Digging for the Motherlode

I grew up on a block called Valentine Drive, where in the fourth grade my neighbor Sara and I would drag chairs to the computer in her parents’ room and boot up The Sims. We spent most afternoons in a virtual Valentine Drive of our creation—a string of beachfront properties inhabited by digital versions of our neighborhood friends and crushes from school. 

It was pure wish fulfillment; in the game we were better-looking versions of ourselves with boobs and no parents. But most powerful were the Simoleons, the currency that could be spent on fancy doorknobs or a heated pool or an in-home movie theatre. We took turns typing motherlodemotherlodemotherlode into the monitor that crackled with static. Motherlode was a cheat code—intel from Sara’s older brother—that gave us 50,000 Simoleons each time it was entered. The word motherlode has roots in colonial Mexico, originating from a vein of silver ore that was nearly seven miles long. Miners named the deposit veta madre, and it took them years to extract the metal from the hills of Guanajuato.

We made more money using motherlode than we will in a hundred lifetimes. The supply was infinite, and no amount would ever be enough. 

Bennet to Belfort

The fantasy of The Sims, to us, was to accumulate as much wealth as possible. This impulse has existed for as long as class societies themselves—which is to say, not terribly long ago.

It was only around the 17^th century that English feudalism evolved into capitalism. In the 19th century, British novels about high society, from the decked ballrooms of Jane Austen to the rags-to-riches social ascension of characters like Pip of Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, reflected fascination with the upper-class lifestyles. In the United States, the sisters of Little Women yearned for nice dresses, shiny pianos, and acrylic paints. These characters sought the ability to travel, to have dinner parties, or to flirt with (and eventually, marry into) wealth, embodying an ethic of fierce individualism and the desire to make one’s own way in the world.

For a century, The Great Gatsby has captivated readers (and now high school students watching the Fergie-backed 2013 film adaptation) with its portrayal of Jay Gatsby’s staggering wealth, the glory and the tragedy of the American Dream. Citizen Kane (1941) showed how early cinema was a new medium for wealth voyeurism. In the ‘60s, CBS hosted The Beverly Hillbillies, a popular sitcom about a country family that moves to a mansion after striking it rich after finding oil on their Arkansas swamp. In the 2000s, Gossip Girl fans watched Dan Humphrey, who was poor by Upper East Side standards, develop an infatuation with old money Serena Van Der Woodsen. Dan is a self-insert for the audience, whose arc is eventually satisfied after the character proves he is worthy of the champagne-soaked, jewel-encrusted world of the Upper East Side.

Two centuries of media, books, films, and television have approached the theme of wealth with a certain reverence—not always portrayed as morally superior, but often the target of intense fascination. They explore the questions: How do the ultra-wealthy live their lives? How does money make their problems evaporate? And how are they just like us? 

Influence or be influenced

A recent invention has fundamentally shifted the stratification of wealth: the internet. It is an innovation made possible by fibers that wrap around our planet like an exoskeleton—wires and cables buried under interstates, strung into data centers, and plugged into whichever provider you pay $70 each month.

The internet has allowed companies to scale and tech executives to amass colossal profit. It has also enabled a new kind of wealth voyeurism. On Instagram, you can watch Khloe Kardashian pick out the perfect handbag—worth roughly the median annual salary in the U.S.—months before it airs in an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Thanks to YouTube channels like that of Architectural Digest, you can see Jessica Alba’s shower and the toddler-sized cars Wiz Khalifa has bought for his son.

And then there are the influencers. 

25-year-old David Dobrik gained a following on Vine before transitioning to YouTube, where he now has over 18 million subscribers. Dobrik, who was born in Slovakia, is by many definitions the epitome of the American Dream. He became famous by filming his day-to-day life, cracking jokes with boyish charm and an unrelenting, maniacal laugh. 

A few months ago, on TikTok, Dobrik showcased the fountain of Hawaiian Punch and 12’ x 12’ bed he’d installed in his $9.5 million home in the Hollywood Hills. 

“It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous,” he says from behind the camera. As he pans through his living room, a mural (custom-made, I assume, or a gift from one of his celebrity friends) reads “proud but not satisfied” in giant neon script. 

Dobrik’s brand of down-to-earth goofiness conflicts with his all-consuming obsession with amassing fame and displaying his wealth in creative ways. The merch he sells with “CLICKBAIT” lettered across the chest is both a sardonic nod at sensationalized YouTube titles and a strategy into which he has thrown his entire weight.

The sinister side of Dobrik’s views-at-all-cost modus operandi came to light this spring, beginning with a Business Insider piece detailing allegations of sexual assault against a former friend of Dobrik’s. Five weeks after the Insider piece, news emerged that Dobrik had inadvertently shattered the eye and skull of a different friend by whipping him around on a crane over a lake—one hand on the controls, one on his camera.

