 Let's learn about Nepo babies. Do you know about Nepo babies? How a Nepo baby is born. Good on Nepo babies. Oh, baby is born. Pollywood has always loved the children of famous people. In 2022, the internet reduced them to two little words. Written by Nate Jones from New York Magazine. Narrated by McLeod Andrews. Okay, so in the United States, we don't have royalty. So our substitute for royalty is celebrity. In 2022, the internet uncovered a vast conspiracy. Pollywood was run on an invisible network of family ties and everybody was in on it. Well, I think a whole lot of communities are run on invisible networks of family ties. That's the way of the world. With attitude. All right. It is family ties, communal ties, friendship ties, social ties, cultural ties, ethnic ties, racial ties, religious ties. That's what runs the world. That's what runs communities. That's what runs industries. You think that this is all just about merit? Everyone is someone's kid. But it was as if everybody were somebody's kid. Euphoria, the busiest show on television, was created by the son of a major director and co-starred the daughter of another. Actress Maya Hawke was not only born to two famous parents, but looked like them too. Okay, so if you have parents who are rabbis, you're more likely to become a rabbi. If you have parents who are professional musicians, you're more likely to become a musician. If you have parents who are writers, you're much more likely than average to become a writer. If you have parents who have university professors, you're much more likely to become a university professor than average. This isn't something that's unique to Hollywood. It's just that Hollywood is the industry that probably more people want to get into compared to the number of people who want to get in versus the number of jobs that are available. Hollywood probably has the highest ratio. It's like the UCLA of industries. It seems like everyone wants to get into UCLA, but there are only certain limited spots, so I think UCLA gets more applicants than any other major university in the United States. Certainly some years that's true. Half of Brooklyn's indie artists had dads with IMDb pages. Even Succession's cousin Greg turned out to be the son of one of the guys who designed the Rolling Stones lips logo. Aghast, content creators got to work. An unwieldy phrase, but the child of a celebrity was reduced to a catchy buzzword, Nepo Baby. Okay, so resentment. Resentment that the world is unfair, a very easy emotion to tap into. It doesn't really get you anywhere. I'm all for embracing reality, and reality is that familial ties, racial ties, religious ties, ethnic ties, professional ties, educational ties, shape the world. Tiktokers produced multi-part series about Nepo Babies who resembled their famous parents. Exposes on people you didn't know were Nepo Babies. Everyone knew. At PSAs, urging celebrity parents to roast their Nepo Babies to keep them humble. Like psoriasis, the label was something you were born with, and those who had it found it equally irritating. Maude Apatow, daughter of Jud Apatow and Leslie Mann, told Porter Magazine the term made her sad. It filled Zoe Kravitz, daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet with deep insecurity. You don't want to unnecessarily decrease other people's resentment of you. So if you have advantages, if you have successes, it's good to be humble and nice and approachable. So I work background in many Hollywood movies and TV shows and most working actors, even celebrities of pretty nice people. They're very easy to get along with. There's kind of an ethos in Hollywood to get along with everyone. Because you never know the assistant that you work with today, maybe your producer or director tomorrow. So in general, Hollywood's incredibly open to outsiders. It's incredibly nice. People are really needlessly nasty. It's probably the nicest industry of which I'm aware. Because you're strongly incentivized to be nice. You never know and someone may have power over you. So if you are nice to people, if you're open to people, if you're generous with people, if you're not a jerk, then people are going to be much less likely to resent you. There are things you can do to reduce the odds of being sued. There are things you can do to increase the odds of being liked. Things that you can do to increase the odds of connecting with other people. There are things you can do to reduce the likelihood of other people intensely hating you. Scratching the itch could only make it worse. At 16, the model and actress li- Okay, it's not a good idea to complain publicly about people calling you a nepo baby. Or if you have any success, then not a good idea to complain publicly about the price of the success. Because that just incentivizes people to resent you. Well, the same house her mother, Vanessa Parity, worked with. The year before, she'd made her film debut alongside her father, Johnny Depp. In a November L profile, she brushed off suggestions that her path had been cleared for her. It just doesn't make any sense. The response was swift. On TikTok, floating heads begged Depp to shut up and stop being delusional. Her fellow models cascaded her on Instagram. I have many nepo baby friends whom I respect. The top model, Victoria Gerretti, wrote in an Instagram story. But I can't stand listening to you compare yourself to me. I was not born on a comfy, sexy pillow with a view. Okay, so good idea to go through life with an attitude of gratitude. I'd be grateful for all the advantages that you've received. People will find you much easier to deal with if you are happy and grateful. But you tend to be much more integrated into reality when you're grateful. You tend to make much better decisions. You tend to get along much better with other people. And when you have an attitude of gratitude, you cannot carry resentment, right? Once you feel grateful, you can't feel resentful. 40 running from a hug in the desert. Okay? So, if you are feeling angry and resentful, you cannot simultaneously feel grateful. If you feel grateful, you're just in a place where you're going to get along with people. You're going to be much more effective. You're going to discern reality much more clearly. Life is going to work better. Other people will enjoy your company more. And you will feel better at yourself. Intensity of the backlash may suggest we live in a world where bands of sans-coloss are roaming Pacific Palisades, rounding up anyone whose parents' names are blue on Wikipedia. In truth, Nepo babies have always been a fact of Hollywood. Today, they're not only abundant, they're thriving. Nepo babies aren't just a fact of Hollywood. Nepo babies are a fact of life. If you have parents who are athletic, you are much more likely to be athletic. If you have parents who are charming, you are much more likely to be charming. If you have parents who are good-looking, you are much more likely to be good-looking. If you have parents who have high-verbal IQs, you are much more likely than the average high-verbal IQ. Look, I can limit my hargan to after work and I've... Oh, Daniel Goldhagen. I don't think that imbibing Daniel Goldhagen is going to hurt you socially. It's not like consuming distant materials. You have my blessing to consume Daniel Goldhagen any day, any time. Liv Medley says I avoid ice cream. Oh, if only I'd followed Liv Medley's advice on all my long walks. I've been indulging in ice cream and so despite my abundant exercise, I am the same weight, 170 pounds, is when I arrived here. But at least for the past eight days in Tenham Sands, I've