
Elon Musk and the Cult of the Celebrity Savior - benryon
https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/07/13/elon-musk-and-the-cult-of-the-celebrity-savior/
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DmenshunlAnlsis
Putting aside the issue of Elon Musk, this is the most interesting line to me:
_The distribution of public goodwill is an economy not of labor but of
attention._

I think a lot of us have experienced this in the context of tech support from
Google or some other algorithmically driven giant; something goes wrong and
the only recourse is Twitter. I really don’t want to live in a world of
arbitrary and unappealable actions by monopolists, with my only recourse being
a social media appeal.

Yet that’s the obvious trend.

~~~
Apocryphon
Even HN is part of this phenomenon. Sometimes having a highly voted blog
article complaining about poor customer experience or corporate malfeasance is
the only way to get companies to respond.

~~~
verelo
Unsure why you got down-voted here, I've seen evidence of this (although not
personally experienced it).

I'd guess any public area where people who are the companies customer visits,
where you end up complaining in public, ends up being a possible place where
this might happen. The only gripe I have with this trend is where people
choose to go direct to social media vs the appropriate channels for support.
The fear i have is that if enough people do this, normal support channels
might get under resourced.

Having said this, i'm often impressed with the support i get when i ask for
it. I rarely ask, but i probably should more often. A classic case of "you
only get what you ask for", but a good reminder that you should probably be
asking more often.

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lafar6502
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-cave-
resc...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-cave-rescue-elon-
musk-british-diver-vern-unsworth-twitter-pedo-a8448366.html)

this elon guy seems to have some psychological issues so better let him be a
savior for just a minute, before he hurts anybody

~~~
Symbiote
And this comes just days after he said:

 _“I have made the mistaken assumption—and I will attempt to be better at
this—of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that
it is open season,” he said in an hour-long interview with Bloomberg
Businessweek for this week 's cover story. “That is my mistake. I will correct
it.”_ [1]

My completely non-tech relatives in the UK asked if I'd heard of "that Tesla
man", so I think he has damaged his and Tesla's reputation there. Hopefully
the cave diver sues and donates the money somewhere worthy.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-
last...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-last-bet-the-
company-situation-q-amp-a-with-elon-musk)

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bjl
It amazes me how many people seem to have bought into his cult of personality.
Hopefully his recent pedophile outburst will give them some pause, and lead
them to consider the long-term societal effects of worshipping corporate
oligarchs.

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woodandsteel
It's really interesting. The more remarkable successes Musk has, the more a
certain large group of people and media organizations attack him. It almost
makes you think they have some sort of hidden motivation.

~~~
boznz
You can be a hundred times a bigger a dick than Elon Musk and won't get a
hundredth the publicity. Its all about clicks!

