In case you’ve been out of the internet discourse loop, there have been countless conversations about the many nepo babies of Hollywood, and to what degree everyone seems okay with their career paths.
What is a nepo baby?
In this instance “nepo” is a shorthand for “nepotism,” a term whose Merriam-Webster definition literally translates to “favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship.” So, basically, it’s any time someone favors a relative for hiring rather than an outside party—and, as you can imagine, Hollywood is chock-full of nepotism.
Heck, even actors you probably don’t even think about as nepo babies are nepo babies.
Nic Cage, Dakota Johnson, Drew Barrymore, Riley Keough, Jack Quaid, Tracee Ellis Ross, Miley Cyrus—the list goes on and on, and that’s just to name a few!
Nepo baby discourse
And, as previously mentioned, there has been plenty of discourse around this topic over the past few years, with many strong opinions noted. It eventually got to the point where nepo babies themselves were coming out to defend their own existence, culminating in Vulture’s “Year of the Nepo Baby.”
Of the movement, Academy Award-winning icon Jamie Lee Curtis (and nepo baby herself, as the daughter of star Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh) wrote in a caption on Instagram, “I have been a professional actress since I was 19 years old so that makes me an OG Nepo Baby. I’ve never understood, nor will I, what qualities got me hired that day, but since my first two lines on Quincy as a contract player at Universal Studios to this last spectacular creative year some 44 years later, there’s not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars. The current conversation about nepo babies is just designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”
In defense of nepo babies
Given all the conflicting feelings present around this conversation, it was only a matter of time before someone turned the conversation on its head. So recently on X, a user asked the ultimate question: “What’s an example of nepotism that you’re actually a fan of?”
And, to the surprise of many, people came through with some A+ answers. Here are just a few of the most popular nepo babies shared:
Answers to this question also moved into the realms of movie and TV characters, with users going a step further to show those fictional Nepo babies they’re cool with:
Nepo babies aren’t by any means new, and they’re here to stay for generations and generations and generations.
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