The “Elite” Myth and the GoFundMe Outrage

When friends of Eric Dane and James Van Der Beek organized GoFundMe campaigns for their families, the backlash was swift and predictable. Comment sections filled with variations of the same accusation: Why are we giving money to elites? Aren’t they rich? Isn’t this absurd?

The word elite is thrown around as if it is a fact.

It isn’t. What I’m about to tell you, may come as a shock and I may not have all the perfect words but please read on anyway.

There is a mythology about actors that lingers from another era , one built on twenty-two-episode seasons, long-term network contracts, DVD sales, and syndication checks that arrived for decades. In that model, a hit show could provide steady employment for most of the year and residuals that offered real financial security between jobs. That system shaped the public’s understanding of what a “successful” actor must earn.

But that system has largely disappeared.

Streaming replaced it with shorter seasons, often eight to ten episodes and far less compensation. Actors now work half as many weeks per season. Residuals from streaming platforms are typically fixed payments, not tied to reruns in the way network syndication once was. Shows can become global hits and still not generate the kind of long-term income for actors that network television once provided. Entire series are quietly pulled from platforms, erasing not just cultural presence but financial participation.

According to SAG-AFTRA’s own data, the majority of its members do not earn enough annually from acting to qualify for union health insurance. Most working actors are middle class at best. Many are working class. Visibility is not wealth. Recognition is not financial stability.

Then…the pandemic halted production almost entirely. Pilots evaporated. Films shut down mid-shoot. Income stopped. Recovery was fragile. Then came the writers strike, followed by the actors strike, both necessary fights for fair compensation in a changed industry and the threat of AI. But months without pay in an already volatile economy. For many actors, it meant years without steady income.

This is why we start Cameo accounts or sell our gently used clothes from our closet or do paid ads on social media. I have been extraordinarily fortunate in my career. I’ve worked steadily and I’m deeply aware that not everyone has had that consistency. But even from where I stand, I have watched the financial architecture of this industry change in ways that are impossible to not feel. The idea that once you’ve been on a hit show you are permanently insulated from financial vulnerability is just not today’s reality.

Against that backdrop, the accusation of “elitism” feels less like an observation and more like a strategy.

Go with me on this…

Actors tend to be labeled elite most loudly when they have something to say, when they advocate for reproductive rights, labor protections, LGBTQ equality, voting rights, or endorse Democratic candidates. The label is useful. If performers can be recast as out-of-touch aristocrats, their advocacy can be dismissed. It is a culture-war shortcut: “other” the messenger so you discredit the message.

But most actors are not heirs to vast fortunes. They are people from small towns and public schools who figured out how to make a living through empathy and wanting to get out of what they were born into. It is labor. Creative labor, yes. But labor nonetheless. And organized labor has always unsettled those who prefer power to remain concentrated to the billionaires.

A recognizable face from a beloved show fifteen years ago does not guarantee permanent wealth. The entertainment industry is cyclical and unpredictable. Income arrives in bursts, followed by long stretches of waiting. Health insurance depends on meeting earnings thresholds. Read that again. Agents, managers, and lawyers take percentages. Families rely on consistency in a profession built on inconsistency. Add a serious health diagnosis into that equation and it’s impossible to stay afloat. Medical costs escalate. Earning capacity changes. Time becomes less flexible.

If we are going to use the word elite, we might consider directing it…um… upward. The true elite are not actors negotiating residual transparency. They are not writers fighting for sustainable careers. They are executives collecting multi-million-dollar bonuses while entire crews struggle to maintain healthcare eligibility. They are corporate boards consolidating media companies and cutting jobs to protect stock prices. They are billionaires whose wealth compounds regardless of economic downturns and whose influence shapes the very narratives that divide working people from one another.

It is easier to resent the visible than to interrogate the powerful.

So when friends of Eric Dane and James Van Der Beek organized GoFundMe campaigns, what they were doing was not frivolous. Their friends were doing something ordinary. They were passing the hat.

Communities have always done this. In small towns. In churches. In union halls. When someone is ill, when someone is grieving, when uncertainty descends, people gather resources and say: Let us help carry them.

At the center of all of this are families. Spouses. Children. Parents. Friends standing in the shock of illness and death and asking what can be done. In their grief, they chose the most tangible gift available: financial stability in an unstable moment.

That choice does not signal elitism. It signals love.

Perhaps the more revealing question is not why anyone would give, but why generosity toward someone recognizable provokes such suspicion. Compassion should not have a means test.

In the end, this is not about celebrity. It is about community. And in moments of crisis, community—however imperfect, however online—shows up. That should not be controversial. It should be a reminder.

Go Fund Me for Eric Dane's Family

Go Fund Me for James Van Der Beeks Family