Congratulations on All your Success!
Everyone loves a rags-to-riches story. Case in point: I just wrote about Oprah, a girl born into poverty, and she became the world's most wealthy and famous daytime tv host through hard work and dedication.
Today I share the story of how we, as citizens of this world, look at and feel about coming from nothing and working hard to achieve our dreams. The idea is also known as the American Dream.
So, who do we have to thank for putting this idea or concept in our brains? His name is Horacio Alger. Who? You know, the guy they named the Horacio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans Award after. Still have no clue.
Horatio Alger was an American author in the late 1800s. He wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort Horatio
created the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a productive effect on the United States during the Gilded Age.
A little help, Please
You have to understand the 1800s was a rough and tumble time in the U.S. The poor were everywhere, and society had no safety net programs for families if they lost income to injury or death on the job.
Citizens of our country would have to wait until the beginning of 1932 for help. The Federal Government first made loans, then grants, to States to pay for direct relief and work relief. After that, special Federal emergency relief and public works programs (The New Deal) were started in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Pull Yourself up
As a result, people would look up to the day's celebrities for inspiration. In this day and age, those celebrities are primarily men—people like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and John D. Rockefeller. These men came from poor backgrounds and created their fortunes through hard work and perseverance.
Horatio hit a nerve with his readership, and it grew stronger and stronger with each book. His first national success came in January 1867. He wrote the first 12 installments of Ragged Dick which appeared in Student and Schoolmate. The story, about a poor bootblack's (shoe shine) rise to middle-class respectability, was a huge success. It was expanded and published as a novel in 1868. It proved to be his best-selling work. After Ragged Dick, he wrote almost entirely for boys and signed a contract with publisher Loring for a Ragged Dick Series.
As I was researching Horatio Alger, it struck me that the idiom rags to riches are about working hard and being of good character rang true for the working class but not the robber barons of the time. A robber baron was used frequently in the 19th century during America's Gilded Age to describe successful industrialists whose business practices were often considered ruthless or unethical. Examples of so-called robber barons are Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller. The very men regarded as celebrities of the time.
You do What for a living?
The concept of working hard and being of service to your fellow human is not new; however, it is interesting that the idea doesn't always apply to the elite. For example, if I were to look at the top-producing "influencers" today, I would see Lele Pons. Eleonora Pons Maronese (born June 25, 1996), is a Spanish-American Internet personality and YouTuber. She stars in The Secret Life of Lele Pons, a YouTube Original docuseries providing a look at her personal life, and hosts her podcast on Spotify titled Best Kept Secrets with Lele Pons.
Lele has over 44M followers worldwide and uses comedy to showcase her talents. Furthermore, she is a confessed nerd and likes that she was never part of the cool crowd in high school. Lele comes from an upper-middle-class family and is not what you would consider a rags-to-riches story. However, she is an immigrant from Caracas, Venezuela, who moved to Miami when she was five. When Lele was 16, she started her career using Vine's video hosting service. She did practical comedy with a physical aspect to it. Lele was the first user to receive over 1 billion video loops.
$15K a day is what they Pay
As a result, she launched several enterprises. In 2015, she founded a jewelry collection called UNO Magnetic. In 2016, Pons co-authored a novel based on her own high school experiences, Surviving High School, with Melissa de la Cruz. Pons also starred as Callie in the 2016 romantic comedy; We Love You, released on YouTube Red.
Currently, Lele earns a reported $5.5 million yearly from her YouTube channel, which adds an estimated revenue of around $15,000 per day to her net worth. Her channel has accumulated over 4 billion views and is growing at 7,000 new subscribers daily. She fits the current narrative of a social influencer and success.
Hey, Look over Here
Horatio Alger used the written word as his medium during the 1800s and excited an entire country. Today, social media is the channel where we view our newest and brightest celebrities. You no longer need to be able to read and write to get your information. Much like most of the populace in the 1800s, government-funded public schools didn't exist until 1839.
Like it or not, media plays a massive role in shaping what it is you believe. If someone you trust tells you it is true, you'll likely believe them. As more and more celebrities get de-platformed for sharing their thoughts on medical issues, government cover-ups, and religious ideologies, you may want to start investigating what matters most to you. As Horatio said, you'll get ahead through hard work and good deeds. Or maybe by just paying attention to how the game is played.
