Yesterday, Forbes published a profile about Kylie Jenner and said she's set to become the youngest ever "self-made billionaire".
How Kylie Jenner leveraged her massive social media following to build a $900M cosmetics fortune: https://t.co/3VGT6MpwmX #SelfMadeWomen https://t.co/fxaqucQZWx
In the feature, the magazine said that her Kylie Cosmetics company has amassed $900 million.
Kylie Jenner's mother, Kris, got paid $17M by her daughter in the past year https://t.co/Zf8T1s4oW4 #SelfMadeWomen
People thought that calling her "self-made" was misleading.
Stuff like this is so misleading, no one who started off rich with incredible connections should be allowed to market themselves as “self made” like u literally are a phone call away from success which isn’t even close to starting from the ground up https://t.co/xiLXMOJNb9
kylie jenner’s “self-made” empire is almost as funny as donald trump’s “small loan of 1 million dollars”
And are asking if Forbes know what "self-made" means.
Does Forbes know what Self Made means? https://t.co/r9g3hSytR3
erm. being born into extreme wealth & instant fame is the exact opposite of “self made” https://t.co/c9rZyx03Al
Calling Kylie Jenner self-made without acknowledging anywhere the incredible headstart she had is what allows people to turn around and look at poor people and ask them why they haven’t become billionaires yet. Her story is not inspiring or motivating for anyone https://t.co/YMnTSzHlKP
Author Roxane Gay said, "Her success is commendable but it comes by virtue of her privilege."
It is not shade to point out that Kylie Jenner isn’t self-made. She grew up in a wealthy, famous family. Her success is commendable but it comes by virtue of her privilege. Words have meanings and it behooves a dictionary to remind us of that. https://t.co/2HzIJbLb8q
And the actual dictionary came through with a literal definition of "self-made".
Self-made means having succeeded in life unaided. Used in a sentence: Forbes says that Kylie Jenner is a self-made woman. https://t.co/sr8Ncd7s5A https://t.co/ehEL7Cf6KV
But people also gave credit to Jenner.
I know y'all gonna want to discount her achievement, but this is hard af to do: it was a lean startup, she successfully leveraged her influence, outsourced production, and ran millions worth of sales through a shopify website. That's some next level shit. https://t.co/lDOn3B7hK1
I don’t think ANYONE is hating on Kylie’s success. It’s the fact that the article says, “self made”... and she’s isn’t a self made millionaire. She had the tools & money already.
And think her hustle is smart.
Everyone’s shaming her for being grown into wealth, privilege, and fame. But she used it to build an empire instead of throwing her money out of the blue. She utilized her resources and made an investment which lead her to billions at a young age. If that’s not smart, idk what is https://t.co/rGgqDVs1jh
Let me get this straight Kim: worth $350 million Kendall: Highest paid model Kylie: youngest self made billionaire Khloé: most succesful jeans launch in history Kourtney: has been in italy for a month And y'all still afford to stay broke and talk down on their hustle? YIKES
Kylie's sister Kim retweeted a tweet defending criticism.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 https://t.co/AWV7P7K62k
A spokesperson for Forbes told BuzzFeed News that members on the Forbes 400 are given a score from 1 to 10 to capture the variations of how self-made a person is.
The spokesperson said: "Forbes fully acknowledges that within the term "self-made" there are many who are more self-made than others.
"In fact we began scoring members of the Forbes 400 on a scale of 1 to 10 to capture the variations.
"Yes, Kylie comes from a wealthy family and she got a visibility boost from her family but she owns her company and is valued based on earnings she has personally received and on the value of the company she founded."