Wait, what?
Apparently, Forbes magazine thinks it’s a good use of resources to compile a list of the 15 richest fictional characters on the…uh, planet? Television screen? Who the fuck knows.
Coming in at first place this year is Scrooge McDuck, the plutocratic waterfowl of “Ducktales” fame, who likely amassed his fortune through control of a vertically-integrated steel corporation. Given that McDuck’s money is mostly in gold, the price of which has gone up considerably in recent years, Forbes estimates that the cartoon bird is worth a very specific $44.1 billion.
What’s that, Forbes? Oh, excuse me, I was mistaken when I assumed that Scrooge McDuck was a steel tycoon. Apparently, his source of income is “Mining, Treasure Hunting.” Silly me, I must have forgotten; how kind of the nice magazine to educate me. Then there’s this: “Penny-pinching poultry keeps majority of his fortune in gold coins stored in massive ‘money bin’ high in the hills above Duckburg; also invests in pearls, gems, other ‘hoardables.’”
I kid you not, this is how Forbes sees fit to harness the talent of its best and brightest financial experts, thinkers and insiders: Evaluating the net worth of a cartoon character, and pointing out that he once traveled back in time to use a coupon.
Please kill me. This is the chum bucket of reportage—disseminating facts about made-up people, places and things. What is the point of listing 15 mega-rich imaginary people and animals? Entertainment? Certainly, the idiocy is funny, but it’s an absurd, shake-my-head, 2012-better-bring-the-apocalypse funny.
The only explanation is that Forbes magazine is becoming increasingly engaged in masturbatory exercises over wealth. Like a pornography addict continually desensitized, the magazine has to go further down the rabbit hole in order to get its kicks, eventually needing to examine Scrooge McDuck’s feelings about Richard Nixon just to bust a nut.
But Forbes’ bullshit is symptomatic of a larger problem/trend in today’s society. A curiosity-driven Wikipedia search for Scrooge McDuck yielded this page, which has more information in it than anything I wrote for college. When did we become so thorough in our biographies of cartoon characters? And it’s not just Scrooge McDuck.
Forbes is guilty, but so are a lot of other people. Who exactly is conducting all this research? Who’s wasting their time writing about the life and fiscal acumen of a talking, animated bird? There’s a whole world out there, full of things to taste, touch, hear, see and have sex with. Thinking about Scrooge McDuck is no way for a person to live out their brief, precious time on Earth. Please, dear readers, never let me turn into that guy.
April 08, 2011 at 6:02 pm, Michael Noer said:
No — You’ve turned into that guy who writes about that guy! Awesome post — loved it.