Every so often, Dobrik will do a Tesla giveaway through his Instagram as a brand deal or to promote causes such as voter registration. Before his recent scandals, several people I know personally reposted his giveaways. The truth is that winning a Tesla would be a life-changing infusion of wealth for almost anyone. Dobrik’s giveaway is low-risk, high-reward. No matter how slim the odds, there is a chance that an Instagram story can change your life. Effectively, it is that sense of financial hope that animates modern capitalist sentiment.

The influencer’s internet has irreversibly changed the way Americans think about upward mobility because we perceive class breakthrough to be easier and more accessible in the digital age. There is more imagined opportunity to become ultra-wealthy than ever before. We see micro-influencers succeed within every subculture as the wealth gap continues to grow. In the United States, the top 1 percent controls $41.52 trillion; roughly 16 times more capital than the bottom 50 percent.

The most unnerving part of Dobrik’s social media presence is the way you can watch his fame unfold in reverse. Through his backlog of vlogs and Instagram, he bounces through apartments in L.A., each one more cramped than the next. As you scroll, you watch him lose his Kid’s Choice Awards and sports cars until he becomes a geeky-looking high schooler in a Chicago suburb. There is a certain comfort and hopefulness in thinking that Dobrik’s fame could befall anyone who works hard enough—if it happened to him, it could happen to you.

Emily Ratajkowski is another mega-influencer, an Instagram model with 28 million followers who got her start acting as a teenager. (This fan-made edit of her 2009 two-episode arc as Gibby’s girlfriend on iCarly deserves an Emmy in and of itself). Against all odds, Ratajkowski hit the real-life motherlode—an amalgamation of beauty ideals and an upbringing privileged enough for acting coaches and modeling connections. 

Ratajkowski starred in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” music video in 2013 (including an “unrated” version), which was widely critized both in lyricism and visuals for a rhetoric of rape culture. Regardless, the song has 765 million YouTube views and was the longest-running #1 single of 2013 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The video launched Ratajkowski into high-profile roles in films like Gone Girl and We Are Your Friends. She has been outspoken about expressing sexuality and wrote an essay last year about with personal anecdotes detailing the abuse and assault she has encountered in the industry.

Today, Ratajkowski is rich enough that her wealth snowballs, detached from any actual labor. She has done cash giveaways similar to Dobrik’s, including partnerships with Charitable, a marketing company that leverages nonprofit donations to grow influencer audiences. 

Ratajkowski publicly supports Bernie Sanders, and certain liberal politics are part of her brand. “Feminism is about the choices we make, and the freedom we have to make personal choices without judgement or retribution,” she told Elle in 2018, the same year she married a multimillionaire film producer. For Ratajkowski’s, these choices seem to boil down to monetizing every aspect of one’s life. Last February, she gave an interview to Forbes: “How Mega-Influencer Emily Ratajkowski Turns Obsessive Fans Into A Booming Business.” 

According to Ratajkowski’s feminism, branding her name and body is empowering. This line of thought is persuasive. Money translates to control, resources, and influence. But feminist theories of power shouldn’t just be about how one physically flawless and staggeringly lucky person can create opportunity for themself. We should ask for more.

Misguided hope wreaks havoc

Karl Marx had a grudge with religion, which he famously called the “opium for the masses.” He saw belief in God and the afterlife as a force that curbed social change; if people are promised eternal bliss in the afterlife, he reasoned, they settle for suffering rather than improving the circumstances of the living. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,” he wrote, “the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”

If hope in the afterlife is a coping mechanism—a “false consciousness” to sedate the pain of oppression—what is the tiny part of ourselves that believes a TikTok gone viral will propel us out of the working class?

This constant, grueling fantasy is only necessary under exploitative systems. If capital was distributed more equitably in the United States and economic stability no longer depended on an abused workforce, we would not need to glorify extreme wealth.

But the internet can also be an equalizing force—a tool to recognize disparity rather than inhabit fantasy, to create support for populist movements, and to organize on a monumental scale. We share tips on how to blur protestors’ faces. You can Google “how to start a union.” In the early days of the pandemic, people posted open source 3D printing code and sewing patterns for face masks. Gofundme, abhorrent in its necessity, has funded countless medical, funeral, and housing costs, as have thousands of grassroots mutual aid funds.

The wealthy will live their lives through our screens, and they reflect back to us what we want to chase. The stubborn shell of the American Dream hinges on a virtual world, curated by tech giants and populated by influencers, where billions of users are digging for the motherlode. ▩

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