had no ice cream. And an industry of famous last name can be valuable intellectual property. A celebrity child brings an easy marketing hook as well as millions of TikTok followers who, if here he goes, will slide seamlessly from watching their wardrobe reveals to watching their war drama reels. Ang Lee tapped his son, Mason, for the starring role in it. So I had someone constantly offer me bread. And the more the bread was offered to me, like the less interested I was in eating bread. So many of my friends have come from the Seventh-day Adventist background. They're all into Seventh-day Adventist health reform. And they kind of wonder what the hell happened to me. I've been drinking diet orange Fanta while I'm in Tenham Sands. But here's where I'm makamir. Here's where I'm strict. I try to get plenty of protein and fat with every meal. So I don't like to eat meals that are 60, 70, 80% carbs. I try to go for an even amount of my calories coming from fat, from carbs, and from protein. And I'd rather eat an ice cream with lots of fat in it than, say, a popsicle that has almost no fat in it. It's Bruce Lee biopic. And 2021 saw two sons of actors, Michael Gandolfini and Cooper Hoffman. Those aren't meals if they're 70% carbs. It's terrible, but that's the diet I was raised with. It's an insane diet. But when I was growing up in Seventh-day Adventist war, there are quite a few of the most zealous health reformers who thought that an 80-10-10 diet was the healthiest one. 80% carbs, 10% fat, 10% protein. It's stupid. So why persist in the following? I don't. I avoid the point that I do not. I avoid that high carbohydrate diet. Now, other people may persist in it because they think it's healthy. They think it's the right thing to do. All right? And who am I to try to talk them out of it? There's no point. There's no point trying to argue with people. So I got suckered into giving a new resolution of, oh, I want to drop 10 pounds. And then the bloke says, oh, do you want to learn how to do it? He says, do you want my advice? I said, no. But he gave it to me anyway. I said, very distinctly, I don't want your advice. But he gave me, you know, his complicated theory on how to lose weight. No, thank you. Not sharing any more resolutions with you. It's amazing how people can be very nice and very seemingly well suited to you. But then they start piling on the unsolicited advice and I don't know, I just don't appreciate it. It kind of reminds me of my father. You're dearly departed father's footsteps. Streaming series such as Stranger Things, Never Have I Ever and the Sex Lives of College Girls may well be federally funded. Ah, so half-collision is reintroducing healthy amounts of butter. Remember when butter was really bad or saturated fats really bad? I mean, health advice is just constantly changing. Butterphobia killed this country. But remember school seems like there's a new educational fat every year. I grew up in 7th Adventist schooling that thought competition was just like of the devil. A strongly discouraged competition. As a result, I lost a lot of my incentive to compete in school. The French have butter, they have full fat cream, and every indulge the fat tells the brain you've had enough. Absolutely. There's a crazy war that we've had on unsaturated fat and butter. Projects for well-connected private school graduates. This year, small films such as I Am Ruth and Salmon Kate seemingly exist solely to paraphrase. Yeah, half-collision says I can't eat more than a single serving of Haagen-Dazs, but frozen yogurt you can order a large and still want another one. Strip out the fat, pump in the sugar. No safety signal to the brain that you fall. I agree. Amos actors with their less famous offspring. Kate Winslet and Mia Threepelton in the former. Dustin Hoffman, Jake Hoffman, Sissy Spasic, and Skyler Fisk in the latter. And that's just the working actors. Elsewhere, the celebrity media complex allows Brooklyn Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham, to headline Variety's young Hollywood issue without ever approaching anything you or I would recognize as a normal job. Nepo Baby. How could two little words cause so much conflict? A baby is a bundle of joy. A Nepo Baby is physical proof that meritocracy is a lie. No, it's not physical proof that meritocracy is a lie. It's physical proof that meritocracy is not the only explanation for how the world works. Meritocracy is part of the explanation for how the world works. Connections are just another part for how the world works. It's like America is a democracy. Yes, America has democratic elements. It also has dictatorial elements. It also has oligarchic elements. People just want these simple, either raw solutions either. You know, it's a meritocracy or the whole thing is fixed. And we need to develop more sophisticated top-down models as well as more sophisticated bottom-up models for how we work. We love them. We hate them. We disrespect them. We're obsessed with them in a single tweet. Oh, did you know that we're obsessed with Nepo Babies? I think only a tiny sliver of population is obsessed with Nepo Babies. I'd never heard the term before, but I've been doing hard-yacca. That's an Aboriginal word for hard work. If there's any group that knows about hard work, it's Aboriginals. The Australian Indigenous people are just famous for their work ethic. They're just famous for working hard, for their dedication, their conscientiousness with regard to work. So I've been putting in hard-yacca at the Garden Centre, hauling around fertilizer bags in the hot 80-degree sun. And listening to my Apple News Plus pieces. And this is one I found from New York Magazine, Nepo Babies. I thought this is important because it sheds light on wider issues that genetics matter and environment matters. Yeah, I got my current job at the Garden Centre via nepotism. And I've got a free place to stay here in Tannam Sands due to nepotism. And I had a free place to stay in Sydney due to nepotism. And 40 needs CAM stabilization. Okay, you want me to just leave it here? And I got invited back to the Rabbi's house for ethnic stabilization. The pixel count is really low. Yes, I'm using my cheap Aussie phone, my low-quality Aussie phone, because I've got a lot of cheap data on it. But I also recorded on my DJI Cam 2 some shorter videos with very high-quality picture. But I decided to do a live stream with this low-quality phone because I get the interaction. Yeah, when I think 40, I think 8K. Well, I did some 1080K recording videos that I'll upload later on. And you'll get to see the same picture, but in 1080 quality. February, a Canadian tech support worker named Mariam Derraji brought the idea of nebo babies into the public conversation. The 25-year-old was born in Montreal, but when she was 9, she and her family moved to Algeria. Right, we should just take it for granted that athletic parents are going to be more likely to be athletic. Now, I did not see the Jets lose. I was watching the Cowboys game. I thought they had it wrapped up on Monday morning, my time. I thought there's no way they can lose. And they lost. What a heartbreaking loss. I haven't watched any other NFL live. And the Test Cricket Match wrapped up over the weekend. Anyway, I love this story because obviously athletic ability is heavily genetic. Musical ability is heavily genetic. Cognitive ability is heavily genetic. Criminal ability is heavily genetic. Criminal parents are more likely to have criminal kids. So genetics doesn't account for everything, but it is a powerful window into the world. She spent three years there with no