19 Infuriating Photos That Are Peak Late-Stage Capitalism

    "Capitalism is, fundamentally, an economic system that promotes inequality." —Annalee Newitz

    William Barrios
    by William Barrios

    BuzzFeed Contributor

    1. A billboard announcing the construction of a Trump Tower — featuring a smiling Donald Trump sitting in an opulent room — towers over homeless children in Mumbai.

    A sign for Trump saying that there is only one way to live above unhoused people in Mumbai
    Paul Needham / facebook.com

    The photographer, Paul Needham, said of the image: 

    "Business, done right, can create lasting social value. I saw Trump towering over the homeless, the children sleeping on cardboard on the street, and I was reminded of the ways in which our economic system can be painfully exclusive and unfair."

    Another level to this photo's painful irony is that it was immediately criticized by some who called it a favorite phrase of Donald Trump's: "fake news." Many thought it was photoshopped, and even fact-checking website Snopes.com claimed it was fake.

    But, unfortunately, the photographed scene is a real one. As Snopes went on to say: "While many people who viewed the image were initially skeptical about its authenticity (including us), the image is real."

    2. This woman was charged $39.35 for holding her baby after giving birth.

    A bill showing that a woman was charged nearly forty dollars to hold her child after he was born
    u/halfthrottle / imgur.com

    Credit:  u/halfthrottle

    In the Reddit thread where the image went viral, one person did try to give some context to the charge. They mentioned that a professional has to be present to make sure the baby is safe, so the charge is partially paying for that professional's time.

    That still doesn't excuse the ridiculous charge, and it speaks to an even larger problem in American healthcare that Vox’s Johnny Harris points out:

    "What struck me the most about my quest to learn about hospital prices was the fact that consumers have no way of knowing where a hospital stands on the vast pricing spectrum. Consumers have few options to interact with pricing until after they have received treatment. It's significantly easier to find out how much it costs to park at a hospital than how much it will cost to get treatment."

    3. Elon Musk arrives at Twitter as the new CEO with a visual gag before laying off half of its full-time employees and allegedly eliminating 4,400 (80%) of its contract employees.

    Elon Musk walks into the Twitter headquarters with a sink
    Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images

    In case you missed it, this was his joke: "Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!"

    4. On August 4, 2020, 218 people died, 7,000 were injured, and 300,000 were left homeless when ammonium nitrate, improperly stored by the Lebanese government, caused an explosion that was so powerful it registered as a 3.3 magnitude seismic event.

    A graffitied barricade reads 'my government did this' in front of miles of desolation and trash
    Marwan Naamani / Marwan Naamani/picture-alliance/dpa / AP Images

    The explosion also called caused $15 billion (USD) in property damage. The people of Lebanon were already protesting the government for unfair taxation and other financial proposals, and the explosions added to civil unrest. 

    Just six days after the blast, the prime minister and Lebanese cabinet resigned.

    5. This Sony patent that would make viewers have to verbally shout out the name of a brand to end a commercial.

    A patent showing a user shouting out McDonald's to end a McDonald's ad
    Sony / patents.google.com

    Sony calls it a "System for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games." You can see the full patent here. 

    There are several different ways that Sony illustrates the idea could be implemented. One involves a game where you throw a virtual pickle into a virtual burger to speed the commercial up.

    In another version, "the user gets rewarded with some points or a coupon from the sponsor [for shouting out the brand]. The rewards can be collected by the user in a variety of ways, such as receiving a coupon in the mail or via email, getting a text message in a mobile phone with the coupon, collecting points toward collecting [prizes] in a web site, etc."

    Snopes has a great summary of the patent you can check out here.

    6. The massive and flashy Grand Lisboa hotel & casino stands over dilapidated buildings in Macao.

    The ornate Grand Lisboa stands over run-down buildings in Macao
    Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images

    7. The leader of the far-right Proud Boys group heavily implies that he sells both right and left-wing merchandise to profit off of the political divide.

    The leader of a far-right group implies that he sells pro-left merchandise to profit off political strife
    HBO / hbo.com

    The interview in which Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio made this implication was part of the Andrew Callaghan HBO documentary This Place Rules.

    8. Reality show inspired by a series in which people risk death for money and others' entertainment is not harming its contestants that badly, says the corporation profiting off of both.

    A news headline says that Netflix's real-life Squid Game is dangerous for its contestants
    The Verge / theverge.com

    As one contestant said, "Even if hypothermia kicked in then people were willing to stay for as long as possible because a lot of money was on the line."

    9. The GoFundMe that asked people to donate to Kylie Jenner to help her become a billionaire was set up as a joke, but the fact that it raised nearly $2,000 was not.

