest tv shows were at least 15 minutes including commercials. If you weren’t able to finish an episode or movie, and owned a DVR, then you paused it and came back to it later. It’s not rocket science. If TikTok is ruining your attention span that much, then that’s an even bigger reason to log off and reset your brain.

Speaking of using your brain, folks really need to just pay more attention to what they’re watching. You’re not supposed to just mindlessly scroll and watch every video that appears in your feed. Even if it’s short, that’s still time being spent on stuff you probably don’t even like. All this consumerism slop wouldn’t exist if folks took the initiative and started actively cleaning out their feed of all the content they don’t like. The block, mute, not interested, and don’t recommend buttons exist for a reason. Even if they’re not as effective as they should be, it’s still better than just mindlessly consuming product placements and A.I. slop and doing nothing to stop engaging with it. What I do to proactively curate my feed is every time I see a YouTube video recommended to me that I think I’d like, I always go to the YouTuber’s home page and scroll through their upload list for a bit and read the titles and check the thumbnails to see if the kinds of videos they make are about topics that I’d like. If I notice that the videos they make aren’t topics I like, then I go back to the recommended page and click “Don’t Recommend Channel” on the recommended video. That way, my feed doesn’t get cluttered with videos I don’t like or get recommended by people with questionable tastes and beliefs. An example is one time, I got recommended a video that was an analysis about an anime I liked. When I checked out the YouTuber’s page, I saw they recently made a video where they had one of those anti feminist soyjack memes in the thumbnails and the title used the r-slur. I immediately clicked “Don’t Recommend Channel” on that video. Another example is when an art piece popped up on my Twitter feed that I liked. When I went to the artist’s page to check out their other art and possibly follow them, I saw that their most recent art was sexual art of little girls in bikinis. I immediately blocked that artist.

I think the best way to fix social media is for everyone to start doing that for all of the types of content that they consume. Pay attention to who you’re watching and look at their upload history before you engage with them so you don’t end up accidentally supporting a morally reprehensible person, a shameless product promoter, or A.I. slop. Stop being passive and stop expecting everything to be automatically curated for you. Use the tools that’ve been right in front of you the entire time.

A.I. Chat Bots And The Harsh Truth About Friendships

With the increase in A.I. usage and more advanced chat bots being created every few months, there have been more and more people indulging in A.I. friendships. I find it so sad to see people using A.I. as a substitute for friends, even when they have irl friends. I acknowledge that friendship is hard, very hard. However, the increasing trend of A.I. friendships really show how most folks don’t really know what it means to be and have a friend. For starters, let’s address how the “making friends is way easier when you’re a kid” statement is such an overused myth. The reason why we lose most of our friends once we leave school is because those people weren’t really our friends to begin with, they were acquaintances. Just because someone you share the same space with is nice to you doesn’t mean they’re your friend nor want to be your friend. Being nice to strangers who share the same space is what a functional member of society is supposed to do. It’s impossible for anyone to be friends with everyone within their shared space because no human can reasonably keep up with and give an equal amount of attention to that many people. Really think about all those kids who were nice to you in school. Did you hang out with them during weekends, holidays, or summer vacation? Did your conversations go beyond casual small talk? Did y’all invite each other to y’all’s birthdays? Have y’all ever been to each other's houses? If the answer to all of these is no, then you had an acquaintance the entire time, not a friend. Hence why y’all stopped talking to each other once y’all permanently left the shared space. Once people leave the restricted and uniformly regimented confines of a school, they realize just how hard it is to fit another person in their lives. The harsh truth is most folks don’t know how to move past the acquaintances stage because that’s the most difficult part of making friends. Being nice to someone you see five times a day for 8+ hours is easy. To share information about your personal life, interests, and beliefs with another person requires a level of vulnerability, humility, and empathy that some folks aren’t willing to give or just don’t have.

True friendship also requires people to understand themselves enough to know who they want to be friends with and what they want out of friendship. If you’re not getting the attention or care you want out of your current group of friends, then they’re the wrong friends for you. Most people aren’t unwilling to take the initiative to find new friends because they don’t want to go through the transitional state of being alone. On the one hand, I empathize with that because I’ve been there. On the other hand, I can’t emphasize how important that transitional period of loneliness is when finding the right friends.

