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Are you or are you not a Bezos?

2021-07-24T10:07:38.302Z


When Jeff Bezos flew in his rocket, he became the international (interstellar?) Symbol of the male with the midlife crisis.


Jacob Bernstein

07/23/2021 15:08

  • Clarín.com

  • The New York Times International Weekly

Updated 07/23/2021 3:08 PM

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole thing is that it was not so remarkable at all: another Tuesday.

Another billionaire businessman who pays to catapult into space.

However, the vision of

Jeff Bezos

, in his beige cowboy hat and blue spacesuit (with a custom Omega Speedmaster on his sleeve as if he were

Buzz Aldrin

), high-fiving the astronauts and speaking deeply of the experience afterward, it resonated in a way that Sir

Richard Branson's

wild journey failed

.

Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press

It

took

Amazon

just 27 years to grow into a

$ 1.8 trillion

company

.

Depending on the swings in the stock market, Bezos is either the richest man or the

second richest man in

the world.

However, it has become so without reaching a mystical chord.

He hasn't been, like Tesla CEO

Elon Musk

, host of "Saturday Night Live" and he's managed to do a surprisingly good job at it.

He hasn't shown Americans the power of a shirt, like

Apple

co-founder

Steve Jobs

.

He did not pass, like

Jack Dorsey of Twitter

, a pandemic quarantine with

Jay-Z.

All those guys inspire enmity, especially

Musk

and (still posthumously) Jobs.

But their product lines reveal the

emotional connection

people have with them.

They invented the FOMO (

fear of missing out

or Fear of missing something).

Bezos just capitalized on it and

embodies it.

We watched him go to the gym, increase his biceps and buy motorcycle jackets.

The problem was never the fit.

It was that they seemed to accomplish the opposite of their purpose, which is to send a message of elegance of indifference.

We read about the end of his marriage to

MacKenzie Scott

, a novelist turned mega-philanthropist, and the beginning of his affair with

Lauren Sanchez

, a former correspondent for the tabloid entertainment show "Extra!"

It seemed like a cliché.

Our jaws dropped at the intimate text messages he sent her.

They were so silly, as if she had consulted

Siri

for

sexting

advice

.

We looked at photos of his $

96 million

real estate investment

in Manhattan's Flatiron District.

It looked soulless, like something Marriott would design if it built its version of an

André Balazs hotel.

However, being worth around

$ 200 billion

and having few people who can tell you the truth about, for example, what you look like in a cowboy hat mounted on your phallic rocket.

He has become the Dorian Gray of nonsense.

A

locus classicus

and a distorting

funhouse

mirror through which a considerable contingent of generally white men, approaching middle age and not having the

Ryan Gosling look,

 should see ourselves, if we we get back honest enough to admit the mistake of wasting our way in unfortunate stylistic choices.

There is an onomatopoeic quality to Bezos's name.

A dentist with a

Lamborghini

is a Bezos.

So is anyone who is in the real estate business and who, after having started his first extramarital affair, begins to shave areas that should not be.

I became a Bezos the day I decided to try sporting a fanny pack and shorts from Dior.

Pretending to be an oenophile turns many into Bezos.

It also makes you decide that running a financial services company is not enough achievement;

that what one really needs is a side job on weekends as a

tropical house

DJ

and EDM.

If you've returned from your first trip to the

Burning Man

Festival at the 

age of 50, you're dangerously treading on Bezos territory.

If you've tried to hire a singer like

Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Patti LaBelle, or Christina Aguilera

at your child's wedding, birthday party, or religious gathering, you're a Bezos.

The Bezos are more likely to be rich than poor, but using

Affirm

(a financial app to pay for things in installments) at checkout has helped many less fortunate guys reach Bezos paradise.

It is difficult, but not impossible, for a movie star to be a Bezos.

Mark Wahlberg

, sporting a

diamond-encrusted

Patek Phillipe

sports watch

that would be a joke in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring

Mark Wahlberg,

is certainly a Bezos.

So is

Ben Affleck

every time he takes off his shirt and we can see the huge phoenix that has been permanently tattooed on his back.

The Bezos want to believe that the time spent on stationary bikes over the past year is enough to justify ordering a Speedo from Amazon.

Or that with a few good years on our knees, we could still skateboard or fly a rocket ship and become

Butch Cassidy

from the skies, with a matching hat (and boots).

Here's the problem: Butch Cassidy became Butch Cassidy stealing.

A Bezos compensates you with a credit card.

Shortly after descending to Earth, Bezos went to give a press conference, where he said, "I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer that you guys have paid for all of this. Seriously."

It was a curious admission coming from a guy whose subordinates protest his working conditions and meager salaries as delivery men.

But what did everyone expect from a space cowboy dressed in blue satin?

He is the biggest Bezos in the world.

c.2021 The New York Times Company

Look also

Jeff Bezos' obsessions Genius?

Mad?

A little of both?

Astronauts on Set: A Wave of TV Shows and Movies in Space

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-07-24

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