Are we tired of nepotism babies?

Si è molto parlato in questi giorni del debutto musicale di Lourdes Leon, figlia di Madonna, che ha pubblicato il suo primo videoclip poco meno di una settimana fa, dopo una breve carriera di modella iniziata nel 2018 alla New York Fashion Week. Sette giorni fa invece un editoriale di GQ ha avuto al suo centro il cantante 23enne LoveLeo e suo padre, il leggendario caratterista di Hollywood John C. Reilly. Nel mondo della moda, poi, Lila Moss, figlia di Kate, Leni Klum, figlia di Heidi, e pare che la nuova superstar in ascesa sia Cy Busson, giovanissimo figlio di Elle Macpherson, apparso su una cover di Vogue Australia a soli 16 anni, seguite da servizi su AD, Elle, InStyle, sedeva in front row allo show spagnolo di Dior quest’estate insieme alla madre e molti bookmaker dicono che potrebbe anche sfilare per il brand nel prossimo futuro. Figlio di un miliardario e di una top model, di lui la madre dice: «We certainly have opportunities as a family that I didn't have as a child. There's no use pretending we don't live like that. You know, the kids fly to Europe regularly, they went to good schools in England...». But perhaps the famous son of someone we've heard the most about this year is Brooklyn Beckham, who along with his wife Nicola Peltz, another daughter of billionaire and supermodel, populated paparazzi shots dressed strictly in Dior without giving the world a single snippet of professional or cultural output that would justify his celebrity beyond his last name. To clarify: at least Jaden Smith, another "son of," makes good songs and Zoe Kravitz can act. This is the disappointingly boring world of "nepotism babies"-new obsession of TikTok (the hashtag has 117.3 million views on the platform) and apparently of fashion magazines and Instagram accounts.

The twist in the whole affair, because there must be a twist, is that the various very young users of TikTok do not despise these "nepotism babies"; in fact, they compile lists of their favorites and declare online that they want to be like them. Another popular format is to scan the Wikipedia pages of actors, models and singers to see if their parents' names are in blue on Wikipedia-and, spoiler alert, many are. The truth is that that of nepotism in show business is nothing new, nor is it anything horrible if singers, models or actors "children of" become productive professionals by establishing a solid reputation unassociated with that of their parents. No less, in recent times, the cult bestowed on these "nepotism babies" is a cult of mediocrity based solely on media buzz: many of the people celebrated as modern icons, filling fashion covers and campaigns, parading at fashion week, receiving media exposure for purely anagraphical reasons have literally never done anything noteworthy or are famous for a single title in their filmography or discography that nonetheless seems to be as valuable as a whole career. Fortunately, the spell never lasts long: it is always the results that speak in the end. 

There are those who stand up for them, however: Gwyneth Paltrow, daughter of producer Bruce Paltrow, a historic Hollywood actress turned mogul of expensive new age lifestyle accessories with Goop such as stickers that balance "body energies" and jade eggs that regulates menstrual cycles, said in a podcast with Hailey Bieber, another "daughter of," that those like them must "work twice as hard" precisely because the rest of the world recognizes them as well connected, to say the least. Too bad, however, that the presence of "nepotism babies" has spread everywhere in recent years, making celebrity hereditary like ancient titles of nobility, and fueling a cultural atmosphere in which fame precedes rather than follows achievement. Clearly, the presence of tangible achievements negates any shadow of suspicion, as in the case of the aforementioned Jaden Smith, Emma Roberts, Jack Quaid, Miley Cyrus, and, of course, Sofia Coppola, a living symbol of how sometimes nepotism can come with a silver lining.