I’ve moved 10 times throughout my life. Growing up, social media wasn’t nearly as mainstream as it is now, so I regularly lost contact with every friend I made. By the time I graduated from high school and went to college, the one friend group I did manage to make disbanded and moved on. I didn’t really make an effort to contact my other high school friends because it became more apparent just how different we were as people once we were away from our shared environment. How different our personalities, hobbies, and long term goals were as we got older and more independent. As I soon realized that, I became more aware of how little social or emotional satisfaction I got from being their friend. Even though I still cared for all of them dearly, it was clear that we didn’t make that big of an impact in our lives considering how easily we all moved on from each other once we went our separate ways. It wasn’t until I was truly friendless that I realized that I didn’t know who I was outside of my previous friend groups. Moving several times compelled me to develop a habit of artificially retrofitting myself into any clique that would accept me. Even if we didn’t share any common interests, it was better than being known as “that kid with no friends” in school. So instead of finding a new clique to be adopted into, I spent my college years being in deep introspection. I tried to reconnect with myself and really think about what my ideal friends would be. It was during that introspection that I soon discovered that I was queer and agnostic. That’s when I had the ultimate epiphone. My queerness and agnosticism were the reasons why I never truly fit into any of my school friend groups. All of my former friends and the people I tried to befriend were girls that were cisgender, straight, and/or came from conservative Christian families. None of their interests or life goals aligned with mine, therefore, we had no common strong ground to build a friendship. While this wasn’t true for all of them, it made me realize that I always just went along with whatever they wanted while never talking about my own interests because I was desperate for acceptance. Leaving my high school friends behind and being alone for 4 years was hard, but it was a necessary step to discovering myself and finding my real friends. Now I have more friends than ever because I was finally able to choose the right community. The community where I felt truly accepted and seen.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for cisgender, straight, and/or came from conservative Christian to befriend people who are the opposite of that. What I am saying is for me personally, all of those traits were why I could never truly connect with my former friends or the other people in my shared space. People severely underestimate how much someone’s upbringing and beliefs affect their ability to befriend people who are different from them. People also don’t understand how being part of a community who have the same upbringing as you and whose beliefs align with yours is a privilege that not everyone has. Anyone who’s lived in a small town knows how isolating it is to be the odd one out in a uniform community. It’s why many people have to leave their small towns behind in order to find where they truly belong.

So as tempting as it is to laugh at all those people who claim an A.I. chat bot as their friend, I can’t help but empathize because I’ve been there. I’ve been in a position where I was lonely even when I was surrounded by people. I’ve been the perpetual outsider in a friend group and an entire town no matter how hard I tried to fit in. However, I took the initiative to step away from it all and come to terms with my identity and needs. The people who use A.I. chat bots are simply using it as a crutch. Crutches can be helpful, but eventually you have to learn how to walk on your own because it’ll make your life so much better and easier. It’s easy to rely on machines for companionship because they’ll agree with everything you say, and never insult you, they’ll always be available whenever we want them. However, human connection isn’t meant to be that easy or convenient. We aren’t meant to have easy access to other humans 24/7 because everyone has their own life. We aren’t meant to always expect unquestioning loyalty and positivity from other people. It’s being able to work around those common inconveniences and unpredictability that makes human friendships so rewarding and something to be proud of.

Where my empathy and sympathy runs dry is when it comes to the people who are simply too egotistical and/or narcissistic to make genuine friends. The fact that folks were rioting over one of OpenAI’s previous updates that made the chat bots less unquestioningly agreeable really shows just how many people can’t handle any ounce of disagreement. Friends aren’t supposed to give unconditional encouragement or blind agreements. The best friends you’ll ever have are the ones who aren’t afraid to call you out on your dumb ideas or out of pocket remarks. It’s the same principle behind why parents punish their kids when they do something wrong. They do that because they love you and want you to be a better person. Unfortunately, some people only care about instant validation more than genuine connections. Even though it’s been apparent several times that companies have the ability to take their “friends” away by altering their data or locking them behind a paywall, they still choose the head empty convenience of A.I. or humans. Those people are a prime example of how the loneliness epidemic is, in many ways, self-inflicted.