internet cut off from pop culture. When she returned to Canada as a tween, plugging back in was like taking a starving man to a cheesecake factory. In 2013, she joined Twitter and enlisted on the side of the barbs, Nicki Minaj's obsessive protective Stan army. So it's a lot easier to hang out in Outback Australia. Ford needs to give the De Niro lines from Casino, which, oh, lots of holes in the desert. But anyway, it's a lot easier to hang out in rural remote Outback Australia when you have high speed internet. You still feel connected to the way to work. So I remember I lived out here for a year after high school. And yeah, it felt much more remote then. There were only two TV channels. There was the commercial channel, Channel 7. And then there was the ABC, the government channel. And there are about four radio stations, except at night you could pick up about another 10 radio stations. But I'd have to scan through the Australian national newspaper to find the NFL results. But yeah, the way to work seemed much more remote back then. But now we've got high speed internet even here in Tenum Sands. And I'm able to keep up with my Wall Street Journal subscription. The thing about adding a financial time subscription, like it costs $40 a month. There seems to be a lot of great material in it. So I'm already spending about $150 a month on those subscriptions. So that's $150 a month. That would pay for a typical Tenum Sands household's water bill for, I think, three months or six months. I don't pay monthly for new subscriptions. Here she learned how to speak fluent internet, crafting tweets that would push people's buttons. The stirrer over Hollywood nebitism had been... Yeah, that's how you get traction in social media. You push people's buttons. You provoke people. The more intense the emotional reaction you receive from people, the more likely your contributions are to go viral. Done to percolate at the start of the pandemic, which both supercharged the backlash against celebrities and heightened the salience of their dynastic ties. So there's only one Jew. You are good at provoking reactions from people. So there's only one Jew I know of in Tenum Sands and Boine Island. They don't want to be known as Jewish. They flee from me. So I'm about to head into Osabbath with no synagogue around for 450 miles. So a one Jew in town does not want to be known as Jewish. So it's a bit of a shock when the locals see some bloke ambling around wearing a yarmulke and his seat seat out. Famous families were quarantining together. Even the most exalted stars felt a little bit de-list ripe. I was kind of hurt when I went back to Australia in 2014 for three and a half weeks and then returned to Shul and people said, oh, you know, I would have thought you'd just given everything up. Mate, just because I go to Ozzy, just go out back. All right? Doesn't mean I'm just going to give everything up. And I don't fall apart just because there's no Shul around. But yeah, Shub is a lone socks, right? Yeah, definitely like plugging into the Jewish community. I really like being around Jews. I don't like to go a week without Jews, but I'm going to go three weeks without Jews and I'm going to plug back in in Sydney in two weeks. For the plucking. It didn't take much to set off a round of discourse. A deadline article about a short film called The Right Way, directed by Steven Spielberg's daughter, starring Sean Penn's son and written by Stephen King's son. Have you seen the new Steven Spielberg movie, The Fair Woman's? Steve Saylor says it's a pretty boring movie about Steven Spielberg's incredibly privileged, non-dramatic childhood. That's why we read Torah Monday and Thursday. Jews can't go three days without hearing Torah. Spurred days of online controversy. As Doraji caught up with the conversation, a lot of things started to make sense. She often passed time watching catwalk videos. You would see models walk super well. And then there's Kindle Jenner walking and you're like, oh my gosh, it's really bad. She says, how bad? She walks like a normal person. Like many Zoomers, Doraji watched Euphoria and absorbed everything about it online. She wasn't a particular fan of Maude Apatow's character. Her acting wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special. And when she discovered both of the actress's parents. Yeah, I don't like being instructed unless I'm in the mood for being instructed. It's like, I don't like being arrested unless I'm in the mood to be arrested. It's just something about being instructed without solicitation reminds me of my father. Once had Wikipedia entries of their own, she fired off a tweet. Wait, I just found out that the actress that plays Lexi is a nepotism baby, OMG. Her mom is Leslie Mann and her dad is a movie director, LOL. Her tweet received more than 4,000 likes, but the more important figure was the 2,500 plus quote tweets, mostly from millennials and Gen Xers and Kretsch. I've only lived with a woman once for about four months in Orlando, Florida when I was 27, but you really get to learn something about yourself when you're living with a woman and she noticed that my chest would flush red whenever I thought I was being talked down to. When you remind Luke of his father, he does things like a virtue Judaism. But yeah, when people talk to me like I'm stupid or when people instruct me without that being their appropriate role and without me soliciting it, it does not bring the best out of me, but at least I don't like the thing, I don't have the super strong negative reactions to this that I used to have for anyone who reminded me of my father. Now I've moderated, I've become more tender and gentle. I used to just have a really strong reaction to anyone who reminded me of my father. Now I just have a somewhat strong reaction to people when they remind me of my father. Oh, so I'm spending so much time around family that I just had to get away. I'm used to spending vast quantities of my day on my own. You remind me of my father, I hate my father. So now I just have to get away, just to get out here all alone on the beach, right? I can't see anyone for miles. I need my alone time, just me and my phones and my five loyal viewers. Someone had gotten to Judd Apatow through Maud Apatow, prompted by the hubbub. Judd Apatow's publisher publications wrote explainers on the subject of nebo babies, and soon no celebrity child could do press without getting grilled on their parentage. To Dharaji's critics, few of whom were aware that she had been a child living in North Africa during Apatow's heyday. She was emblematic of Gen Z. Hey, I'm just curious, when a bloke invites you over for coffee so that you can see his etchings, do you go for that? At the time I went for that, I ended up with a sore backside. So when some bloke says, I'll come over, you know, I'll give you coffee and you can look at my paintings. Does that fill you with joy? Or does that fill you with foreboding? I mean, where do you stand on, you know, blokes inviting you over for coffee and etchings? Yeah, do not go over to that bloke's house. Ten inch etchings, God forbid. But, you know, he says he's got lovely etchings and I don't really drink coffee, but he'd probably provide me with tea. I'm just not really sure I'm in the mood for a lot of etchings right now. It's naivety. In turn, the anger her tweet stirred up was partly attributable to older generations' discomfort with their own cultural irrelevant. The pot stirrer and her couldn't help a bill. So the great news is I'm still attractive to 60-year-old women. The bad news is I don't seem to still be pulling in