Hollywood actors being vapid idiots is a trope, or rather reality, as old as Hollywood. Every time they go on Letterman they have to carefully follow the script written for them to avoid embarrassing themselves and the industry. And they often fail at that.

BTW, actors are very often prostitutes. Have been since ancient times and the association has stuck. Mediterranean yachts are packed full of C-lister actresses/hookers. Not to mention most of them get jobs by sleeping with producers, which is just an indirect form of prostitution. I don't know about you, but classy is the last way I'd describe Jennifer Lawrence sucking Weinstein's dick.

“but it at least had some... class” Not if you’d have asked the WASPs at the time, they very much looedk down on Hollywood. Saw it as vulgar and beneath them for many of the same reasons people dislike MrBeast. The 'class' only came afterwards.

> Hollywood had a ton of issues but it at least had some... class?

It looked that way because they had media training and their public personas were carefully managed, with staged interviews and media appearances. Behind the scenes, it’s a different story.

Influencers are rewarded for seeming authentic. Mr Beast coming across badly in a traditional TV interview just makes his audience think he’s more real.

I think things like "classiness," "grace," and "tact" are all but dead, both in Hollywood and across the population. Everyone seems to be mentally teenagers, but in middle-age bodies.

'Class','taste' etc these are all very subjective. One could argue that Mr Beast built all of his fame from scratch and didnt have it handed to him or having to sleep with some powerful gatekeeper - something you can't say about all your 'classy' hollywood stars. If you go back a century you can probably find people kvetching about the lack of class of these new fangled movie people compared to the theater stars of their day (who actually had to know how to act)

And how is this is different from movie stars?

> Hollywood had a ton of issues but it at least had some... class?

Hollywood took a bribe from the tobacco industry to make smoking "cool" and infect our nation with cigarettes.

> have little self-awareness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mpUxn7NybY : "A big opportunity for us is that there are no gatekeepers. There's no one I have to convince to let me do things."

:-)

...I get this is HN but come on. It is just modern day JasminCam for lonely men that are being exploited through parasocial relationships. It is the opposite of productive. You just have society feeding on itself.

This seems more like importing culture. These content creators aren't coming to work or American creators, they are coming to America to create their content for American audiences or using American resources.

I think you misunderstood GP's point, that it's now the _influencers_ and social media stars who are shaping culture. Not Hollywood or its stars.

If OnlyFans is not prostitution (and in my understanding it is not), then I don't see why it is surprising?

Idk if you mean it literally but conflating the sort of prostitution they ask about on immigration forms with taking naked pictures of yourself seems very wrong.

how would it be interpreted as prostitution? the close analogue is porn stars right

Why should prostitutes not be allowed to immigrate to the US?

Disclaimer: I don't mean this comment as an insult to you or anyone else here. It's meant to be slightly tongue in cheek.

I hate to be that person, but the fact that so many people on HN think OF is prostitution is revealing of the site's demographics (i.e. older). It is, as some may put it, boomer thinking.

You're misunderstanding what these people - esports athletes, successful streamers, influencers, OF models etc - actually do. They create and maintain parasocial relationships.

The point isn't just the gameplay or nudes / sex videos or commentary. For e.g., I (and a bunch of other young women for some reason) love to watch Temet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go8EJbNaIHg while working. It's the way they reflect back to their audience and allow them to become a part of their performance.

It's kind of like the place where everyone knows your name? These are digital third places and the content (whether it be neon blue bunny hopping characters or a graphic video of someone having sex) is a mechanism for bonding / a part of the activity. Kind of like the alcohol at the pub, I suppose.

That's where real influence comes from in this age.

If you think OF is prostitution, you're fundamentally misunderstanding what will drive power and culture in this century.

Are we? It feels the same just this time you're the old person and it's your turn to disapprove instead of being in the cultural wave.

>And TikTok is the antithesis of culture. It's consumerist rubbish that encourages a vapid, thoughtless, and illiterate consumption of shallow material. The article even mentions the monetary motivations of those posting. Any gimmick will do just to make a buck.

My brother, you've just described modern American culture perfectly.

What's the difference between Hollywood popcorn films and corn?

> Let us not relativize culture. If you relativize it, then your argument falls apart anyway. Authentic culture serves human beings. It involves learning from, developing, deepening, refining, and correcting what came before. Trash content doesn't do this. It is cultural poison. It ruins people's minds and wrecks society.

The walls of Pompeii beg to differ.

https://pompeiiarchaeologicalpark.com/social-norms-and-eroti...

https://mariasorensen.substack.com/p/the-forbidden-erotic-ar...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a627393...

I am sure there would have been people at the time decrying the creation of pigments and paints as the fall of civilization due to "decadence and depravity." Didn't matter much, did it?

> We are following Plato's description of social decline perfectly

Plato was a wrestler. Plato would like totally be a gym bro, bro.

It has been a while since I've read Republic, but I remember Book 8 differently. To quote the IEP,

   Tyranny arises out of democracy when the desire for freedom to do what one wants becomes extreme (562b-c).  The freedom or license aimed at in the democracy becomes so extreme that any limitations on anyone’s freedom seem unfair.  Socrates points out that when freedom is taken to such an extreme it produces its opposite, slavery (563e-564a).  The tyrant comes about by presenting himself as a champion of the people against the class of the few people who are wealthy (565d-566a).  The tyrant is forced to commit a number of acts to gain and retain power: accuse people falsely, attack his kinsmen, bring people to trial under false pretenses, kill many people, exile many people, and purport to cancel the debts of the poor to gain their support (565e-566a).  The tyrant eliminates the rich, brave, and wise people in the city since he perceives them as threats to his power (567c).  Socrates indicates that the tyrant faces the dilemma to either live with worthless people or with good people who may eventually depose him and chooses to live with worthless people (567d).  The tyrant ends up using mercenaries as his guards since he cannot trust any of the citizens (567d-e).  The tyrant also needs a very large army and will spend the city’s money (568d-e), and will not hesitate to kill members of his own family if they resist his ways (569b-c).