Can Someone Who Has Once Made Easy Money Ever Return to an Ordinary Life?
While browsing online news, I came across an article about a comedian who had once been successful on television and had now been arrested for shoplifting. A decline in income was apparently the motive.
Come to think of it, there was also a former idol who made headlines after being arrested for shoplifting and after it emerged that she had worked in the adult entertainment industry.
Whenever I see news like this, a simple question comes to mind.
“Why don’t they just get an ordinary job?”
There are jobs at convenience stores and supermarkets. Why, then, do some people fall into financial hardship and even turn to crime?
The more I think about it, the more the entertainment industry seems to have a frightening quality: once someone enters that unusual world, it can become impossible to leave.
A World Where a Few Hours Can Earn an Office Worker’s Monthly Salary
A popular entertainer may earn the equivalent of an office worker’s monthly salary from a television recording that lasts only a few hours.
People around them give them special treatment, and fans cheer for them.
Can someone who has lived that way for years suddenly return to a part-time job paying ¥1,200, or about $8, an hour?
Eight hours of work earns ¥9,600, or about $64. And this time, they are the one who must bow to the customer.
The work may be perfectly ordinary to most people, but might it feel humiliating to someone who was once successful?
Once a person’s standard of living rises, it is not easily lowered. Pride is even harder to bring down.
Pride Is a Greater Problem Than One’s Sense of Money
Imagine someone whose face was once known to millions of television viewers stocking shelves in a supermarket.
Then a former fan walks in.
“Wait, weren’t you on television years ago?”
For that person, there may be nothing more humiliating.
Someone who cannot let go of past glory may prioritize protecting their former identity over rebuilding their life.
They keep believing that one day the spotlight will return, and continue looking away from reality.
Before they know it, their savings are gone and they have no work.
All that remains is past glory that the public has forgotten and pride that only they are unable to abandon.
Is “Making Easy Money” Like a Drug?
This is not limited to entertainers.
People who make a fortune through investing or gambling may similarly come to regard steady work as foolish.
Once someone has experienced the thrill of making a large amount of money in a short time, working diligently day after day begins to seem terribly inefficient.
But having made a great deal of money in the past and being able to make it again in the future are entirely different things.
Popularity in the entertainment industry can disappear in an instant when trends change.
Yet the person’s sense of money and pride remain frozen at the height of their success.
Their income falls below that of an ordinary person, but in their own mind, they are still a star.
Why Do Talent Agencies Encourage Successful Entertainers to Spend Extravagantly?
What is even more frightening is the entertainment industry’s culture of encouraging successful performers to spend money.
“Entertainers have to spend money to enrich their craft.”
“Live extravagantly, even if you have to go into debt.”
These are familiar sayings, but viewed from another angle, is this not an extraordinarily clever system?
What would happen if a successful performer saved their earnings responsibly and built assets worth several hundred million yen—millions of dollars?
They would no longer need to accept work they disliked. They could leave their agency or simply retire.
But if they spend everything on luxury cars, mansions, and nightlife, they must work desperately again the following month.
They may believe they are living extravagantly, but in reality, they are creating the very conditions that make it impossible for them to quit working.
From an agency’s perspective, which is more convenient: an entertainer with enough assets to leave at any time, or a reckless spender with no choice but to keep working?
When you think about it, the structure closely resembles that of a drug dealer.
The difference is that one is a crime, while the other is celebrated as an inspiring story within the industry.
Perhaps the Greatest Misfortune Is Having Succeeded
When you think about it, a comedian who never became successful may actually be happier.
They pursue a dream while young, confront the reality that they are not going to make it, eventually let it go, and find an ordinary job.
The truly difficult case is someone who achieved a moderate degree of success.
They once earned large sums of money, appeared on television, and enjoyed public adoration. Because that memory remains, they cannot accept who they are now.
Their experience of success becomes a burden on the rest of their life.
Society calls people who succeed in show business “winners in life.”
But success may last only a moment, while the memory remains for a lifetime.
The people who truly succeed in the entertainment industry are not those who earn a fortune. They are those who keep the money they earned and put themselves in a position to escape the industry whenever they choose.
Seen this way, the most frightening thing about show business is not failing to become successful.
It is becoming successful and, as a result, having to remain successful until the day you die.