the under 40 women. Drink the etchings tea and wake up three hours later violated, God forbid, and missing a kidney. That's what I'm concerned about. A little proud. If you called out a nepo baby online, they might be forced to respond. Whatever you say could get the attention of those nepotism kids. Yeah, only if you do it on Twitter. Twitter is the most direct way to interact with people way above you in social status. Everett says, I have your report. I'm attracted to girls my own age, which is millennial women. Okay, so millennial means, what, born in the 1970s? It's, get a reaction out of them, she says. You can trace the origins of the modern backlash to two pivotal events. First, the girls' wars of 2012 in which nepotism allegations became tangled up in discourses around race, misogyny, and privilege. Discourses. My God, when... 1980s, okay. 1980s is... and very early 90s. Those are... the millennials. And whenever I start hearing about discourses, I get nervous. Man, sitting in the sand and my bum. Oi. Oi. My bum. I didn't bring my super sophisticated... whatever it is, thingamajig. But... my algo gave me some random video of you and Neil Strauss from 2007. Yeah, I remember that. Well, see, he was thinking of... he told me he was thinking of calling me out to work on a... a book together. But Neil was an absolute delight to talk to. Aren't they actually satirizing people with zero black friends? Second, the Operation Varsity Blues scandal of 2019, which revealed the underhanded methods by which celebrities like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman sought to get their children into high-ranking universities. By exposing the inner workings of the process in humiliating detail. Oh, really shocking that people would go to great lengths to try to help their children get ahead. Was I in the poor community? No. But I... I... went to Neil Strauss' talks or I... I covered some edges of the Pickup Artist community when I was writing a daily blog about this industry. Now, Neil Strauss' book on relationships I think... so the game was about pickup but then he did a follow-up about five years ago on relationships and talked about going to rehab for sex addiction. That was a powerful book. One of the earliest instances of nepotism baby being shortened to nebo baby appears in a 2020 post from the blog Pop Culture Died in 2009 which describes Olivia Jade as our era's answer to bling-ring icon Alexis Haynes. While Haynes embodied the odds on a second... So, what are the best ways to spend Shabba's in Tenon Sands? I do have a question. What is the best way to spend Shabba's in Tenon Sands? I do have a sex addiction says Everett. Well, you may want to check out one of a dozen different 12-step sex addiction programs. 40 is enacting the footprints poem on every greeting card. Scoppa Lameen is what women put in male traveller's drinks in Brazil. You generally wake up with your credit cards missing, maybe your kidney. Oi! Dangerous world out there. So, facing five hours of Shabbat without... without juice. So, definitely spend it with family. Definitely spend it on long walks by the beach. Definitely spend it reading books. Maybe a little napping. Maybe some dovening. Hybrid of sleaze and looks. Olivia Jade exposed the lie at the heart of relatable social media fame. The stars pretending to be just like you and me whilst shacked in a palace in... Whoa! So, you mean that stars and public personalities who pretend to be just like you and me aren't really like you and me? You mean that actors act? You mean that social media stars are performing? You mean that what I'm doing right now is just not a casual conversation with Lokes, but there's an element of performance here? Who I am off camera is somewhat different than who I am on camera? Shocking! I don't know why anyone wouldn't be fascinated by status. Status is probably the most important thing in people's lives that people are most reluctant to talk about. Status is probably the most powerful force driving people that they are the most reluctant to talk about. People would rather talk about their sex lies, their bank accounts, all sorts of things. All sorts of private and personal things. But to admit to how much they want status. To how humiliating it is to lose status. I think people are probably more reluctant to admit this basic force of life, this basic fact of life, this driving power in life. I think people are probably more reluctant to admit the role that status plays than any other single thing. What am I missing? Where else are people incredibly driven by some powerful force that they are highly reluctant to disclose? I mean Tom Wolf made a search for status like the underlying through line of almost all his work. He said there are four components of compelling writing. Multiple points of view, detailed scene by scene construction, liberal use of realistic dialogue and pay close attention to status details. So no, I don't think that status is just something that some people are interested in. I think everyone is. But we want status in different areas. The religious leader wants status for his great religiosity and then his neighbor wants status for being a great car mechanic and then their neighbor wants status for their accomplishments in fishing. We want status in different areas but we all want to avoid humiliation which is a loss of status. How is your status being in humiliation avoiding going these days? So I'm listening to an article in New York magazine here on the NEPO babies. Bloody heck. These include figures like Lina Dono whose artist parents supplied the necessary cultural capital as well as industry babies like Billy Eilish daughter of a voice actress and Kristen Stewart who lives on the Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. The Hadid sisters are a tricky case as with that other famous Palestinian Jesus Christ the benefits of the filial relationship literally flew both ways and we can probably draw a line when it comes to figures like Paris Hilton for whom the term rich people is already sufficient. The NEPO babies path to stardom begins when they're a literal baby. They're in a series of highly visible tablets. So even NEPO babies it's a pain in humiliation nobody has it easy people will have it easier than us but once you get to know their life better if you recognize they also have all sorts of pain that we don't have. The rituals, we're expecting photos birthday parties, holidays as they age into adolescence the mere fact that they physically resemble their famous parents is a news event on par with a closely fought primary in the past. It's a news event for some other people don't really care I never thought about NEPO babies I never resented NEPO babies just hasn't come up for me I find the story interesting because it shares lives on wider issues how important genetics are and how important the acculturation environment imprinting is and the world is run on these invisible ties of family, race, religion, ethnicity, school 5 years people.com has written no fewer than 17 articles about how Eva Philippi looks like her mother Reese Witherspoon. Why does people magazine do this because there's an enormous audience for this people naturally interested in lives of royalty and America's royalty are celebrities there can be delicious shot and footage in the realization that far more than most of us a NEPO baby's destiny is determined by a spin on the genetic roulette wheel the model Kaia Gerber has all of us have lives determined by a spin on the genetic wheel we are all the product of our genes and our environment there's a tremendous