Kylie Jenner has an estimated net worth of $900 million, but this weekend, she encouraged her fans to donate to a GoFundMe account for makeup artist Samuel Rauda’s medical expenses.
People on social media immediately went into a frenzy escalated by the fact that Kylie herself added a “moderate” $5,000 to the initial $10,000 plea. After the story went viral, donations for Samuel’s GoFundMe rocketed up to $100,031 of its new $120,000 goal.
But critics felt that Kylie donating a mere sum of her billion-dollar fortune and asking her fans to add to the cause was just too much. They claimed that in turn, she could have easily paid the whole amount herself if she really cared about the cause as much as she claimed.
On Monday, Kylie took to her Instagram to address the backlash. "I saw my current makeup artist and friend Ariel post about Sam's accident and his family's GoFundMe... it compelled me to visit his GoFundMe which was set at 10K."
The 23-year-old entrepreneur also wrote that she "thought I'd post on my stories to gain more awareness if anyone also felt compelled to share or donate. I don't know how all of this got so twisted but his family has reached out through Ariel and are very appreciative..."
But for many, Kylie’s attempt to defend herself in the controversy felt like it was too late. Charlotte Clymer, director of communications and strategy at Catholics for Choice, tweeted in response that "Folks are defending Kylie Jenner by pointing out she donated $5,000 to her makeup artist's medical GoFundMe. Her net worth is $900M. So, that's 0.000006% of her net worth. If your net worth were, say, $100k, it would be like donating 56 cents." The tweet amassed 38.3k likes and went viral.
It’s just fair that Kylie’s controversy sparked a bigger debate on wealth’s effect on compassion. Is it true that as riches grow, empathy for others seems to decline? Are less affluent individuals more likely to feel compassion towards other human beings?
To find out, Bored Panda reached out to Jennifer Stellar, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and the director of the Health, Emotions, and Altruism Lab (HEAL). In 2011, she led a study that hooked participants up to heart rate monitors to measure physical reactions to an advertisement for St. Jude’s hospital of families coping with a cancer-stricken child.
Incredibly, the bodies of the lower class volunteers had a more compassionate response to the video, which she measured by heart rate deceleration. Jennifer told us that the results revealed that “lower social class is associated with greater compassion.”
“Other authors such as Dr. Piff have found a similar relationship with prosociality and I believe Dr. Kraus has found a similar relationship with empathy,” she said.
Social class is based on income, education, and occupation and varies from one person to another. However, Jennifer added that when it comes to “social status which is based more in respect and admiration from others, it's not clear to me that social status would have the same relationship to compassion, prosociality, and empathy as a social class has.”
