Nepo babies into 'Neo' babies

By Jason Lim

Nepo is short for nepotism, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as, "the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives, friends or associates, especially by giving them jobs." Nepo babies, therefore, are the children of the rich, famous and powerful who are given exposure, opportunities and oftentimes jobs, which form the platform upon which their respective wealth, fame and power can grow. Nepo babies can occur in every industry, but it has recently become the trendy word describing the children of Hollywood celebrities whose path to success has been paved by the money and access that their parents wield.

Vulture's article titled, "How a Nepo Baby Is Born," started the latest round of public debate that pits the nepo babies on one side and the critics of privilege on the other. Of course, this isn't just a Hollywood phenomenon. Korea, with its burgeoning K-pop world of riches and prestige, has its share of nepo babies, many of them not too eager to showcase their familial connections.

It's also not just an entertainment phenomenon. It happens in every industry where the jobs are considered prestigious and lucrative. If any one of your parents is a doctor, then your chances of becoming a doctor are probably much higher through a combination of internal and external motivating factors. Simply put, we become what we see and feel familiar with. Seeing your parents work in a specific profession and be successful at it would more than likely motivate you to follow in the same footsteps. You do what you know. Also, with doctor parents, you are likely to have the support you need to become well-educated and confident enough to enter the medical profession. Same with lawyers, engineers, bankers, etc. This probably applies to any highly desirable profession. By the way, have you ever heard of a "chaebol" (large industrial South Korean conglomerate run and controlled by an individual or family) who hadn't passed down the controlling ownership of the business to his or her children? Exactly.

This doesn't just happen to kids, either. When Koreans immigrated to America, most were small business owners in very specific areas. Early Korean immigrants ran fresh vegetable stores, outcompeting the supermarkets by going out to the wholesale market every dawn and providing fresh produce at cheaper prices. The margins were good, but rumor had it that your body, especially your lower back, would give out after three years due to the intensity of the physical labor. Then Korean Americans started to gravitate towards the dry cleaning business. I have no idea how these things happen, but, as the eighties went on, most dry cleaners in major urban areas were run by Korean Americans, including my parents who operated a dry cleaners in Yonkers, New York, for over 30 years. Car washes were another industry that also attracted a lot of Korean Americans.

Such phenomena happened to other ethnic groups as well. It's natural for tribes to gravitate toward what's proven. And what's more tribal than families? It's more than imitation. It's strategic risk mitigation so as to maximize your chances of success in an uncertain world. Moreover, from the parents' perspective, wouldn't you want to share what's good with your children? If the going is good, and you made it on your own talent and luck, then what's wrong with giving your children a leg up? Then, why are the nepo babies singled out? And what's the main thrust of the criticism leveled against nepo babies?

Well, it's the familiar one against ingrained privilege. Nepo babies naturally have a huge advantage when breaking into the entertainment industry due to the stature and connections of their parents. This is hard to argue. Of course, they have to show their own talents and produce when given the opportunity. However, even here, they have a leg up since beautiful parents tend to have beautiful kids; talent also, although not always.

So, the key issue driving all this debate around privilege is the nature of meritocracy, which is an essential myth that underpins the American dream. If you work and study hard, you will get good at what you do, and then you will succeed. That's the inviolable equation that we base our social contract on.

Born privilege tends to skew that equation since it adds a variable that's weighted more heavily than the others, thereby making the American dream story messier. Weighted too heavily, it disturbs the balance of the meritocratic equation itself. Unlike math, a social contract is a narrative that's only viable when enough people buy into it through the validation of their own life experiences. In other words, it's a collective construct that keeps everyone behaving within a certain, acceptable structure.

Nepo babies, especially the really visible ones who are young, rich, famous and beautiful, made ever more conspicuous by the TikToks and Instagrams of this world, threaten this structure through their very existence because they invite foundational questions about our reality. It's almost as if they have become "Neo" babies instead, ushering in the "red or blue pill moment" to an unprepared world.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.