element of chance there it's a huge picture of the universe and how it has been done in the past and the story is far more about not laughing at meニce We are all the product of our genes but we are all the product of our genes went from an object, most notable for her unusual name, to a subject by issuing sassy clap-backs on her mother's posts. Kate Beckinsale's daughter, Lily Moe Sheen, made headlines for posting selfies with her boyfriend, who fans thought resembled her father, Michael Sheen. But if they want to stick around into adulthood, an ambitious nebo baby must soon justify their place in the Hollywood moment. How can they begin to prove themselves? Traditionally, mom and dad? Yeah, so nepotism will usually get you a step in the door. But in the end, I'm going to be up to you. Sink a swim on your own merits. I've helped out. Apatow is the latest in a long line of directors' children who got big breaks in their parents' projects. One that stretches at least as far back as 1969 when a teenage Angelica Houston made her debut in her father's film Along with Love and Death. The disgraced screenwriter Max Landis got his first credit alongside his father on an episode of Masters of Horror. Jake Kasdan co-wrote the behind-the-scenes book for his father's film Wider. Hulk was one of many actresses who auditioned for a small part in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but she was the only one whose self-tape co-starred Ethan Hawke. Yeah, just because you get a step in the door, that doesn't mean you're going to stay around. All right, we all have advantages and disadvantages. But in the end, if you're unpleasant or incapable, if you're a jerk to be around, you're probably not going to last very long. Okay. Hopefully the only one who received an extra tight hug and a wink from Quentin after her callback. When Witherspoon told her friend Mindy Kaling that her son, Egan in Philippi, was interested in acting, Kaling cast him as a prep school cutie in two episodes of Never Have I Ever in which he did an impressive job of not staring directly into the camera. He's obviously so talented and he's great looking, and we just thought he would be great. Wow, so just imagine that. Celebrity's children tend to be better looking than the average, but never have thought that. Killing door variety. In a rough study, approximately 100% of celebrities' children were hailed by their collaborators as talented, humble, and ready to put in the work. No bomb back. We're called going through audition after audition and all the callbacks to find actors who would play Adam Driver's children in white noise, only to land upon these two Nivola kids, Sam and Mae, whose parents are Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola. Yeah, so if you grow up in Hollywood, if you're familiar with the norms of Hollywood, if you speak at the lingo of Hollywood, yeah, you'd probably be more pleasant and easier to have around. They were just so wonderful. Donald Glover praised Malia Obama's work ethic in the writer's room for his upcoming Amazon series, telling Vanity Fair, her writing style is great. Such quotes often appear in the Nebo Baby's traditional coming out party, a profile in a glossy magazine. The Nivola's recently got one in The New Yorker. The hottest trend in media right now is the intergenerational team up, which GQ has made a specialty, running spreads of John C. Riley, posing with his model musician son, Love Leo, and Pierce Brosnan alongside his new model musician filmmaker sons Dylan and Paris. Michael Obama, a few brave Nebo babies, step outside their parents' chosen field. The bravest don't try to become famous at all. Bruce Springsteen's son is a firefighter, while Willem Defoe's is a law clerk. Cassie David made her name through funny Instagram captions, which prompted 2017 era headlines like, I wish I was Larry David's cool daughter and landed her a book deal. Gordon Ramsay's daughter Holly started a podcast about young people's mental health, which helped get her signed to CAA. Presumably, the 300,000 plus TikTok followers didn't hurt either. Sometimes capturing the internet's attention for a moment is enough. After Kamala Harris' stepdaughter Ella M. Hoff showed up at the inauguration, looking like a Goth Margot tenant bomb. She landed a modeling deal, which led to her walk in New York Fashion Week, and being not ready to commit to one. And in the end, there you are. You still have to face life on your own. You still have to look at yourself in the mirror. You still have to stand on your own two feet. You still have to provide a reason for people to want you around the fashion. The industry can provide a buffet of August 2020. Isadora Doa, Birakha daughter Barney, the then 17 year old daughter of Bjork and Matthew Barney, was cast alongside her mother in Robert Beggars' The Northman. On a plausible basis that the role called for a specific type of medieval north singing that only someone related to Bjork So I've had a lot of advantages being a Desmond Ford Son. A lot of doors opened up for me, like a lot of kindness was shown to me, a lot of opportunities were given to me due to being Des Ford Son. And being Des Ford Son also came with some prices. But anything I'd say or do is much more likely to get back to my father. There was like a different level of behavior that was expected from me. Overall, being Desmond Ford Son was a pretty nice thing. I've certainly enjoyed nepotism, having good relations with my brother and sister and stepmother and relations, relatives who host me. So I've taken advantage of nepotism as far as it'll take me. Doa received her first magazine profile in the British Quarterly, The Face. I remember when my father was on trial at Glacier View in 1980 as one leading member of the church. Luke is going for the crocodile dundee look. He missed out on the earthquake in California. Yeah, apparently two people died at 6.4 in Humboldt. So yeah, in 1980 when my father was on trial with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a leading member of the church that came to our cabin at this Glacier View retreat in near Denver, Colorado, and he was like so emotionally moved by all the drama regarding my father. He said to me that if I ever wanted to go to medical school, he'd pay for it. Unfortunately, I never had any inclination or talent in that direction. I've never really had any athletic talent. I've never been much above average. I mean, I had endurance. I forced myself to finish my marathons, but there's nothing special about my times. Perhaps the closest I came to a modicum of athletic talent was at age 19. I could give a good game to a member of the Nevada Union High School tennis team. So I mean, he played tennis at a really high level, and I was kind of surprised to find myself, you know, had the ability to kind of play up to the level he was at. So that was, that was about the highest athletic achievement I've ever had. In April, the Northman flopped, but never mind. In July, Doha signed a modeling contract with Mew Mew. This is the Neville Babies Redo. At first, you don't succeed. Remember, you're still a celebrity's child, so try, try again. No one exemplifies this maxim better than Brooklyn Beckham. In the words of the Guardian's Marina Hyde, a celebrity's scion incapable of having what other mortals might regard as amateur hobbies without considering them recent professional empires. At 23, Beckham has already cycled through aborted attempts to follow in his parents' footsteps in the worlds of football and modeling. He next tried to become a professional photographer, releasing a