Living in Our Times: Greed and the “Superstar Delusion”

Some years ago, I was part of a very large online community who played arcade games. This was a little different, because the weekly tournaments we had were actually for money.

As a user, you'd pay a modest entry fee to be part of a tournament — let's say Tetris — and the money you paid in went into a prize money pool and when the tournament time ended, 80% of the money collected was distributed to the players, with the site owner/operator keeping 20% as their profit.

Of course, you could immediately argue that the odds were "stacked in favor of the house," but stay with me here!

Getting a Payout!

The cool thing about it was the distribution of the prize money payout.

The winners definitely had a really nice payday, and the top ten finishers in any given tournament could easily take home a several hundred dollars. What was really cool for me, was that in many of the bigger tournaments there would be payouts for as much as the top 40% of the finishers! It wasn't necessarily very much, but you might get back a couple of bucks or three against your 75-cent entrance fee.

In any case, it was enough to keep me interested and coming back, week after week.

Getting "Elitist"

But then things changed. The site owners decided that in order for them to attract many new players, and thus make more money, they needed to be able to advertise that they offered bigger prizes. Or so they believed.

So the prize money payout schedules were redesigned with the bulk of the money now going only to the top three finishers and perhaps the top 10 or 12 getting any money at all.

What that effectively meant, was that you either had to be brilliant or you would get nothing at all. Simply "doing well" amounted to absolutely nothing, where previously doing "pretty well" at least got you a small reward.

At that point I stopped participating.

Why am I Telling this Story?

When I step back and take a greater overview, that gaming site represents merely a microcosmic view of what seems to be happening in the broader world. It encapsulates the changing way in which we view what constitutes "success."

It seems we have left behind the days where simply doing really well at something was applauded and considered a success in its won right, and now we must instead be truly outstanding or our efforts are regarded as irrelevant, and don't count.

I have come to think of this as "The Superstar Delusion." We see it across all aspects of society. If you aren't the huge box office star or the CEO of a high rising tech company or a basketball player who signed a $30,000,000 contract you're nothing. You should just pack your bags and go home.

What Does that Mean to YOU?

Now you might be asking yourself "So what?"

Whereas the superstardom of success may look inspiring to some people — who wouldn't want to get paid $10 million for being in a film? — the fact that the efforts of 99.999% of the people are considered failure or irrelevant takes a psychological toll on our willingness to try things.

Ask yourself whether you'd still be here if the rewards on Steem were paid as $2,000 each to only the ten most popular posts every day, and everyone else collected absolutely nothing for their efforts... I think I know the answer.

Many people, and particularly those were able to objectively evaluate themselves, look at the world and what it takes to "succeed" (by these standards) and ask themselves why they should even bother? Which, in turn, creates that sense of underachievement and indifference which many people now lament exists in our world.

As for the aforementioned gaming web site, it continued along for several years, fueled by people who labored away in vain, with no chance of ever winning the $10,000 prizes, driven only by the hope that they might make it big, even though they had zero realistic chance. Meanwhile, a small group of elites laughed all the way to the bank...

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

How about YOU? Do you think we have become more EXTREME in our definitions of "success?" Do we put too much emphasis on "superstardom" while ignoring all those who simply are "very good" at something? As always, comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20201116 18:10 PST
x056