P.S. There's another can of worms regarding A.I. romantic partners. I’m aromantic, asexual, and an introvert with no desire to get married. So I have much else to say besides that human connection of all kinds will always be healthier and more rewarding for people than anything a billion dollar tech company can produce. Especially considering a company can’t shut off a human or restrict the ability to talk to them behind subscriptions fees.

Becca Bloom, And The Myth Of The "Good Billionaire"

There’s a TikTok influencer called Becca Bloom. I don’t use TikTok, so I don’t watch her nor care about that kind of content. However, I do watch YouTubers who talk about social media drama. YouTuber Kiki Channel introduced me to Becca Bloom and the wider “RickTok”community. Her video explains who Becca is and how she became popular by  flaunting her wealth in a way that people don’t find annoying. She also presents herself as being everyone’s friend by speaking in a gentle casual tone. Her fans see her as an example of “riching right.”

My stance on Becca is that no one will ever convince me to like billionaires. I don’t care how “humble” and “kind” some of them may seem. There’s no such thing as a good billionaire because a good person would never be a billionaire. A good person wouldn’t hoard wealth just to waste it on oversized mansions. They’d distribute their excess resources to those in need. The “kindness” that Becca’s fans praise her for is how she gives financial and life advice for free. Personally, I find all of Becca’s financial and life advice to be a complete sham because, again, she’s the daughter of billionaires. She’s never known anything outside of ultra wealth. Not a single piece of life or business advice that she gives will ever be remotely helpful for the vast majority of the human race. Billionaires can play dumb all day long, but money talks, and nothing is louder on a resume than a high net worth. Becca’s family name alone gets her foot into every single door. So the fact that there are people out there taking her words as gospel shows how no one has learned anything from the post COVID Hustle Culture influencer boom. Billionaires never give practical advice on how to be rich because they don’t want to admit that step one is being born in a wealthy family, step two is to regularly and subtly commit fraud, and step three is to pay off any cops and judges in your general area.

Becca’s fans also claim that she’s “not like other rich people” because she works hard. I personally find her whole “I grind like my life depends on it” and “I have that same 20 days off as all of you” schtick laughable. Becca also brags about how part of her work ethic is that she walks to work every day. A lot of people walk to work. Not because they want to, but because most of them can’t afford a car or gas money. I genuinely don’t know how anyone could buy her surface level motivational slop. No matter how much she “works hard,” it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s, you know, the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the world. Becca will never know the perpetual looming dread of possibly losing her job if she misses a deadline, takes too many sick days, or having her hard work end up not paying off in the long run because she’ll always have the ultimate safety net. She doesn’t even have to work. She and her whole family could stop working now and be able to live off their savings and be comfortable for the rest of their lives. Becca is just like Kim Kardashian saying “get your ass up and work,” or Rachel Hollis saying “yes, I’m extremely privileged, and I also work my ass off.” There’s nothing that disgusts me more than billionaires who act like they, in any way shape or form, can relate to an average 9-5 white or blue-collar worker. I guess this would be considered a hot take to Becca, but most people in general work their asses off. If hard work directly translated to earning billions, then the highest earning jobs would be food service, farmers, sanitation engineers, and public school teachers. Becca is also no different from the post-COVID Hustle Culture influencers who said the key to success is waking up at 5:00am every day and working 12 hours every day. Many people wake up at 5:00am every day and don’t stop working until 11:00pm. The difference is they don’t get to earn billions of dollars. They don’t get to go on yacht vacations or buy luxury vehicles. They don’t get free expensive gifts from companies or get invited to exclusive parties. Nowadays, many people work 12+ hours a day and still barely afford groceries. Yet Becca, the other richfluencers, and celebrities like her have the audacity to act like they’ve earned their wealth. To quote YouTuber RenegadeCut, “No one ‘earns’ a billion dollars; they steal it from the employees that their companies exploit.” That quote especially rings true when you notice how neither Becca nor her parents talk about how well their employees are paid, what their benefits look like, or what their working conditions are. Yet they have no problem bragging about how hard they work. It, once again, demonstrates how billionaires love to play into the boot straps facade to avoid being too open about the disgusting truth behind their blood money.