coffee table book full of out of focus pictures of elephants. What's going on in the United States? So following the news, I saw that Ukraine's leaders, Zelensky, spoke to Congress. So is the support for Ukraine just as strong and popular as ever? I mean, if Russia gets its act together and absolutely crushes Ukraine, I assume that would be devastating for the Biden administration in its prestige. But on the other hand, I'd have to think that a lot of Europeans and Americans are getting sick of, one, the dangers of nuclear war that we're escalating by subsidizing Ukraine, and two, in much higher energy prices that we're having to pay due to this war. So I think that there'd have to be some kind of growing pushback to our subsidizing Ukraine's battle with Russia. And the January 6 committee report came out today. I can't say I've paid much mind. I'd be curious to see if Kevin McCarthy gets off this House Majority Leader, speaker of the House, average behavioral patterns IQ, temperament of any given group, heavily affect society. Yeah, absolutely. So society and cultures and religions are primarily the results of genetics combined with a particular environment. Then he was a chef, a career he embarked upon despite possessing a level of culinary talent most commonly seen in. Nepotism is healthy and keeping your lands homogeneous. Yeah, I'm sure there are many advantages to nepotism. And there are many advantages to elements of meritocracy as well. They are not exclusive. It's not like one or the other. They both have a significant role to play. So in the Jewish tradition, meritocracy does not allow you to have a priestly status. Priestly status is only handed on by your father. It's carried on by the father. It's not carried on by the mother. So if your father was a Kohane, you're a Kohane. Count by your way into Kohane status. And Buzzfeed videos. While these endeavors have not been successful in the traditional sense, they have enabled him to amass 14.6 million followers on Instagram, where the only important metric is the one thing an apple baby is assured of on the basis of their name. Attention. Yeah, but how many of those 14.6 million followers on Instagram are born? That may very well be the 14 million of those followers are born. You can buy followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. Zero hedge, maybe airline, maybe travel costly, climate change, lockdowns. Yeah, thanks for up about keeping me up to date on the edgy news. We have all heard the anti-anti-nepotism argument. France has decided to completely ban certain short-haul flights in an attempt to reduce or carbon emissions. Yeah, and Australia is subsidizing more and more green energy attempts and very expensive. And this is coming from the conservative ruling party in the South Wales. Yeah, I went swimming yesterday. So I've been swimming twice. There are sharks around, but you go about, you go out to see there's, there's a sand bank. So you don't get big waves here in tandem. And I think just out to see a little further, you get the beginnings of the Great Barrier Reef. But there's never been a shark attack here in tandem sands. Oh, smells great and eucalyptus in summer. I just love the smell of eucalyptus in summer. I lived here for a year. And then aside from that, I spent about six months of my life here. First came here in 1982 and came for a year in 1984-85. Came back for four months in 89-90. And then a few weeks here, a few weeks later in 2000-2014-2021. Sure, children of the famous may have an advantage at the beginning, but eventually talent will win out. Well, that's true, mate. That's true. Those who can't hack it will fade away while the truly gifted nobodies will be discovered if they only keep at it. This is ludicrous, Fran Liebowitz wrote in a 1997 issue of Vanity Fair. Getting in the door is pretty much the entire game, especially in movie acting, which is after all, hardly a profession notable for its rigor. Yeah, but if you can't produce results, you can't make someone feel something. You're not going to have much of a career as a movie actor, even if your dad's Steven Spielberg. Liebowitz brought this up in service of a metaphor about structural racism. Just as the children of celebrities got a leg up from the fact that they physically resembled people who were already famous, so too did America's whites benefit from fitting the nation's mental image of who should be in charge. In this context, being a nebo baby is the Cadillac of privilege. We prefer people who look like us, sound like us, have our values, have our standards of right and wrong, with whom we feel comfortable. People prefer people like themselves genetically, culturally, religiously, racially, ethically. Nobody's got it better. Those in a position to know often agree with Liebowitz's assessment. They don't realize how lucky they are because this is their world, says one talent manager who has worked with you. None of us realize how lucky we are. How lucky are we that we have functioning arms and legs and eyes and ears. To be indifferent to our privileges is to be human. Multiple celebrity offspring. I am very transparent with my clients that there are steps they need to take to be able to be relevant past the 15 second mark. It's not just about your clout. Where is your resume? A lot of them are working toward their own thing, but at times they're trying to bypass the steps a person coming from nowhere would have to do. Having been spared the seasoning of everyday hardship, a nebo baby can often seem guppy-ish, unformed. Pauline Cale once wrote of Peter Fonda, he doesn't have a core of tension. Something in him is still asleep. Yeah, and the self-made can get on your nerves because they have to continually remind you that they are self-made. No one handed them anything on a silver platter. They work for everything they got. They tend frequently to be graceless, to be stingy, to be self-centered. It's not like a life of privilege or a life of being self-made just inherently makes people pleasant to be around. Yeah, Fonda isn't self-made. Apps always will be. It's no surprise so many nebo babies get their start as models, the manager says. The child doesn't have to open their mouth. I've learned that once they start speaking, the public doesn't go along for the ride. So I remember when I recovered from six years of chronic fatigue syndrome, I had a girlfriend who'd worked at the Ford modeling agency and she said, I need to get into modeling. So I moved to LA, took a bunch of shots, went on a bunch of photo auditions, got an agent, had some callbacks, but never had any success as a male model or as an actor. They say. The more they talk, the more unrelatable they become. The most self-aware among them have the savviness to play against type, but that creates its own problems. On Instagram, a lot of them are not necessarily showcasing their life as a socialite. They're like, oh my god, look at me at this dive bar. Girl, weren't you? Oh no, you've seen the last Luke Ford acting greenhouse. I didn't display much talent. I remember in acting class, people would tell me that I'm out of the role. I always would play it like a serial killer. This is before I had the Alexander technique, before I had my voice lessons. Ah, I was singing the other day at the garden center. I was singing as I worked and my family's used to me having a terrible singing voice, but I've been taking voice lessons. Why isn't it both your father's and mother's blood taken into account? Wouldn't time and trouble cause your blood to be mis-explanated out of existence if just the father's blood is taken