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.
Its Capitalist Propaganda.
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:
Keeps the poors content
Gotta keep the American dream alive.
Give people hope.
People with hope don’t revolt because they still have something to lose.
It’s pretty common that angry revolutionaries are used by another rich bastard to get into power by usurping the movement. The classic “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
The guys who they need to be revoting against are the ones telling them who to hate…
Left has similar falacies.
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.
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.
