America, you are not grateful enough to have Oprah Winfrey in this world and it is giving her a big sad.
As you know, in the aftermath of the recent Maui wildfires, Winfrey and fellow richer-than-Midas celebrity Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson announced that they were starting a fund to help the survivors of the fire and asked us all to dig deep to donate to their fund. The reaction to this announcement didn't quite go as planned.
This morning, Winfrey took to the set of CBS Mornings to tell her pal Gayle King that she wasn't mad at us. Just disappointed.
On the surface, she might seem to have a point. After all, why wouldn't we want to support her and The Rock in this effort? Except reality doesn't really match up with the rosy, altruistic picture Winfrey is painting of herself here.
For starters, there is the fact that Winfrey's and Johnson's $10 million wasn't actually a donation to Maui residents, it was seed money to start the fund. Maui residents weren't getting that money, only money that people donated on top of the initial $10 million.
Secondly, the $10 million went to the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a 'non-profit' that is somehow loaded with executives and middle management who, while not as rich as Winfrey, have six- and seven-figure salaries. Meanwhile, Maui residents could apply for a payout of $1200. Not as paltry as what FEMA was offering, but not much more than that.
And third, Winfrey and Johnson between them have a net worth of over $3 billion, yet instead of donating directly to residents themselves -- or asking their equally wealthy celebrity friends to make direct donations -- they wanted the money to come from Americans who are struggling under Bidenomics to pay for food, housing, and gas.
Never mind all of that. It's our fault, America. We just don't appreciate her enough.
Yes, it doesn't get much more out of touch than comparing your request for donations from the hoi polloi to a celebrity fundraiser.
The comparison below makes a lot more sense to most people:
Not that it is Winfrey or Johnson's obligation to fund everything themselves, but don't let the seed money amount fool you. Even if Winfrey and Johnson's $10 million did go to Maui residents, that is 0.33% of their combined net worth. By comparison, that would be the equivalent of someone who has saved up $65,000 or so in their life -- the average savings of Americans -- donating about $216. In other words, a drop in the bucket.
No, we can't have that. Asking many celebrities to do a little self-reflecting is like asking a shark to walk on land. It wouldn't even occur to them to try.
Others were put off by Winfrey comparing herself to Dolly Parton.
Technically, Parton did hold a telethon for the victims of the 2016 fires in North Carolina and Tennessee, but the money donated from that was in addition to the $1,000 per month that Parton donated through her companies directly to the victims. So yes, there are some big differences. Again, there is no evidence that Winfrey and Johnson's $10 million is going to the victims at all.
Finally, Winfrey's comment about 'the state of the country' rang hollow with many people.
We're not getting into the whole Harvey Weinstein thing here, but the important point is that no one trusts celebrities anymore. And they have only themselves to blame for that.
Put more simply:
Yup. Look, we don't know about Winfrey's intentions, they very well may have been noble. But yeah, we're fed up with people who do not live like us telling us how we are supposed to live. And scolding us when we don't measure up to their expectations.
Maybe because those expectations are always of us and never of themselves. We swear there's a word for that ...
https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2023/09/15/love-me-you-jerks-oprah-scolds-americans-for-not-adoring-her-as-they-should-n2387330
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