This article originally appeared on my Medium account.
By any means necessary
“What do you know about investing?” He asked my friend and me as he casually invited himself over to our table at the local Starbucks. I wasn’t particularly uncomfortable with this unwanted guest, because even though he had a grin that resembled a character from The Simpson’s who was about to cheat Homer and/or Bart, his slender build and perfect man-bun announced to the world, “Hey everyone, I’m professional, but I’m still down to shotgun a beer or three after work.” This intimated that he was relatively harmless.
“Not much my man,” I said to him, while my friend nodded in agreement with my ignorance. Our new Simpson’s character friend, who I will call Barry, then proceeded to tell us how he understands the stock market better than anyone else. In fact, that’s what he was doing at Starbucks; recruiting new clients to benefit from his flawless system. His system was so innovative; in fact, that at only the age of 24 this wunderkind now makes over seven figures a year, travels all over the world, and makes money while he sleeps. It sounded too good to be true.
Or so I thought. I then presented my simple pass or fail test for all pyramid schemers who think they can rip me off simply because I am a broke college student. “So it’s low risk, high reward?” I asked him, and he nodded immediately. “Yes. Absolutely. Low risk, high reward. You get it.”
While I always enjoy the company of my friend who sat with me, at that moment I wished I had been with one of my friends who actually understood the stock market and other complexities of the financial world.
But I’m a diplomatic person, so naturally I can’t call people out on their bluff unless I know exactly what I’m talking about, and like I said, I don’t know investing enough to do so. I nodded, acted curious, and told Barry I would add him on Instagram.
Big mistake.
My private account was suddenly bombarded with follow requests from his “clients,” other young entrepreneurs who would do nothing but fill my Instagram feed up with pseudo-inspirational quotes with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in the background.
And this is where we come to my real grievance: the much dreaded, rarely called out Jordan Belfort meme.
Even if you haven’t seen Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” you’ve seen the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio depicted as Jordan Belfort with a quote that reads something along the lines of, “The only thing standing between you and your success is your own self doubt.”
To all the dudes who are posting these memes, do you not realize that Jordan Belfort was a womanizing, wife-beating, drug abusing criminal who stole from people using penny stocks? Or is there a director’s cut that makes him out to be the good guy that I am simply unaware of?
With journalistic integrity I tried to research the origins of this meme, but nothing substantial came about this research.
Then I decided to investigate the psychology behind why people idolize someone so nefarious. We’re not putting inspirational quotes next to Christian Bale’s portrayal of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho for instance. Granted, we make and share memes with Heath Ledger’s Joker or Brad Pitt’s version of Tyler Durden, but they are appropriately labeled with something that echoes the voices of Camus or Nietzsche.
I decided to query a UCLA psychology professor to see if they could shed some light as to why we would idolize someone like Jordan Beflort.
And then she never got back to me.
Frustrated, I finally decided to take a long shot and ask a friend who’s getting her PhD in Psychology (so I guess that gives me some credibility in journalistic integrity?). But I wasn’t happy with her answer, so I ended up back at my search engine trying to figure out this entrepreneurial and cultural phenomenon.
What I did come across was some information on Mr. Belfort himself, and, true to the movie, he did in fact cheat the system in a way that he got rich manipulating the ignorance of his investors.
Something that sounds eerily similar to my newfound acquaintance Barry.
While it upsets me that someone like Barry is ripping off young and impressionable minds, it’s hard to fully feel sorry for them.
Social media is being flooded with “wantreprenurs” who seem to spend more of their time talking about how awesome they are at being entrepreneurs than they are of selling me a product. Nothing reveals this more than their daily posts of inspirational quotes with Leo-as-Jordan in the background.
No one wants to see how much money you’re making because you’re “hustling” and “grinding every day.” We have Dan Bilzerian and Tai Lopez doing that for us already.
We want you to tell us how great your product is. That is, if you have one. And if it’s a meme generator that creates an algorithm of inspirational quotes taken from John Wooden combined with a new scene from the Wolf of Wall Street, save your time and breath.
Then again, I don’t know too much about investing. Maybe I should get that idea patented before it’s too late.
