The majority of current US children do not want to be doctors or professors or plumbers or coders or truck drivers or electricians… they want to pursue a career path that has something like a one in a million odds of making them stupidly wealthy.
I, too, had dreams of being a rock star when I was a kid.
How many kids did anything toward that goal, such as forming a band, learning how to play an instrument or sing, actually landing that first gig at a local bar or something…
… vs how many kids nowadays … have a social media account they post to religiously?
Forming a band? Tons. You couldn’t drive down a neighborhood block without hearing someone banging on drums in a garage, or an amp pealing its notes out from an open window.
I would bet the amount of ‘bands’ that formed and the amount of kids that post videos to become influencers have a pretty similar number.
Checks for free. He’s talking about writing personal checks, like in the beforetimes, and them having no impact on his bank account later.
It’s a damning account of 80s hypermaterialism.
Yes, I know, history rhymes and Socrates was right about the youth being out of control.
That’s not what any of the lyrics sites I can find are saying.
https://genius.com/Dire-straits-money-for-nothing-lyrics
Pretty sure that line is about women throwing themselves at rock stars.
This is really different though. In so many ways.
Looking up to rock stars was different from parasocial relationships with people you watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of.
The volume of content dictates so many differences between rock stars and influencers just on its own.
Different in some ways? Sure, maybe, but go watch the videos of people at the Beatles concerts, or Michael Jackson concerts, etc. etc. They look like they’re losing their minds just while he is standing on stage looking around before the performance. Humans have incredibly sick relationships to any ‘star.’ Look at athletes and their incredible influence on kids. Holy hell, for a recent one just look at taylor swift and getting people to register to vote.
