Bezos’ is hardly the only high-dollar wedding to be held in the city — not least George and Amal Clooney’s nuptials in 2014, which were cheered on by locals.
Yeah don’t confuse the Clooneys for Bezos, please. Whether an actor should be a half-billionaire is up for debate but if anyone should have that kind of money yes it’s artists, sportsball players, etc. That is, don’t confuse celebrities and feudal lords. Venice is an ancient and serene republic, have some self-respect.
Whether an actor should be a half-billionaire is up for debate but if anyone should have that kind of money yes it’s artists, sportsball players, etc.
Why would it be more fair for them than CEOs? I’m not defending this one but asking in general.
Because an entertainer/athlete gets a paycheck for doing a job. They’re not getting rich underpaying employees.
The debatable part comes in when you get more nuanced than that: The richest of them probably derives most of their wealth from investments once they’ve accumulated enough capital. Their industry requires the efforts of many underpaid people (even if they don’t directly get a say in that). Anyone that keeps (not just earns) a billion wakes up every morning and decides not to solve homelessness in their city. Etc.
But a 20mm paycheck to put asses in seats is a paycheck, not exploitation.
The vast majority of CEOs don’t become billionaires, most billionaires are born with a golden spoon in their mouth, and the rest got there by stepping on everyone else’s backs. That’s rewarding sociopathy.
Artists and athletes don’t do either, they work to get good at their craft and, crucially, would be doing the same thing even if they were not as successful as they are. You can count them as petite bourgeois which of course come in good and bad but as artists and athletes are not, by trade, businesspeople they tend to very much fall on the good side. Like, you won’t see Clooney undermining the actor’s union – on the contrary, he’s advocated for raising his own union dues. And when they use their money to start a business you don’t tend to get another Oracle or something but ARCH Motorcycles. Give me one reason why, in luxury space anarchism, the answer to Keanu Reeves saying “I want to build cool motorcycles, you in?” the answer of the collective wouldn’t range from “hell yes” to “meh but you guys do you”. He’d get all the resources he’d need: He entertained and uplifted billions, of course we’ll chime in.
OTOH, of course, fuck J.K. Rowling. But unlike with the golden spoon billionaires she’s the exception, not the norm.
My 2cents: Bezos money comes from other people’s works, entertainers money comes from the perception that other people has of their work. Of course there are exceptions.
Recently visited Venice, and it was an excellent place.
From my observations, there is not really a place for big business there; no big roads, hardly any trains, essentially no commercial transport besides small boats. In a place as such, goliaths like Amazon are likely out-competed by local businesses.
Well, Italy does have a lot of Luigis … so there is hope.
But no guns…
On an unrelated note, did you know that in a lot of European countries it’s totally legal to own a crossbow? You can just order one online.
Though the details of the Bezos wedding are highly guarded beyond the rumored $10-million budget
Ok so I’m not going to say that we all need to eat dirt so long as anyone is worse off than we are, but that’s a lot of money that could be spent on anything else.
I’m not christian but camel through the eye of a needle, man. You can’t be a good person when you’re sitting on that much wealth, and Bezos isn’t even trying.
“You’re telling me none of these people shop on Amazon?” said New Orleans native Jake Springer, who, along with his wife, was spending a weekend in Venice on a wine tour through Italy. “At least they are protesting peacefully. Americans could learn a thing or two from this.”
They found the dumbest possible American to give a comment.
Them protesting peacefully is exactly why Bezos will eventually get things his way.
Please notice that Brugnaro, mayor of Venice, is politically spawned out of Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia.
Italian lesson: “Dio li fa, e poi li accoppia”: “God makes them, and then pairs them”
Americans seem to overestimate how big Amazon is here in Europe. Most people I know rarely buy anything off Amazon, a couple have Amazon Prime to watch content on, but that’s mostly it.
Both are probably wrong so would be nice to have data instead. Here in Belgium checking out from postal workers deliveries or on recycling garbage day I can see a lot of Amazon parcels unfortunately. Your observation is not wrong, neither is mine, so the question rather is how relevant they are when scaled to all of Europe.
But even if you do buy on Amazon sometimes, why should that make you on board with surrendering your city to this billionaire? It’s part of this toxic obsession of finding minor ‘gotchas’/hypocrisies instead of debating substance. You MUST subscribe to every belief of team A and hate everything from team B.
You seem to underestimate it though. Amazon is pretty big here as well, even just considering the “buy stuff” parts.
I was listening to an NPR segment asking American tourists at a French vineyard what they thought of the tariffs and they also managed to find the biggest group of dipshit chads they could
Seeing as they are on a wine tour, it’s probably another out of touch millionaire
Wine tours are maybe a couple hundred dollars. We do 'em pretty often. Great deal and you often get a tour of the countryside as well. If you’re ever in the Kelowna, BC area, check it out.
A couple hundred feels like out-of-touch money to me.
You’re going to spend 1 to 1.8k or such on the flights alone when coming from the US. Plus of course, as a yank, being able to afford to have a free day at all.
