Moneyed Mediocrities and Nepo Babies
Increasingly, the news is replete with stories that demonstrate the cringe-worthy desperation and ungodly lengths that rich and famous people are willing to go to get their distinctly average children into America’s most prestigious institutions of higher education. In one of the most recent installments in this genre, NY Mag published a feature piece on educational consultant Christopher Rim, exposing the fact that some families are willing to spend upwards of $120,000 just to turn their unimpressive children into candidates for Ivy League schools. Most troublingly, it is claimed that a parent tried to pay $1.5 million to prevent others from procuring Rim’s services. Understandably, such stories continue to make headlines because they give the lie to the notion that America’s elite are in their positions because they are naturally endowed with superior cerebral capacities, and such revelations also highlight the jaw-dropping hypocrisy surrounding the vociferous protestations against affirmative action.
It is laughable to witness the manifold ways that the rich attempt to game the admissions system to get their children ahead, from legacy admissions to literally stapling mammoth checks to their children’s applications. If one is so wealthy and well-connected, common sense would make one question the necessity of going to absurd lengths to buy access into elite private institutions. Rather than wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on just crafting materials for the possibility of being selected for elite private institutions, shouldn’t that money be invested in assets that will bring about a much better return on investment while attending a less expensive institution? Meanwhile, while the rich are buying their way into elite educational spaces, the attention regarding “unfair” college admissions is focused almost exclusively on affirmative action. Wealthy people are permitted to use American dollars like Monopoly money to game the system to get their children ahead, but heavens forbid that there is a poor or middle-class African American who is admitted to an Ivy League school without the highest possible scores. The latter, we are meant to believe, utterly destroys the integrity of elite institutions.
With all this said, discussions around privilege need to be nuanced. Most sensible people would agree that there is nothing startlingly immoral about parents of means using their resources to give their children the best possible shot at life. However, there is an almost universal detestation of people commonly referred to by the younger generation as “nepo babies.” Urban Dictionary defines the term as “[a] child born into exceptional fame, wealth, or influence, whose path to success is largely predetermined by their family’s considerable resources and connections. Unlike an average person who may inherit a family trade, a [n]epo [b]aby is groomed from birth to dominate global industries, politics, or social spheres.” An aversion for nepo babies cannot be considered garden-variety status envy. Rather, those who are reviled have the entire globe at their fingertips, but still somehow end up being embarrassingly mediocre. For the most part, people do not have major problems with those who fit the technical definition of the term who are undeniably excellent at what they do.
Fundamentally, what is the point of having children if one does not want to pass down advantages and privileges to their offspring? In fact, it is healthy for civilization when this occurs. However, when this is done properly, the offspring end up becoming as excellent or better than their parents. Recently, I was looking at the life of Robert K. Merton, the famous sociologist whose work was remarkably influential in the field of criminology. I discovered that his son is the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert C. Merton. Could the latter Merton be considered a nepo baby? Perhaps, in the strictest sense. However, given that the term is a pejorative, it seems silly to use such a term for a Nobel laureate who is undeniably accomplished in his own right. He is an asset to his last name, as opposed to someone who would essentially be nothing without it (like so many children of celebrities, politicians, academics, and businessmen). The billionaire founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates has famously remarked on numerous occasions that he would not leave his children the lion’s share of his prodigious fortune ($123.7 billion as of 2024), opting instead to only leave each child with a comparatively paltry $10 million each. His rational has always been that his kids need to “have a sense that their own work is meaningful and important.” The wisdom in his reasoning cannot be denied. It is wisdom that other rich and famous people ought to follow.
Parents paying obscene amounts of money for undeserved institutional access send the message to a child that what matters in life is the mindless acquisition of the accoutrements of the elite, rather than putting in the hard work to develop a superior brain that allows one to acquire meaningful skills that will organically make a person elite. Paradoxically, America has an unhealthy obsession with elitism but also a complete comfort with arrant mediocrity. Nothing exposes this folly more than the circus surrounding elite college admissions, and it is a social problem that will continue to prove problematic, especially as the global competition embraces hard work and the pursuit of authentic excellence.