I’m part of Generation X, the generation that grew up in the 1980s, known for its worship of wealth, ostentation, and luxurious materialism. Everyone on TV was rich, they wore fancy clothes, and their suits all had shoulder pads.
The 80s’ crass commercialism, the desire to appear rich even when you weren’t, and the demand for "more, more, more" have instilled an obsession with wealth and status in today’s young people. They want to appear rich. They do harm to themselves in the name of "looksmaxxing." And they’ll do whatever they can to make sure you know how successful they are, even though they’re really trust fund babies who wouldn’t know real work if it spanked them and sent them to their rooms.
Social media influencers and crypto bros will often pose with ultra-luxurious supercars, private jets, and yachts as a way to show how fabulously wealthy they have become from being influencers and crypto bros in the first place.
Except the cars are rented, the jets belong to someone else, and they slipped a hundred bucks to a deckhand to let them snap photos in front of a yacht that the owner hasn’t been on for three months.
Instead of owning a $500,000 car, these disciples of avarice will rent that car from a luxury rental place for $2,000 per day. Then they have it parked outside a nightclub and have photos taken to make it look like they pulled up in their sweet ride for a night of expensive cocktails.
Except many of them can’t afford the necessary insurance on the car, so they don’t actually get to drive the car. They can only look at it and pretend they own it.
Ike Ordor, a luxury car rental manager, said he once drove an influencer around in "his" car, and the guy changed outfits in the back seat three times so he could make it look like he’d taken photos on different days.
"Our customers used to love the thrill of driving cars they could never afford. Today it’s photo power, not horsepower," Ordor told Metro UK. It’s gotten so bad that the social media influencers outnumber the people who actually want to drive the car for real.
Right now, people are spending as much as £400 ($540) to buy empty designer boxes to look like they spent a fortune when they only, well, spent £400 on empty boxes.
The idea is to look like you spent thousands of dollars to own the real items, and not just tens of dollars on fancy cardboard.
According to the UK’s Daily Star (official motto: "No, The SUN has the Page 3 girls!"), some shoppers will scour eBay and Facebook Marketplace to buy empty boxes from Rolex, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton.
Their goal is to use them as home decorations or as props for their social media posts.
So, instead of having photos taken of you with a pretend car in front of a club, you can take photos of yourself holding rich people’s garbage.
It’s one thing to keep a fancy cardboard box, because we’ve all gotten something with a really nice box and said, "Wow, that’s a good box. We should keep this box." And then you keep the box for years, only bringing it out for special occasions, like wrapping gifts at Christmas and birthdays.
The gift giver has to tell the recipient in advance, "Just to warn you, you didn’t get an iPod. It’s just a really good box." And then everyone else oohs and aahs, and the box is carefully unwrapped and saved for the following year.
Of course, you have to store it away in a bigger, less nice box to protect the original box from getting damaged and dinged up.
Except The Star’s article said people are putting empty designer boxes out as decorative items in their homes. Where are you supposed to put it? Next to the movie props that look like real books and the Mona Lisa poster you’ve had since college?
Influencer: And here, next to my computer printout of 'Starry Night’ by Van Gogh is a Ming vase that I 3D-printed at my local library.
Guest: It’s really—Oh my God, is that a real Rolex box?
Influencer (beaming): Yes, it is. It cost me nearly 300 bucks.
Guest: Wow, you must be rich!
Influencer: You bet. Want to see a picture of a stack of my money? It’s totally mine. I didn’t just rent it from the bank or anything.
Guest: Take a picture of me holding your phone! I want my friends to think I’m rich, too.
Influencer: Just be careful. I have to return that to the luxury phone rental store tonight.
Photo credit: Maklay62 (Pixabay, Creative Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.