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| Photo by Alisa Ustyuzhanina |
"Everything in excess is opposed to nature."
-Hippocrates
Social media has become the ultimate showcase for bling. We are bombarded with vast images of conspicuous consumption. The lives--whether real or manufactured--of influencers dripping in jewels, sporting the latest fashion, partying and parading around their interior designed mansions, is our daily intake. To further exaggerate these Uber lives, are frequent luxury vacations, where they can be seen lounging on yachts and exotic beach locales sipping cocktails. It appears every other week there is yet another South Asian, Italian Riviera or Caribbean vacation. Supreme personal pleasure and obnoxious gloating seem to be the main motive in these well-crafted portraits. Many followers are starting to wonder, ask and comment...."Don't you have any other life aspirations?" "Is this all that you do?" "Any intellectual or cultural pursuits?"
When I was growing up, the only time you had a glance into the lives of the wealthy and well-known, was to open up a glossy magazine or catch an episode of, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with Robin Leach. Now, depending on who you friend or follow on Facebook or Instagram, it's a minute by minute excursion into the excess of the 1%. An occasional vacation pic, fancy dinner or pretty outfit is no longer the custom with the influencing set. It's the norm to now see people with thousands of pictures of absolute decadence, reels of changing fashion and overindulgence. Moderation and restraint are of a bygone era. We have abandoned attention to the higher desires of education, art, and intellectual pursuits for those that are purely sensual. "Entertainment was Plato's worst nightmare. It deposed the rational and enthroned the sensational and in so doing deposed the intellectual minority and enthroned the unrefined majority...entertainment was less about morality or even aesthetics than about power--the power to replace the old cultural order with a new one, the power to replace the sublime with fun." (Life the Movie, Neal Gabler, page 21)
Along with displaying a lack of moderation and refinement, there are now the pressing issues of mental health and personal safety. The 90% that cannot afford such luxurious over-the-top lifestyles are being left with feelings of discontent and underachievement and the criminal underground have found new targets. In February of 2020, the successful rapper, Pop Smoke, was murdered and robbed in his Hollywood Hills rental. "Pop Smoke's fans and web sleuths pointed out that he had posted photos on social media showing lots of cash, as well as a luxury car and designer goods. He had also put up posts on Facebook and Instagram with pictures of designer bags." (Vulture.com, Victoria Bekiempis, 5-11-21). Less than a month ago, the Reality TV starlet and fashion designer, Dorit Kemsley, was robbed at gunpoint in her Encino, California mansion. In 2018, another Reality TV star and actress, Kyle Richards was robbed of $1 million in jewelry. Other social media influencers, known for flaunting their extreme wealth have also been robbed, such as Kim Kardashian, Eleonora Incardona, Kieran Hamilton, Giulia Diletta Leotta, Jake Paul, So Mei-yan, Troy Williams, Nikkie de Jager and Achraf Hakimi. "...there's an increasing number of bitcoin traders and Insta-influencers attracting thieves and criminal gangs online, with experts suggesting around eight percent of people could be targeted by criminals due to what they share on social media." (scmp.com)
As someone who follows and studies social media, it is common that those with older family wealth and less of a desire to display that wealth often have private accounts with far less followers. Those working in fashion and other sales-related businesses use it mostly as a marketing tool. The problem today is that you have an influx of young, new wealth, a financial drive for social media popularity, and a culture that encourages a lot of flash and excess but with no substance behind it. The main influences of social media are compulsive consumerism, sex and narcissism. Celebrity culture, which moves and motivates social media, "...plunges us into a moral void. No one has any worth beyond his or her appearance, usefulness, or ability to "succeed." The highest achievements in a celebrity culture are wealth, sexual conquest, and fame. It does not matter how these are obtained. These values, as Sigmund Freud understood, are illusory. They are hollow. They leave us chasing vapors. They urge us toward a life of narcissistic self-absorption." (Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges, page 33)
"We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys--a symbol, in Italian culture of ignorance and stupidity." (Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges, page 44)
