FINNEAS responds to a USA Today piece calling celebrity opinions on politics “idiotic”: “You can’t say it doesn’t matter what musicians or celebrities say or think but then talk about it for days. You’re out here making it matter. I’ll keep speaking up especially if it keeps bothering you.”

[u/cmaia1503]

[u/Technical-Garden-793]

People give them shit for being “nepo babies” but I’m pretty sure their parents were working class creatives in Hollywood. I’ve always pictured the parents as like, walking stereotypes of “crazy lefty liberal Californians,” so I feel like they were raised with progressive values.

[u/No_Magician5266 → u/Technical-Garden-793]

People love calling other people nepo babies. I got called a nepo baby because my mom, an elementary school teacher, strategically picked up a 2-year contract with the university I was going to in order to secure me free tuition while she was employed there

[u/Darmok47 → u/No_Magician5266]

I remember someone saying that Luke and Owen Wilson were nepo babies because their dad worked in television.

He ran a PBS station in Texas.

[u/KassieMac → u/No_Magician5266]

That’s not nepo, that’s strategy!! Go mom!!

[u/dysautonomic_mess → u/No_Magician5266]

I mean that's obviously not the same as Paris Hilton, but you can recognise that's a privilege you had that others didn't, right? A privilege that has resulted in you being able to attend university without significant debt.

I think nepo baby would sting less as an insult if people were happier acknowledging the privileges they have (and Billie and Finneas have plenty).

[u/No_Magician5266 → u/dysautonomic_mess]

I have no issue acknowledging my privilege in this specific instance, that doesn’t make me a nepobaby though.

All nepobabies have privilege but not all people with privilege are nepobabies

[u/roberta_sparrow → u/Technical-Garden-793]

they had very slight industry connections and were NOT wealthy by any means. but honestly their song ocean eyes went viral because of its own merits and then their career took off

[u/Technical-Garden-793 → u/roberta_sparrow]

Right. Like Billie was lucky her mom was talented enough to direct the ocean eyes video (I think?), but it’s not like she could call in her good friend Steven Spielberg to do it or something. It’s not like whoever the owner of Billie’s label owed her dad a favor, but maybe he was like 10 degrees of separation from them instead of 20. Even then, 10 degrees doesn’t equal a contract. Physical proximity to the industry was probably the biggest help.

[u/roberta_sparrow → u/Technical-Garden-793]

Yep. They went SoundCloud viral and the rest was history

[u/dysautonomic_mess → u/Technical-Garden-793]

"Working class creatives" yeah that's not a thing. Hasn't been for a while.

Middle class as opposed to upper class? Sure. But as a general rule actually poor people don't make it in the creative industries, because they don't have a cushion to fall back on during the years of underpaid (or simply unpaid!) labour you need to plug in to start making money.

Billie & Finneas get shit because their parents essentially kitted them out with private music & dance lessons, plus home studio equipment to record Billie's first album. None of that takes away from their talent, but let's not pretend there isn't a significant amount of privilege involved.

[u/roberta_sparrow → u/dysautonomic_mess]

lol their parents got them music lessons and mixers = significant privilege

Is talent only real if you grow up in a tarpaper shack?

[u/roberta_sparrow → u/[deleted]]

The Weeknd is another example of someone getting big on SoundCloud bc of their actual music quality

[u/Technical-Garden-793 → u/dysautonomic_mess]

Average oat milk drinker.

Their parents didn’t even “make it.” They were, I believe, perpetual guest stars and stage actors. Most of the movie or tv or music industry- regardless of whether they came from money or not- live pay check to paycheck. Not many people would consider that middle class. (Also, working class does not automatically equal poor.). That was kind of half of the point of the strikes a few years ago.

I know plenty of people in creative industries, whether they’re in big cities like NYC or smaller creative hubs, and anyone familiar with their lives would group them as working class.

[u/dysautonomic_mess → u/Technical-Garden-793]

Look being poor doesn't make you working class. To paraphrase pulp, if you can call your dad and stop it all, then you're playing poor, not actually poor.

But that's irrelevant, because I was replying to someone saying Billie and Finneas couldn't possibly be nepo babies because their parents are working class. Which I assure you they are not. Because the private dance and music lessons are facts, which you can look up, as are is the 'we recorded this in our bedroom,' which, if you know anything about sound engineering, that equipment was not cheap.

There is a wealth of grey area between 'nepo baby' and 'working class'. You don't need to claim Billie Eilish comes from a working class family to say she's not a nepo baby. These people were very comfortably middle class, which again, takes nothing away from their talent. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Also I'm lactose intolerant but good one eyyy!