I get it most yanks are broke but a couple hundred are not much in terms of holiday money. Cheap hotels are going to cost you 25 to 50 Euros per night alone. Mallorca 4-star all-inclusive incl. plane tickets about 1k per person, seven nights. That’s groceries for a year if you know what you’re doing, or a bit more than two months of German welfare (the raw disposable payout, rent, heating, and health insurance is separate). Monthly net income on minimum wage ~1.6k, you’ll probably spend most of your holidays in Balconia but if you want, yep, the Baleares are affordable. Trekking from hostel to hostel? Even more so, that’s student-level holidays. Drinking wine while doing it? Depending on country, cheaper than beer. So, no, it’s not out of touch. It’s just not ameripoor.
Couple of days in Venice? There’s camping grounds all around, bring a camper (I know, investment, but you can also rent them) or a tent. Commute into the city, if you buy anything… well ideally just don’t it’s all a tourist trap.
The average American has less than $300 in their bank account. There is no county in the US where somebody making the median salary can afford the average cost of a house for that county.
Vacationing in Europe and going on wine tours would sound like a once-in-a-lifetime trip for the majority of Americans.
Not exactly millionaire money, though. It’s a fun vacation option and fairly reasonable as those go.
To be fair, it’s not that difficult.
At least they found one that could form a coherent sentence.
As an American, I think finding the dumbest of us would be hard given the amount of competition.
Wel statistically it’s just more likely, hence yourself the outlier!
I didn’t think it was that hard at all, he’s in the news every day!
FFS, why does Trump look like he’s about to suck cock in every damn picture?
Unlike the president
Man, talk about being fucking disconnected from the rest of the world.
It’s of course impossible to know if it was intentional, but lets not forget - platforming the dumb drives engagement, one of the reasons our view of the world is distorted towards thinking people are worse than they are. (Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t great on average, and broadly follow the lowest common denominator trends - but especially with terminally online people, there is a huge problem with paranoia and defeatism thanks to that dynamic).
people aren’t great on average
Well, of course not. If ‘great’ was the average, it wouldn’t be great anymore - it’d just be average.
Aren’t great on… median? Majority fall below some arbitrary standard of “decent”?
Very likely it’s intentionally chosen or even fake to push the narrative that US protests are violent…
Palantir laughs quietly
May be on to something there. Only “Jake Springer” I see on LinkedIn posted from Port Aransas, TX yesterday.
Eeh, not a rare find when overseas. Most people don’t “tour” overseas, but you frequent busloads of these people.
They just checked voter registration. Easy pickins from there.
Well, that’s a pretty easy search.
People of Venice! The time has come to show the world what you’re made of, and more importantly, what you’ve got inside.
Let the canals bear witness to your courage. Not with arms, but with… offerings. I want to see a million floating turds on that sacred day. Let this wedding be remembered. Not for love, but for sheer intestinal audacity.
Take a stand, take a squat, and defecate for dignity.
Fate la storia. Fate galleggiare la gloria.
Moeche can feed on billionaires. Just sayin’.
If they do anything to prevent things from floating through, get out your waffle stompin’ boots, Venice!
“You’re telling me none of these people shop on Amazon?” said New Orleans native Jake Springer, who, along with his wife, was spending a weekend in Venice on a wine tour through Italy. “At least they are protesting peacefully. Americans could learn a thing or two from this.”
That person sounds absolutely insufferable.
Lmao the governors tell people to run over protestor here if they are in the street. Both methods block travel in the city, Venice is just specifically aimed at inconveniencing Bezos rather than the general populace.
How dare they inconvenience Lord Bezos though? Have they never used Amazon or dreamt about his rocket, huh? They should be grateful and hand over the city to him
They probably also think USPS delivers there using Prime shipping. Those are the kind of people reproducing.
Exactly what came to mind when I read that.
Fuck you Bezos
I could have sworn this dude got married in Aspen and spent $600M on it. They shutdown the airport for it even because of all the private traffic
How many times are they tying the knot?
Every time they update the prenup.
Sto cazzo…fottetelo.
It warms my heart.
Serious question, why are Venetians against Bezos’ wedding? Did he do anything that offended the city before?
How would you feel if a megalomaniac billionaire would hire half of your city, where he wasn’t born but only appreciates the ‘uniqueness’ of.
He’s openly prostituting an ancient and beautiful relic, that should not be able to be bought in the first place (thus why he wants it).
That in itself is unbearable, the hubris of this upstart, this nitwit who lucked into being the richest man around.
It’s like seeing your mother as a pole dancing stripper on the wedding. For that money, who wouldn’t, but it breeds a lot of resentment.
Apart from every other answer already given, Venice is existentially threatened by the continuous influx of people causing huge costs to the city while contributing absolutely nothing to the local economy.
I am Italian, I have stayed in my uncle’s house in Rialto and loved to experience the little local life that was left at that time (20 years ago, more or less). Nonetheless, I have made the conscious choice not to visit the city ever again until it gets its shit together.
It is in fact cursed to disappear, but to deny young people to experience it because it is turning into a Disneyland for old people is just cruel.
Is there a way to visit for a couple of days (Not for Bezos’ wedding lmao) wirhout being a nuisance and supporting local business/people as much as possible or is it better to just stay away? We dream of flying there, seeing the cities and then going to the Dolomites.
Stay at a hotel in Mestre, make a plan to visit lesser-known local businesses and attractions (Atlas Obscura is a good start), if possible, join a tour given by an authorized guide.
The city is literally sinking, global warming is not helping and billionaires disproportionately contribute to it.
Billionaires are inherently evil.
It’s Jeff Bezos.
