Why George Clooney Giving $1 Million to Friends is Insulting

yesterday i kept seeing this quote from george clooney on my twitter feed where he talks about giving 14 of his friends a million dollars along with the retweets of the quote were jokes that became played out within an hour or two thousands of people retweeted the quote saying things like i knew i should have hung out with george clooney that one time well yes most of us are living paycheck to paycheck a million bucks from a friend would be nice but it’s also quite possible that george clooney’s friends were highly insulted by the fact that he gave them money to put it into perspective we’re coming up on the holidays thanksgiving is next week and after that we have christmas for a moment let’s imagine that you go to your parents house for dinner or maybe you’re like me when i was growing up and you go to a friend’s house for thanksgiving dinner now imagine eating that delicious meal having some great conversation and making memories then you hand the person who made the meal fifty dollars how do you think that would go they’d probably be extremely insulted by your gesture like george clooney you’re trying to show your gratitude and you don’t think that words can do it so you do some math in your head and you figure that the meal was worth about 30 the service was great too so why not a big tip so you give the cook 50 this doesn’t go over well because of societal norms and i thought this would be interesting to discuss because i recently had to have this conversation with my son my son has been so good about saving money that he still has money from christmas from last year and his new year’s eve birthday since christmas and his birthday are coming up again he’s been spending more of his money because he knows that more is coming in with his money he’s bought a few new video games but he’s made some gestures that may come off as offensive recently he’s offered me money for doing my fatherly duties like going grocery shopping he even offered my girlfriend money when his headphones broke and she gave him her extra pair so i had to sit him down and explain norms and how this kind gesture may come off as offensive again while you and i would gladly take george clooney’s 1 million dollars i can’t help but wonder if his friends were offended i’m not sure which of his friends he gave money to but money is relative to your net worth if his friends are fellow millionaires or even billionaires george clooney giving a friend one million dollars would be like me giving a friend 100 for hanging out with me personally i’ve always questioned norms and i do think some of them are silly and completely irrational that’s why i absolutely love the book screw genomics why you shouldn’t buy presents for the holidays by joel waldfogel i love the holidays but more for the spirit and not the gift-giving how often do we get gifts that we never use how often do we give gifts that the person never uses and how often do we get a little upset when we spend our hard-earned money on something that the person doesn’t use i have a friend who is a mother and each christmas and birthday she spoils her son with gifts that kid has dozens of unopened gifts from the recent three to four years and i can’t help but think that money could have gone to some sort of charitable cause in his book screw genomics walt fogle looks at gift giving from the perspective of an economist sometimes economists can be cold and calculating like mr spock from star trek but that’s why i love them joel waldfogel realized a long time ago that there’s a strange stigma around giving money as gifts and to his credit that’s why i first heard the thought experiment about paying a friend for making you dinner as a professor wildfoggle has done experiments where he sees what the perceived value of gifts are and the results aren’t surprising at all on average most people value gifts they receive far less than what the person actually paid for the gift this is most common when the person receives a gift they didn’t want or need this happens because for most of us or at least us adults we buy the things we want during the year so there’s a low chance someone is going to get us something we actually want or need unless we ask for it specifically the other exception is if a person gets us something we wanted but didn’t want to spend our money on but how often does that happen during your typical gift exchanges this is also why the invention of gift cards was a genius idea giving a gift is more about the thought as a species that is constantly signaling to people giving a gift shows i was thinking about you and i listen to your wants and needs i know you so i purchase you something that proves that i care about you for us the signal is more powerful than the actual gift but most people would just want money because they can buy whatever they want the gift card gives the signal that you know what they like but they can spend the money on what they want i remember one christmas as a kid i finally told my parents just give me money that’s all i wanted i was into video games and building computers but i’d rather just handle the purchases myself but when they did what i asked it just didn’t feel like christmas now my son is almost 12 years old and he’s starting to ask just for money as well and i wonder if it’s going to feel less like christmas for him too if i just give him the money that he asks for at the end of the day i agree with joel walfogel’s way of thinking in scrooge of gnomics we should realize when we’re following norms that are irrational but we should also show the people we care about that we love them so while my son is getting money for christmas since he asked for it my girlfriend is getting some things so she knows that i pay attention so although some of george clooney’s friends may have been insulted by his cash gift i’ll join in on the played out joke by saying that i wish george clooney would insult me too all right everybody i hope you enjoyed this quick little video essay this is a topic that i’ve always found interesting and i found the opportunity to discuss it with all of you beautiful people all of my fellow critical thinkers out there uh when i saw this george clooney story popping up like one of his friends were like insulted by that you know what i mean um but anyways on a more serious note the holidays are coming up and it’s 2020 it is a very weird year and i am extremely extremely fortunate that i have a job that um that didn’t have any issues this year due to the pandemic i have a job where i can easily work from home the industry that i’m in you know people still need our services and stuff like that but i know a lot of people are struggling financially and i know a lot of people are going to be depressed and things like that around the holidays but remember like i was saying these holidays are more about the signal rather than the actual gift and in some cases like something i didn’t mention in this video was sometimes the the value of the gift shows the person how much we care right so when we get an expensive gift oh my god they care about me so much but sometimes we get insulted if they give us a cheap gift right and i bring that up because this year you know we should be giving people like handmade gifts right something just to show that signal that we care but what if people get offended by it like if if we enjoy a more expensive gift because it shows the person that they care more and if a cheap gift says that they care less isn’t that kind of putting a monetary value on people which is messed up in and of itself you know what i mean like that’s kind of weird you know so um if you guys want me to do some videos around like societal norms especially around the holidays um i know this holiday season is gonna be rough for a lot of people because of the pandemic like i had to cancel plans for the holidays uh just because the covet numbers are spiking and things like that um but if you want me to do some more mental health related type topics from a critical thinking aspect uh just let me know down in the comments below let me know how you’re handling this holiday season if you have any tips or advice you want to share with the community go for it all right but if you’re interested in this topic like i highly recommend that book screw genomics it’s linked down in the description below it’s a really interesting enlightening book and you’re like this makes sense all right but anyways that’s all i got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you’re new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on patreon as well as everybody who supports the channel by getting the books that i linked down in the affiliate uh in the description those are affiliate links so a little bit comes back and supports the channel and my intense reading habit all right thanks again for watching i’ll see you next time .