Kylie Jenner’s GoFundMe push is crass, offensive, and indicative of a broken system

Multi-millionaire Kylie Jenner has shared a fundraising link for her injured make-up artist who needs emergency surgery. 

Kylie Jenner’s GoFundMe push is crass, offensive, and indicative of a broken system

Worth approximately $900 million, Kylie Jenner shared a fundraiser to her 40 million Twitter followers for one of her makeup-artists Samuel Rauda, who required emergency surgery after being thrown from a moving vehicle. 

The GoFundMe fundraiser sought $120,000 for Rauda’s medical costs. Out of her $900 million, Jenner donated $5,000 of her own money, which amounts to 0.000006% of her personal fortune. To put this into perspective, everyday Jenner makes half a million dollars, mainly from her company Kylie Cosmetics and other brand deals.  

In a now deleted Tweet, Jenner posted "May God watch over you and protect you @makeupbysamuel everyone take a moment to say a prayer for Sam who got into an accident this past weekend. And swipe up to visit his families go fund me [sic]."

Along with prayers, the fundraiser currently stands at $99,224 raised, and $20,776 is left to be donated. This is only slightly more than Jenner makes in an hour. Some Twitter users have criticised her for this, and rightly pointed out the financial disparities. 

It’s no mistake that GoFundMe is caught up in this. Only last month the CEO of GoFundMe, Tim Cadogan, called on Congress to help support the site which has become a lifeline for millions of Americans. Cadogan insisted that ‘GoFundMe should not and can never replace Congressional aid’. For many people, the site and the generosity of strangers online is their only chance at paying medical bills, finding secure housing and putting food on the table. In particular, GoFundMe has unfortunately become a frail replacement for a working national healthcare system in America. 

When the employee of a multi-millionaire cannot rely on their employer to cover their life-saving medical treatment and instead has to call on the kindness of the general public – whose combined yearly salaries wouldn’t amount to $900 million – the disease of capitalism is reinforced. More and more frequently, billionaires such as Jenner, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are giving the rest of humanity reason to pause and question how they amassed their unimaginable wealth and why they are allowed to hoard it. 

Jenner and her $900,000,000 have yet to comment. 

Header Image Credit: Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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Claire Jenns

Claire Jenns Kickstart Team

English Literature graduate, loves reading, writing and travel.

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