"Breaking Big" corrects the myths that make Kylie Jenner a "self-made" success

This PBS series profiles success stories like Eddie Huang, Roxane Gay and Trevor Noah with substance and depth

By Melanie McFarland

Senior Critic

Published July 22, 2018 3:30PM (EDT)

Roxane Gay (PBS)
Roxane Gay (PBS)

The United States is the land of making it big, or so the story goes. We enjoy picturing tiny future moguls, hands clasped behind their toddler heads, faces scrunched in deep thought as they map the route to their first billion. We like the scrappy tales of the housewives or down-on-his-luck inventor staring at past due notices who suddenly find themselves at the center of empires.

We like these stories because of their convenient demonstration that America is still a place where the democratized version of a capitalist fantasy still works. That is, with enough hard work and determination, anybody can be a gigantic success.

“Breaking Big,” currently airing on PBS member stations Fridays at 8:30 p.m., both evidences this philosophy and provides a sobering antidote to it. If there were ever a series built to smooth out the jagged come-down from the collective outrage over recent and misleading celebrations of excess and what it takes to “get by,” this modest show is it.

“What makes people successful?” asks series host Carlos Watson in each episode’s opening credits. “What are the unexpected turns in life that propel people to greatness?”

Then, over the course of the 26 minutes or so that follow Watson, the editor in chief of OZY.com, answers those questions through the life story of one subject, contextualizing each person's biography with input from psychologists, sociologists and other experts who explain which success traits this person's path exemplifies.

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This week “Breaking Big” debuted its episode featuring author and former Salon contributor Roxane Gay, probably the most celebrated voice in publishing right now for a number of reasons. It’s interesting to watch her episode directly in the wake of the two-headed furor over Kylie Jenner and Refinery29’s recent entry in its series known as The Money Diaries.

You may have heard about the chronicles of a 21-year-old marketing intern whose lifestyle is amply supplemented by her wealthy family (#blessed), and whose budget includes a Sugared + Bronzed Pass (“I get one Brazilian sugaring a month,” she explains.)

This anonymous diarist doesn’t meet the definition of “breaking big,” of course, although I’d be surprised if she doesn’t reveal her identity to cash in on some version of her allotted 15 minutes. However, she’s demonstrative of the problem so many people have with Forbes’ recent designation of the 20-year-old Jenner as a self-made soon-to-be-billionaire.

Forbes released its ranking of America’s richest self-made women ten days ago, featuring Jenner, the youngest person on the list, as its cover model. Forbes raises a glass to Kim Kardashian West’s half-sister, and I identify her thusly on purpose, for having “leveraged her massive social media following (110 million followers on Instagram) to build a $900 million cosmetics fortune in less than three years.”

“That makes her worth more than twice as much as her more famous sister,” the story adds.

Soon after Dictionary.com wryly sarcastically the definition of self-made.

Now, people and dictionaries aren’t hating on Jenner per se as much as they’re taking serious issue with Forbes hanging the “self-made” label around her neck.  America has been obsessing over the nonsensical exploits of Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and their “momager” Kris for 11 years and, dear lord in Heaven, 15 seasons worth of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” 

We’re supposed to ignore the fact that this this supposedly self-made business wunderkind knocking on her first billion dollars before she’s old enough to legally drink alcohol has spent more than half of her life on camera. Nope, those 110 million Instagram followers came to her organically. This conveniently incomplete packaging of Jenner’s success story represents everything that’s wrong about the myths surrounding modern-day entrepreneurship.

A few years ago we were inundated with tales of millennials supposedly becoming the generation of entrepreneurs, until we were awakened to the reality that student loan borrowing has so many of them in such deep holes that, according to a 2016 survey conducted by EY, a professional services company, and the Economic Innovation Group, they’re on track to become the least entrepreneurial generation yet. In today’s climate of economic uncertainty, where a rising generation of young adults is saddled with monstrous amounts of debt, the dream of “Breaking Big” probably feels more distant than ever. 

It's not because millennials don’t want to work as hard as previous generations — another tall tale, despite what any number of "what's wrong with millennials" headlines want to sell us — but because most can’t afford to forego a steady paycheck, which is precisely the risk entrepreneurs accept when they launch their own businesses. That's why that Money Diaries entry and a financial magazine’s toasting to Kylie Jenner’s allegedly bootstrapped success earned so much ire — making it, to say nothing of breaking out, has start up costs. Launching any business takes ample financial resources and assistance that the average person simply isn't in a position to access. Referring to Forbes’ worship of the queen of Kylie Cosmetics and her estimated $900 million business, Gay points out:

She should know. “Breaking Big” presents the viewer with a very economic look at Gay’s biography, starting with her middle-class upbringing in the Midwest and in New Jersey and citing, without going into specifics, a life-changing trauma she endured at a young age. And while that incident is an important part of her life, it is decidedly not the central fuel to her success.

Rather, as one of the episode’s experts points out, this element of the author’s story is an example of the extreme tenacity it takes to overcome pain. Gay's story provides one example of a common factor among many successful people — that a number of them happen to be survivors in some way or another.

More than halfway through its first season, "Breaking Big" has aired half-hour profiles of country music star Jason Aldean; SoulCycle and FlyWheel founder Ruth Zukerman; Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”; chef and TV personality Eddie Huang; and "Black Panther" star Danai Gurira. Next week the series examines the success path of Michael Strahan.  (All season 1 episodes are available online.)

Nearly all of them are products of modest upbringings. A number have overcome some trauma in their lives. But each of them broke out for very specific reasons. Gay, it’s pointed out, is rising because she speaks to the part of us that doesn’t need to see an example of some “beautiful bird” soaring but finds inspiration in people who sustain bruises and broken bones and scars, and press on nevertheless.

Huang, in his episode, refers to enduring some physical abuse at his father’s hands, but the moment that taught him the most was a massive and very public failure. And every one of these success stories gained a foothold into fame because they had assistance: Watson interviews the parents, family members, mentors and financial managers and the editors who lifted each of the subjects in featured in the series out of obscurity.

And that’s perhaps the most important lesson of “Breaking Big,” and a soothing one as well: there is no single, sure formula. Each of these people happened to speak to a need, something brewing in our collective consciousness, at a specific moment in time.

And each of these people happened to be doing the right thing, and were well positioned in the right moment and at the right time — and had the guts to leap toward their opportunity with no guarantees of success.

The people featured in "Breaking Big" also have confidence in their vision. “I created the moment,” Gay explains. “It happened because I willed it to happen.”

How did she will it to happen? By writing without pay, without publication, without mainstream media acknowledgment for years.

That’s what it takes to earn the designation of self-made.

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By Melanie McFarland

Melanie McFarland is Salon's award-winning senior culture critic. Follow her on Twitter: @McTelevision

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