Romy Mars, who represents a segment of self-aware, self-deprecating Gen Z nepo babies that may not be very large, has just gone viral on TikTok calling out UC Berkeley for inviting her to speak on campus, given she is 18 years old and doesn't feel qualified to speak about much.

Sofia Coppola and Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars's 18-year-old daughter Romy, whose given name is Romy Madison Croquet, is someone whose birth was announced by the Hollywood Reporter, and whose entire life has been drenched in privilege and notoriety. She is the granddaughter of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and made her film debut in his late-career epic Megalopolis. The music video for her pop single "A-Lister," released earlier this year, was directed by her Oscar-winner mother, and shot on the property of her grandfather's Napa Valley property, the storied Inglenook Estate.

The clever, catchy, wordy song knowingly skewers the world of wealthy, California privilege, with lyrics like "I met an actor last night, he called me a star," and "I'll be miserable after chasing what I don't want." The New York Times critic Jon Caramanica called it maybe "one of this year's best pop singles."

Mars exudes the sophisticated cool of her mom, along with a sense of humor about her position in life. That was clear in the viral, sped-up TikTok she made at age 16, in 2023, in which she "came out" in a sense as a "nepotism kid" whose parents told her she wasn't allowed to have any public social media accounts.

In the video, she's showing how she prepares to make pasta sauce while being grounded at home "because I tried to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland on my dad's credit card because I wanted to have dinner with my camp friend." She also admits something that her food-obsessed Italian American grandfather would be more horrified by than her helicopter caper: She doesn't know the difference between garlic and onion.

Mars has a significant presence on TikTok now, with most of her posts garnering over 1 million views. So, her latest, in which she scoffs at an invitation from UC Berkeley to speak on campus when their typical speakers are "medical chiefs" and the creators of "Khan Academy, Paypal," is getting similar traction.

"What's going on?" she asks. "I don't even know what you want me to give advice on. I was born into this. I don’t have [a] work ethic. I don't have tips and tricks, and I don't have insight on the business, 'cause honestly I just sit on my ass and write songs."

Mars has been writing songs since the age of 12, and released her first singles last year.

She just started her freshman year at Lehigh University, and she's been documenting some of her experience on TikTok. As she admits, "I wasn’t even going to apply to college. No one in my family went, but one of my engineers (person who deals with all the buttons and tech in a music studio) said it would be good for me to have a foundation."