So. Mariah Carey. Alleged Queen of Christmas, occasional dolphin whisperer, dubbed the “Songbird Supreme”-- she does it all. Now think of what happiness means to you. Our minds go to money, family, food, money, music, pets, & money. Let’s be realistic- we can all say money doesn’t bring us happiness, but the majority of things that bring us happiness require money. All that to say, the holiday season is a time of spending for most of us; but, for Mariah Carey, it’s the one time out of the year that her paycheck reaches grossly high levels that none of us could even dream of acquiring. I call this the Mariah Carey phenomenon. Essentially, the Mariah Carey phenomenon occurs annually, every November/December when we as a society generate Carey’s yearly income in 6 weeks by streaming "All I Want For Christmas Is You." Humor me.
Stats
According to The Economist, Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" made Carey $60 million between 1994 & 2016, averaging $2.6 million per year. In total, her Christmas catalog reins in an annual average of $3 million MINIMUM that flows into her bank account– and that’s excluding live performances, sponsorships, and products she may release that particular year. $3 million dollars. Minimum. If you work full time, spend none of your earnings, and manage to avoid taxes, it will only take someone earning a minimum wage of 3,448 weeks to earn that much money! A mere 66 years.
Why we should stop streaming
Honestly, Mariah is set for life. Why are we still letting her get to us at our weakest moments during the holiday season and streaming her music? If you think about it, it’s exploitation. Everyone feels this weird pressure to play the song because it’s so deeply ingrained within Christmas culture when in actuality, it’s feeding into an unbreakable cycle that leaves us DEFENSELESS in the fight against Mariah Carey. All that to say- Mariah Carey must be stopped.