into consideration? It's just the law, the custom, that it's easier to know. Well, I'm sure there's many explanations for the priestly status and why it just comes from the father's, but that's just how it is. So I think their advantage is to like aristocratic genetic lineage. There's a time and a role for that, that there are roles in a tribe that you can't buy your way into or you can't walk your way into. There's advantages to an aristocratic way of dealing things. There's advantages to meritocratic and you don't have to be exclusive. There's this place for both. Just on a yacht last night within the industry. Oh, anyway, so I was singing and there was a 15 year old girl there. I said, do I have a nice singing voice? She said yes. Maybe she didn't want to ruffle the feathers of the boss's brother. Maybe she just really appreciated my singing. Anyway, I've been, I've had voice lessons. I've been doing these voice exercises. Maybe I've rediscovered something. Maybe she's just being polite. Yeah, girls tend to be nice. Yeah, the co-hane, the priestly lineage is patrilineal. Well, to be a Jew in Orthodox Judaism, it only comes from the mother. So in the traditional Jewish understanding, someone born of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is not Jewish and they're not a co-hane. Someone born of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father is Jewish. So this was switched about 2,000 years ago when a lot of Jewish women were getting raped. So 2,500 years ago, 3,000 years ago, you were considered Jewish if you'd simply had a Jewish father. But the rabbis changed things around 2,000 years ago when a lot of Jewish women were getting raped and they changed from patrilineal to matrilineal descent. There is little use in being subtle about the familial strength. So Israel now has a new right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition and they're considering making changes to who is a Jew, making it more restrictive. So currently, I think anyone with either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father, or even a reform or reconstructionist conversion to move. France decided to completely end short-haul flights to reduce, I assume, carbon emissions. Someone once said to me, we should hire so-and-so because their parents will come to the opening night. So I noticed that the rich are increasingly giving up owning their own private planes because it's reasonably easy to track what private planes are doing. So now it seems like a new thing for the rich to do is simply to rent planes to preserve some privacy. Says the veteran casting director, the need to maintain relationships can ease a famous child's path through the door. But the agency will write and say, this is so-and-so's kid and you understand that to mean, so you have to see this kid. If the Nepal baby is obviously untalented, it usually ends there. I've learned to... I think it'd be fun to be a volunteer firefighter. Like, if I had the time, a volunteer firefighter would be awesome. Like, you would bond with other people. So it's, you know, one of the best cures for loneliness is to volunteer. Yeah, as long as the person who's instructing you isn't a jerk, I think being a volunteer firefighter would be pretty awesome. Simply say, not right for the role, but lovely. There are a number of veiled responses rather than saying, are you guys kidding me? The casting director puts it lovely. A lot of the children and famous people are not good. How often are they meeting with them? God, there have been so many over the course of my life. They once met with an aspiring actress who was the daughter of two movie stars. There was something else that walked in the room with her, they say. Like, my parents are famous and I'm here because somebody told me to meet you. A lovely person, but definitely a sense of entitlement. She laughed and I... Well, we all have a sense of entitlement. It just comes out in different situations. A sense of entitlement is not something you need to nepo baby's. I was like, that person doesn't excite me. The struggle isn't there. You don't think after I was named Hustler Magazine's asshole of the month for its Christmas 2000 or it was a 1999 issue that I developed a sense of entitlement from there. This is not always a deal breaker. Afterward, the daughter booked the role that made her a household. Yeah, a lot of people are out here digging for clams. I'm not into like that kind of annual labor. I'm not into fishing and hunting. I'm more cerebral. I like the life of the mind. Long lonely walks on the beach with my phones talking to my loyal seven viewers. Despite suspicions, you don't always know someone's background. A while back, a young actress with a famous family but a common last name came in to read for her first lead role. I had no idea who she was as the casting director. I don't know why I didn't get the memo. From my vantage point, she won that job fair and square. The actress's performance wasn't... Yeah, it's going to be a little tough coming back to Los Angeles and the much lower quality of life and dramatically higher rates of crime. Probably 20 times the crime rate of tennis and social dislocation, the homelessness, the graffiti, the antisocial behavior, the rampant dysfunction, the antagonisms between people, the cultural wars, the suspicion, the incoherent society, the dislocation. Yeah, it might be a little bit of an adjustment. I'll take refuge in the fuzzle of the Orthodox Jewish community where things are relatively coherent and cohesive. Why be acclaimed and she became a major star. The casting director laments changes in the industry that have perhaps enabled the nebo babies rise. I don't think people know or understand what acting is anymore. What's in the bag? So I've got my DJI Pocket 2 with its clip on portable mic and power cords, extra power source. I've got wipes for my... I've got my sunnies, my sunglasses in there, wipes for my glasses and for my phone covers and that's about it. What about meeting that Aussie Jewish... oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that Aussie Jewish girl who interviewed me. Della, something like that. I hadn't thought about that. They said, with the advent of streaming and social media, the big screen no longer rules. Yeah, there are a lot of people I'm acquainted with who I just haven't looked up, haven't stopped that from aspiring to want to meet, but I should probably make a little bit more of an effort. Watch this crap and they think that what they're watching is good. I like hanging with people, meeting up with people. I also enjoy a lot of time on my own. I also enjoy a lot of time on my own, live streaming, while blogging, while journaling, while reading. They mimic what that is, the casting director says. And it's not good. That devolution explains why it may feel as though there are so many more well-born mediocrities that never-be-full standards are merely lower. There have always been tons of well-born mediocrities and during the days of royalty and aristocracy, there were tons of them. We need not sign on to the fiction that Nebo babies actually have at worse to acknowledge that there are elements of their lives we wouldn't trade for our own. Nobody treats you seriously, filmmaker Owen Klein, son of Kevin Klein and Phoebe Cates, told The Guardian. Nothing like collecting smooth coloured glass on shorelines under an apricot sky. September. No one wants to read someone's kids thing. Others taking you seriously doesn't necessarily cure the anxiety. For a long time I wondered whether my career had come to me because of my own talents