    Edward Berthelot / Getty Images, GoFundMe

    After Kylie Jenner appeared on a Forbes cover with a headline that stated she was worth $900 million dollars, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the publication calling Jenner "self-made."

    But Josh Ostrovsky (better known by his Instagram handle The Fat Jewish) was focused on something else. Jenner wasn't yet a true billionaire. So he set up the GoFundMe as a joke, writing:

    "I don't want to live in a world where Kylie Jenner doesn't have a billion dollars."

    Raising any money at all is one thing, but the GoFundMe page became such a meme that people realized a lot of eyes were landing on the donations page.

    So advertisers started donating small amounts of money and leaving their Instagram handles or notes such as "Like Us On Facebook!"

    10. The tourist's image of the Taj Mahal is much different than a nearby view of the iconic mausoleum from the Yamuna River banks.

    Kriangkrai Thitimakorn / Getty Images, Modernnomads / Getty Images/iStockphoto

    11. As @JordanUhl points out on Twitter, "Budweiser just spent $5 million on a commercial to brag about donating $100K worth of water."

    View this video on YouTube
    Budweiser / youtube.com

    12. Plastic trash washes ashore opposite Doha, Qatar, one of the richest cities in the world.

    Plastic waste on the shore of the Arabian Gulf shows the problem of environmental pollution; in the background the modern skyline of Doha.
    Siegfried Layda / Getty Images

    13. Sleeping at the office: a progressive perk or a death sentence for work-life balance?

    A man sleeps in an office pod
    Stan Honda / AFP via Getty Images

    "Sleep where you work" has become a controversial stance taken by Elon Musk, pressuring employees to leave the office as little as possible.

    But even when sleeping at work is presented more positively as a "break from the workload," it can still blur the line between your job and your personal life. 

    The Google campus is the perfect example. 

    Clive Wilkinson was the architect of the search engine's headquarters. The Google co-founders were inspired by the design of college campuses, including all the amenities that come with them. 

    But Wilkinson now sees some potential dangers in making your job as comfortable as your regular life.

    Wilkinson told NPR:

    "This notion that you can provide everything that would support a worker's life on campus might appear to be extremely generous and supportive. But it also has a whole range of potentially negative impacts. [...] Work-life balance cannot be achieved by spending all your life on a work campus. It's not real. It's not really engaging with the world in the way most people do."

    14. As the Reddit user who posted this image put it: "Only in America would a restaurant display on the wall that they don’t pay their staff enough to live on."

    A sign stating that servers are not paid enough to survive and depend on customers' tips
    u/M7plusoneequalsm8 / reddit.com

    Credit: u/M7plusoneequalsm8

    15. Found along Roseville road in Sacramento, CA, this one speaks for itself.

    A billboard of Mr Rogers advocating for friendship over an unhoused encampment
    u/OhHiMarco / reddit.com

    Credit: u/OhHiMarco

    16. Virtual reality is a remarkable invention, but it's hard to look at this picture and not think about WALL-E or The Matrix.

    A group of people with VR headsets sit in what resembles a black void
    David Ramos / Getty Images

    17. Though these numbers are slightly outdated, the reality is still about the same. As of today, California has built five universities and 23 prisons since 1980.

    A wall showing that twenty-two prisons have been built in thirty years while only one university has been built
    Kim Kardashian / Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/kimkardashian/?hl=en

    The art installation went viral after Kim Kardashian posted it to her story in 2021. The piece's statistics are based on this 2014 article, which writes:

    "Our campaign will first focus on the issue of prison spending. Today we incarcerate about 30,000 people – one out of every six people in state prison – for offenses like shoplifting and possessing small amounts of drugs. We used to hold people accountable for these crimes without sending them to prison, but harsh and automatic sentencing laws like Three Strikes placed many more people behind bars.

    The result? California has built 22 prisons and just one university since the 1980s. And we spend $10 billion a year on our prison system."

    18. The same building with much differing surroundings in the span of just 45 years on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai.

    Art Directors & TRIP / Alamy Stock Photo, Stefano Politi Markovina / Alamy Stock Photo

    Oil was first exported from Dubai in 1969, and since then it has become one of the wealthiest places in the world.

    19. "Japan’s Disposable Workers: Net Café Refugees" — Watch this quick documentary for a look into the life of Japanese workers who live out of Internet café rooms due to their affordability.

    A man sits in a small room and watches a computer screen
    Media/Storm / vimeo.com

    In Japan, more than one in three people are temporary workers. These workers have short-term contracts and make less than half of what full-time employees make, according to the documentary.

    This forces some to forego a traditional living space and take up residence in private rooms offered by some cafés for browsing the Internet. 

    But it's important to point out that the men in the documentary look at their situation positively, grateful that they have the café as an option. 

    What are your thoughts on these images? Let me know in the comments.