Like all popular influencers, Becca has an army of rabid fans ready to jump to her defense at the slightest hint of criticism or negativity. “You have no right to judge Becca because you don’t know her.” Ok…neither do you. You’re not someone’s friend just because you watch their TikTok videos religiously. If you think that’s how that works, then you’re parasocial. If Becca’s fans think I’m not allowed to criticize her because I don’t know her, then by that logic, they’re not allowed to defend her. “So you want rich people to do performative charity?” Honestly, if the only alternative is they don't do anything that benefits society at all, then yes. I’d wholeheartedly love to see videos of billionaires paying for refugees’ and cancer patients’ GoFundMes, campaigning for grocery stores to be built in food deserts, or donating to under funded public schools than seeing them buy jewelry that costs more than what most people make in a lifetime. “It’s not Becca’s job to make the world a better place.” Then you understand why most ultra-wealthy and/or old money people stay away from social media and keep to themselves. Rich people know that the world is in a crisis and folks are ready to sharpen their guillotines. There’ve been several instances where richfluencers have been robbed at gun point, had their mansions broken into, or in some extreme cases, had their own friends plot to kill them to take their money. Those are the consequences of public wealth flaunting. Most billionaires know the last thing they should do is be all like “Hey poor people, look at me! Look at all this money I have that I’ll never share! Here’s also my mansion/upscale pent house that can be easily Googled and the exact brand and model of my security system.” I’m not saying anyone who posts a video of their new Gucci purse is asking to be robbed, but there’s a reason why children from old money families are taught to be quiet and subtle. “Well if you don’t like Becca’s content, then don’t watch her.” Well for one, I don’t, and never will. I’m content with writing this blog post because she’ll gain nothing from this. For two, at the end of the day, social media is public. TikTok, especially, is the most public of all the social media platforms. Even though I’ve never used it, from what I’ve seen from users who complain about it, the algorithm shoves everything in everyone’s faces regardless of whether they even liked it. The “not interested” button is more of a light suggestion rather than a functional tool. So if a billionaire chooses to flaunt their wealth publicly, then they also choose to have a giant target painted on their backs. Plus, you know, free speech goes both ways. Becca has the right to ignore and block the haters, and people have the right to call billionaires out for their greedy, wasteful, overconsumption lifestyles. The most laughable defense of all is, “Well no one in Becca’s comments has a problem with her, so maybe you’re just an envious hater.” Yeah, no. There’s no way someone as popular as Becca doesn’t get hate comments. Anyone who’s used any social media knows that’s logically and mathematically impossible. Folks seem to forget that influencers can just pay other people to scrub her comments sections clean of any negativity and block certain words. If influencers outside of RichTok do that, then I’m pretty sure Becca is smart enough to know how to artificially boost her public perception.

I also find the insistent defending of Becca from her fans to be kinda infantilization. Folks are treating this 27-year-old married woman like she’s an emotionally compromised teenager who’s too delicate to handle being on social media. I feel like her being a skinny, pale skinned, soft spoken, East Asian woman causes her fans to inadvertently play into the China doll stereotype. I know damn well that she wouldn’t receive a milifraction of this unanimous protection if she was fat and/or black.

My conclusion to all of this is people need to understand that rich people, especially billionaires, have never nor will ever be yours, mine, or anyone else’s friend. There’s a reason why rich people only associate with other rich people. If Becca, Kim, Rachel, or any other wealthy influencer was approached by any one of their fans on the streets, they’d smile, maybe agree to take a selfie, roll her eyes in disgust the moment the fan stepped away, and go right back to hanging out with the people who are in the same tax bracket as them. I’m not saying folks need to start a hate campaign. I’m saying that a person’s first instinct when seeing a rich person in their social media feed should be to just block them. Attention is the new currency, and the last thing billionaires need is to get richer. Folks need to stop licking rich people’s boots just because they act nice. The sooner people get that through their thick, doom scrolling, brain-rotted skulls, the sooner society can actually show some semblance of societal progress.