or because of some kind of genteel nebitism. A 30-something Jeff Bridges told the authors of Hollywood Dynasties. The guilt caused big problems for me. The kind of singer... This period of my life one of the most enjoyable. Yes, but it's a very gentle form of joy. Like as opposed to the periods of my life where I was having a lot of success and fame and making money or going to a different party every night. So this is a gentle laid back kind of joy, but I also enjoyed being right in the middle of things where every night I'm going to some rider gathering, book readings, Los Angeles Press Club events, going to debates, lectures. I mean that's also available in Los Angeles and I love that too. So I don't think I could live here. Guys, how do you know if somebody really likes you? Some Nepo babies take this vulnerability and use it. The struggle is the spice that finally makes them interesting. And others, it's the thing that gets in their way. The industry's original Nepo baby was Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Son of Douglas senior and step son of Mary Pickford. When the 1920s were arguably the most famous people on the planet. Sensing the power of good name Paramount's Jesse Alaska handed the 13-year-old a $1,000 contract and set about trying to make him a star. Like many who followed in his footsteps, Fairbanks Jr. The bridge is the streets of San Francisco. Oh yeah, Michael Douglas starred in that. So watching TV was kind of frowned upon in my seventh advent as upbringing, but when the parents were away, I was over at a friend's house. He'd often thrilled watching the streets of San Francisco while keeping an eye on the parking lot for when the parents drive up. You're never came close to equaling his father's legacy, but he had a long career, was briefly married to Joan Crawford and seemed entirely at ease with his station in life. I have since maturity known full well the limits of my capabilities. So in The Fableman's you've got the movie director John Ford who says that when the horizon is at the top of the screen, like right now, that's interesting framing. And when the horizon's at the bottom of the screen, like right now, that's also interesting framing. But when the horizon's in the middle of the screen, like now, that's boring framing. He wrote in his memoir, the younger Fairbanks who was mobbed by adoring throngs upon his arrival in Los Angeles likely escaped the backlash that hits today's Neppo babies. Though presumably there were a few bitchy telegrams sent about him. Those who came after were often treated as tragic figures. Take Frank Sinatra Jr. While Frank hung out with criminals in a cool way, Jr. did it in an extremely uncool way. He got kidnapped. That reminds me of Ernest Hemingway and poor Johnson's remark about Hemingway that for Hemingway, there was a moral way to drink and an immoral way to drink, a moral way to have adultery, an immoral way to have adultery. There was a moral way to kill and an immoral way to kill that there was a moral way to walk down the street, an immoral way. Hemingway had a sort of aesthetic sense of morality. It wasn't until the late 60s when second-gen stars like Liza Minnelli and Jane Fonda came onto the scene. Liza Minnelli was so nice. So I was working as a Hasidic extra. So I had payers, you know, the sidewalks, dressed up as a Hasidic Jew for a Liza Minnelli movie. And it was, I think, 1995. And during downtime on the movie, Liza Minnelli and I would just sit on the sidewalk, you know, with our feet on the street and sit on the edge of the sidewalk there and just chat and laugh. She was so fun and a lovely lady. I must have reminded her of Peter Allen. And then when I went to an event at the Sephardic Temple in Westwood that night, I kept down my payers just for a laugh and people said, oh, you've become really religious. The first celebrity kids were able to climb out of Hollywood's primordial soup and each was aated by a natural divide, separating them from their famous parent, Fonda, by working in Europe. So how much time do you need alone each day? So I remember telling my therapist that I made sure to get a minion every morning so that I got some social time. He said an hour a day, that's not enough. Normal people spend, you know, six, eight, 10 hours a day around other people. So I'm usually happier when I push myself to spend more time around other people than comes naturally. But I certainly like, I don't really like, say, three hours alone a day. Probably that's optimal three or four, unless I'm engaged and say a particularly important riding project, then maybe five or six. By the somewhat more dramatic distance, studying our obsession with multi-generational stars, it's just a continuance of our obsession with multi-generational royalty. Royalty almost by definition is multi-generational. I'm always with the little yellow man in my head. Yeah, I like time alone, but my mind's a dangerous neighborhood that I shouldn't enter alone. So in the morning, I'm usually energized and optimistic. But at night, I got to leave that audible book running. They particularly want to be alone with my thoughts. Where did I see a good, oh, Washington Post today had some tips on how to be at ease with yourself, with your own thoughts. And so it's suggested writing down topics that you'd like to muse on so that you can make them say positive or uplifting and think about things you want to do on vacation or books you want to read or books you want to write. But I like that idea. You need to make notes things to muse on because I don't know about you. If I just allow my mind to wander, not, it does tend to calm you down like solitude and just letting your mind wander. It calms you down, but I like a little more direction. So I like that idea of making notes on topics to think upon when you're on alone. Like Eva Maria Shorginhuber argues that celebrity children function as living links to a shared pop culture history, connecting us to a nostalgic vision of the past. You can see this keenly in the types of Nebo babies the culture does like Manelli, Mariska Hargitay or Freddie Prinze Jr. who all had a parent die in tragic circumstances. Garner a respect, not scorn for following in their footsteps, laggers to inhabitants of them. So I didn't bring my CPAP with me up to Tenem Sands. I left it behind in Sydney. It's a bit of a hassle to drag it around. So I'm not getting the same quality sleep that I had in Sydney. And in a tropical environment, I'm usually enjoying a nap after lunch every day. It's not a long one, only about 20-30 minutes. Thus exempt from the tasteless striving that defines celebrity children of a more recent vintage. Well, people are at ease with who they are. People who like themselves, they're a lot easier to like. Hitchcock Blonde. We often talk about the it factor, the otherworldly charisma that stars like Clara Bow exhibited in front of a camera. As the career of Chet Hanks makes abundantly clear, this quality is not guaranteed to be passed down through the generations. But it can be off-putting to discover that it may indeed be hereditary to see as Zoe Kravitz or Kate Hudson display that same intangible sparkle you saw in their parents. They walk in the room and they have this thing, says the casting director. They just know. They literally know. You're drawn to that and you're a little bit afraid of it because it's bigger than you. Yeah, so guess what? Talent's abilities are going to be largely genetic. Much of who we are is kind of cast in the jeans. We're not born with a blank slate. Okay, that's it. I gotta get ready for Shabbat. Bye-bye.