The Mirror | Van Nuys High School | March 2021 | Volume 107 |Issue 3

16| MARCH 2021 | | P R O & C O N |
theMIRROR
Billionaires: They really don’t care
VOLUME 107 | ISSUE 3
PRINT EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Andre Rodas, Ani Tutunjyan
ONLINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Aaron Mejia
LAYOUT EDITOR
Antony Nepeyvoda
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Shaan Bhatia
CURRENT EVENTS EDITOR
Angelina Gevorgyan
PERSPECTIVES EDITOR
Julia Pfau
PRO & CON/SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
Gwen Langi
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Kasey Kim
ATHLETICS EDITOR
Andre Davancens
PHOTO EDITOR
Ivan Delgado
PODCAST EDITOR
Sevak Harutyunyan
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
Csarina “Nina” Jarencio
SHUTTERSTOCK | VECTORKNIGHT
MONICA MAZARIEGOS
When asked what we want to be when we grow
up most teens have big and expensive dreams.
A doctor or a business owner are among the
most popular but, unfortunately, not all careers
are driven by morals. Money has a strong hold on Americans,
and from the price of your clothes to your income, success is
wrongfully equated with wealth.
Billionaires are believed to embody the American dream:
starting from nothing to making millions overnight through
hard work and determination. But as compelling as this narrative
may seem, it’s not realistic. Those who continue to push
it have been brainwashed — trained into idolizing the top one
percent.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a popular example of the so-called
American dream. Starting an online bookstore from his basement
in 1994, over 15 years later Bezos is the richest man in
America with a net worth of over $193 billion.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also successfully created his image
as a billionaire genius who started from nothing, but that’s far
from the truth. Musk was born to a fashion model mother and
an emerald mine-owning father — a drastic difference from the
dirt-poor lifestyle he pretends to come from.
Aspiring entrepreneurs and billionaires-to-be portray Bezos
and Musk in a savior-like light, consuming their rich people’s
propaganda of wanting to better society and offer futuristic
ideas.
But there’s no amount of money that can be offered to buy
their respect. No matter how much you defend these people,
billionaires are not your friends. After criticizing billionaires
like Bezos or Tesla CEO Elon Musk, brainwashed billionairesupporters
argue that it’s not the one percent’s fault for our
own lack of success; that nobody is responsible for our class or
wealth.
While that may be true, the super-rich men and women are
responsible for one thing — society’s failure to protect lowerclass
Americans from exploitation. Being rich isn’t a product of
free-market capitalism as billionaires make it seem, but a result
exploiting the working class, trading insider information and
buying-off politicians.
Billionaires have successfully indoctrinated a general audience
— especially teens — to believe that their own hard work,
intelligence and innovation has earned them a spot so high on
the socioeconomic ladder that anyone — especially a young
person — can do exactly what they did. But the reality is simple:
they don’t deserve the credit. Their overworked and exploited
employees are the ones who actually got them where they are
today. Musk doesn’t build or service his Teslas, and Bezos is
not the one picking and hauling hundreds of packages a day to
deliver to Amazon customers.
While people might be led to believe that these corporations
are helping the economy and providing jobs, employing
people without paying living wages is not doing anyone a
favor.
Amazon employees have resorted to wearing diapers or
urinating in bottles because they only get 30-second breaks.
They have organized strikes to protest their low wages — until
recently some workers received as little as $10 an hour. Amazon
begrudgingly raised the minimum to $15 which wouldn’t have
happened without the persistent pressure of angered workers
and the help of U.S Senator Bernie Sanders.
Bezos supporters often argue that no one is forcing anyone
to work at Amazon. While that is true, in such a poorly-performing
economy, people will take whatever jobs they can get
to stay afloat.
The anti-union views held by Bezos and shared, of course,
by Musk seek to perpetuate their exploitation of their workers.
Bezos fights a union organizing effort in Alabama, while Musk
posts anti-union ads on the popular live-streaming website
Twitch.
Musk is notorious for his Twitter following, full of crazed
fanatics, and like any fanbase his supporters are ready to go
the extra mile to defend him. He’s created an online persona so
worshipped that it’s nearly impossible to criticize him without
having an army of men and teenage boys responding with slurs
while defending him tooth and nail. He’s loved online by people
who dream of being like him but fail to realize they will never be
like him.
In a dystopian reality, his employees lose their jobs for not
being productive enough or working 70 hours a week as his
fans choose to remain oblivious, focusing only on his wealth.
Few billionaires are self-made. They are products of a capitalist
system that is rigged in their favor through family money
and connections. Their success stories are not the American
dream come true. They use others for their personal gain as
they sell products and project a false image that makes people
admire them.
The system that Bezos and Musk exploit works exactly as it
was intended to: by ensuring that poor people remain stuck at
the bottom doing the dirty work as the rich steal the fruits of
their labor. They can never get ahead.
Billionaires are not worthy of your admiration.
Billionaires are not your friends. Wake up.
ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Angela Proca
ASSISTANT ONLINE EDITOR
Nathan Han
STAFF WRITERS/PHOTOGRAPHERS
Alison Arevalo
Eleonora Badikyan
Adriana Contreras
Melanie Contreras
Isabela Diaz
Daniel Espinoza
Sam Eusebio
Itzel Gallardo
Jerry Garcia
Anzhela Harutyunyan
Briana Jasso
Andy Joachin
Aiza Kang
Terrence Lazo
Monica Mazariegos
Angel Rendon
Felipe Rodriguez
Andrew Vega
Angelica Venturina
Jazlyn Xocoxic
JOURNALISM ADVISER
Mr. Ron Goins
ABOUT US The Mirror is the student newspaper
of Van Nuys Senior High School in Van
Nuys, California, a district of Los Angeles,
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