Professional commentators often give me cause to wonder if they’re plagiarizing my commentaries. (I know this makes me seem even more immodest than usual.)
But that wonder usually amounts to no more than a pause. This was not the case, however, with my commentary on “Operation Varsity Blues.” That of course was the sensational sting that netted helicopter parents paying bribes to land their social-media kids at elite colleges.
With all due respect to their spoiled-and-entitled kids, the parents’ motivation is the most interesting part of this still-unfolding scandal. Most commentators took at face value that they were just scheming to get their kids the best education money could buy. But I suggested that their motivation was far more perverse and less parental.
Here is what I wrote about them in ‘Varsity Blues’ Exposes Deviant Strain of Affirmative Action for Rich White Students,” March 14, 2019:
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Meanwhile, memes on social media are mocking the irony of these parents spending millions and risking prison for kids who clearly don’t even belong in college. No doubt it’s crazy that parents go to such ridiculous, even illegal, extremes to get their kids into the best colleges.
But I submit they do so for the same narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, and materialistic reason they throw their kids the most lavish birthday parties and wedding receptions; namely for nothing more than bragging rights among their social set (i.e., the idiomatic keeping up with the Joneses). It’s really all about them.
And it’s no wonder their kids are turning out to be just as narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, and materialistic. This is why so many of them only “wannabe” Instagram influencers like Kylie (i.e., keeping up with the Kardashians).
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Frankly, the media are not paying enough attention to this angle of the story. This is why I was so encouraged when no less a commentator than Amanda Hess of The New York Times, echoed my take.
Here is what she wrote nearly two weeks later in “People Don’t Bribe College Officials to Help Their Kids. They Do It to Help Themselves,” March 27, 2019:
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I can’t know what discussions the Giannulli family may have had about Olivia Jade’s future, but honestly: How important is it for a person like her to attend a fancy university, other than to satisfy her elders?…
If an elite school is a branding exercise, that brand is perhaps more valuable to rich parents than to rich kids. … [T]hey’ve fudged the results so they can drop ‘U.S.C.’ in conversations instead of ‘A.S.U.’
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Plagiarism? No, just imitation … the sincerest form of flattery.
In any event, nothing betrayed how much this scandal is really all about the parents quite like the way Jade’s mother, B-list actor Lori Loughlin, showed up for her command appearance in court last week.
Because she acted as if she were attending the red-carpet screening of a Hollywood blockbuster – complete with her not just waving and smiling to rubbernecking pedestrians but even stopping to sign autographs.
How’s that for “spoiled and entitled” … and utterly clueless?
Related commentaries:
varsity blues…
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