SUBRAMANIAN: Dhar Mann controversy shows need to address US employee exploitation
Column: Whadda I Know
Today, it seems like worker uprisings are coming all over the place. For example, employees from over 200 Starbucks stores have unionized to fight for better working conditions and protection from unfair firings.
Even at Rutgers, many faculty members and graduate students have taken to the streets to protest with the AAUP-AFT against unfair contracts and a lack of job security.
The latest worker uprising is happening at Dhar Mann Studios. For those unaware, Dharminder "Dhar" Mann is the CEO of Liveglam, a makeup subscription company. Mann’s real claim to fame — aside from defrauding his business partner or the city of Oakland, California — is from his social media content amassing more than 17 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, 15 million followers on TikTok and 29 million followers on Facebook.
It is pretty safe to say that if you are on the internet or use social media frequently, chances are that you have either seen a video from Dhar Mann Studios or heard about the name.
The videos are nothing revolutionary. They tell fairly simple stories with in-your-face messages like "do not judge a book by its cover" or "follow your dreams." These videos became really popular on social media for a couple of reasons.
As stated before, these videos are very simple and do not require much thinking to process. At the same time, the videos have a weird schadenfreude aspect to them.
One of the best examples of this comes from Mann’s series of gold digger videos In these videos, there exists a man and a woman in a relationship. The woman in the relationship tends to have expensive taste and pushes the man to buy expensive things for her like designer items from Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada.
The man in this relationship cannot afford these items because he is starting a business. The woman eventually dumps the man and moves on to some rich guy. Then, for whatever reason, the rich guy and woman split up due to various reasons (the rich guy cheats on her, the rich guy loses all of his money, etc.).
The two exes end up running into each other, and it turns out that the once-poor man has been able to launch a super successful company and now drives a fancy car, and the woman is now left with no partner and no money.
With Mann’s meteoric rise in the YouTube space, many in the YouTube community like PewDiePie and Cody Ko started to criticize these motivational videos for their odd dialogue, poor acting and somewhat problematic messaging. But, these criticisms have not really phased Mann’s success in the sphere, and he continued to grow, even getting collaborations from other famous YouTubers and social media stars like SSSniperWolf, Faze Rug and Brent Rivera.
At the same time, Mann himself has become quite wealthy. Back in 2020, Mann purchased a mansion from Khloe Kardashian (which was previously owned by Justin Bieber) for $15.5 million. Now, it seems like the happy, stain-proof, feel-good, positive brand that Mann has constructed is falling apart.
On February 7, one of Mann’s actors, Colin A. Borden, posted a series of four Reels on Instagram discussing the working conditions at Dhar Mann Studios and why many of the actors started to protest. In this video, Borden states that many of the actors, including some that have been around since the creation of Dhar Mann Studios four years ago, were being severely underpaid to the point that many could not afford rent.
In some cases, Mann was actively creating an unsafe working environment for his actors. When actors did bring up these concerns to Mann or the executives, many were fired, creating a culture of suppression.
Many of these actors got together, created a hard copy of their demands and grievances and tried to schedule a meeting with Mann. But, the meeting turned out to be with the HR manager when they specifically requested for Mann to be present at the meeting.
Do you know what Mann was doing rather than trying to help out the staff that has worked for him for four years? He was in Aspen, Colorado, on vacation. This caused many of the actors to go in front of Dhar Mann's studio and actively protest against their former boss.
Dhar Mann Studios responded to these claims by stating that workers were getting paid up to $44 an hour for speaking roles and $18 an hour for an extra role. On the surface, that seems like a good wage, but the nature of these contracts and wages do not paint the rosy picture that Mann wants you to believe.
As Nathan Ing, a former actor for Dhar Man Studios explained in a YouTube video, many of the actors are not full-time employees but are doing contract work. These actors get sent contracts where they do not know how many hours they are working or when they are working. As a result, these actors prepare to have the majority of their time spent acting, but they could just be there for only 3 hours.
What this means is that an actor with a speaking role, according to Mann himself, could end up making just $99. What is even odder about this is that most acting companies use day rates for their workers for this very reason. I guess Mann did not learn how to treat his workers right when he was busy defrauding Oakland, California.
These workers deserve better. They have spent years working for Mann and truly supported him from the start. For them to be treated with such little respect, care or concern is frankly appalling and disgusting.
Given that now is an era when wages are stagnating, the rich are getting significantly richer and union membership is at an all-time low, it is the time for collective action. Dhar Mann Studios is merely a microcosm of the current economic conditions.
If we are going to rectify the current situation that the middle and working classes are in, we need to recognize that the people at the top are not incentivized to help us out. We do not need to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, we need to pick up a sign and fight for our rights.
But hey, whadda I know?
Kiran Subramanian is a junior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in economics and political science. His column, "Whadda I Know," runs on alternate Fridays.
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