The trouble with a media so young it is still barely out of nappies is that it can be terribly naive. The latest outrage to have gripped our feeds is a big hoo-haa about “nepo babies” and the fact that so much of Hollywood is populated by the children of the famous.
Dakota Johnson, the daughter of Melanie Griffiths and Don Johnson, at the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals in 2022. Today it would seem even more pertinent as social media has allowed nepo babies a bigger platform on which to monetise their DNA. Where once they might have had to hone some demonstrable talent in order to carve out a profession, today’s nepos can just create a stream of influencer drivel and post it on their TikTok feed.
And nepo babies are everywhere. Certainly, in my profession, a number of my peers are the children of journalists and editors, and their lifetime’s immersion in the world of media has arguably offered them an expansive outlook, a rich list of contacts and an advantage in knowing how things should be done.
Maya Hawke and her fellow actress and mother Uma Thurman at The Theory Of Everything premiere in New York in 2014.