to wonder why we worship rich people?

[kindlypudding]

Or to put it in context, why are there so many posts over the years that presume rich people (including the the established upper class) have better ideas about how to dress, spend money, behave and go about the world?

I am 50 and recall being a very young teen in the early 90's.
I was bog standard middle class, and had a good amount of privilege, compared to todays' world. Yet my friends and I would have preferred the ground to swallow us up than to emulate the wealthy. We sure as heck didn't presume they were the arbiters of taste, in fact, if anything, we considered it all a bit fusty, behind the times, etc.

I noticed a shift towards emulating wealth again around 2012, where everyday teens were suddenly starting up blogs to show off their Chanel handbags. And then Mumsnet, post after post asking how the upper class lived and how it could be copied. A presumption, I presume, that considered wealth and high status to be the pinnacle of good taste.

Perhaps it is my own background that puts me in an odd space with this. Maybe our particular entourage were subversive, alternative? But it never struck me back then, both amongst my middle class and working class peers, that anyone wanted to worship the upper echelons.

I know that there might have been many people who chased the money, where property and investment were paramount, but it didn't feel quite as consuming as it does today.
What do you think altered that? Did the internet have some effect, or perhaps was it the growing divide of wealth that brought it home to people?

Quite. This is another example of 'nice' that people so often seem to want to aspire to. These were distinctively middle class students.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-39190588.amp

I don’t think people worship the rich. I think people aspire to emulate those who seem to have put themselves into the ultra-rich bracket by doing… not much really!
However, behind each successful Tik-Tok star, Pop Star or Footballer is the years and years of struggle that is glossed over in most cases.
Each time I see a likeable reality TV show participant taking their fledgling steps on TV shows off the back of their popularity on E.g. GBBO, The Traitors, TOWIE Etc. I WANT them to get that break: heaven knows it is so difficult for the youngsters to have the lifestyle some of us 60+ people were able to achieve on a modest income that it’s nice to see how brave they are in reaching for every opportunity and I wish them all well…

Please don't stop worshipping rich people.
We rather like it.

(and deserve it, obviously.)

I always laugh when I read about people praising and emulating the young Diana Spencer’s style before her wedding. I and my friends at the time would rather have died than dressed as a “Sloane ranger”. We really did not want to be them. At all. Despite their obvious money, we hated their “style” and mocked it as very uncool.
But now “made in Chelsea” and “ gossip girl” makes being rich equate with being cool and stylish.

I am with you, OP.

I buy mostly vintage and would, even if I were Scrooge McDuck! One because our planet's fast changing and reducing landfill is essential; two because the quality of high-street items is so poor these days as to not be worth buying. There are certain young people's social movements, like the Dark Academia or cottagecore ones doing the rounds a few years back, where this is celebrated - reams of tips on where to pick up vintage finds - albeit this is pretty niche.

I see what OP means about reverence of the very rich. SO many threads on MN devoted to the tedium of 'class' - whatever that means - and the peculiarly British hang-up about it. According to MN the upper-classes are always nonchalant and never insecure, drive ancient battered Land Rovers, are never brash, arrogant or show-offy about their wealth, are not the ones who mistreat service staff or talk down in a superior way to others (it's the unspeakable petty bourgeoisie who are solely responsible for such crass behaviour). Of course, that's so obviously BS that these objections are painful. The upper-classes have their fair share of insufferable, supercillious gits, same as every other social demographic.

Quite sad, though, to hear what you say about the 18-30 age group. IME, there are a lot in this age group who do have changing values - they certainly don't seem like the partygoers and music festival devotees of my generation - and quite a lot would simply like to go to work and not take on all the stress of managerial responsibility. The business world will have a problem if this becomes the norm, but I can't say that I blame them for it.

I work predominantly with 18-21-year-olds, and my experience of the state of the mental health of far too many young people tends to match yours. Such a shame, and as a society we really should be asking far more serious questions about this. All this talking about it hasn't seemed to get us very far. Also, mental healthcare has long suffered a serious under-investment, diagnosis of issus like ADHD, ASD, dyslexia and dyspraxia are taking years to process and are often disproportionately expensive. This is known to have a direct impact upon children's mental health.

IMO, resources are being channeled in entirely the wrong direction.

If you ever visit the Royal Family board you will read the most incredible toadying worship of the royal family (coupled with mad obsessive rage against Meghan Markle). There are posters who will endlessly read about, follow, dissect, admire and defend a group of strangers who had a happy accident of birth and so hold enormous wealth. It is astonishing and depressing in equal measure.

Very interesting OP. I feel the same as you. It was far more ‘cool’ to be working class in the 90s.

I think a lot of it was tied up with music and popular icons. Take the Spice Girls, for example. They didn’t pretend to be posh (except Posh, of course 😂) and there were loads of similar young faces from ‘normal’ backgrounds. Everyone watched the Soaps, which depicted ordinary people, and the actors came from ordinary families.

The Arts have been devalued now to the point where they are sadly open now only to the wealthy and younger actors and celebrities tend to come from wealth. Plus what we watch has diversified massively, with streaming and the internet. We watch a lot more American, consumerist TV (looking at you, Kardashians!). There aren’t as many working / middle class role models any more, especially for the young. It’s mainly wealthy people that we see.

Also, this. Very much.

The terms 'Old money' and 'New money' come from the Industrial revolution / early Victorian age and was basically the aristocracy being snooty about industrialists making shed loads of money. The joke was many of the aristos /Old Money' types didn't have money anymore and had to marry off their sons and daughters to the 'New money' types to keep the family estates going. Think the set up of Downton Abbey - Earl whatisname named the American heiress to pay of the family debts Old money marrying New

OK I'm summarising a lot but you catch my drift hopefully.

I agree OP, when I was growing up there was more value placed on authenticity and community than wealth, conspicuous displays of wealth we were considered vulgar. However that didn’t apply so much to people who had got famous through talent. Now though the TikTok generation seems obsessed with wealth, specifically displaying it (like exaggerated plastic surgery). There are so many tv programs about “super yachts of the rich and famous billionaires”, specifically following workers who are primed to jump to their every need. I once watch someone get their Henry hoover covered in diamanté, it’s like they are running out of ideas of what to do with all their money.

Err, what? You realise that multibillionaires like Musk and Bezos are the very definition of capitalists?

There's a growing anti-democracy movement taking root. When you've got multibillionaires shaping US government policy and asking if the US should “liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government” there's a fucking problem.

But I also remember when Peter York's Sloane Ranger Handbook was published in 1982, only a year after the wedding.

I'd rather give that one a swerve 😂

New money like 299 mentions, makes me think of Titanic Molly.

I'm a big fan of money, having enough to give you freedom and choices.

But not too much. Most don't need that much to have good quality of life.

Many of the really really rich lead almost miserable lives. (If you want Stephen Bartlett interview CEO's many are workaholics, high anxiety. Many are tight, miserable, work endlessly, affairs. I known lots and met lots, done the accounts for a few, worked for a pharma boss that was the richest man, a wife of a famous chef who was divorcing. Most I wasn't at all jealous of.

I wasn't aware we did.

Donald Trump is supposed to be rich (although less than he claims). The man is a bright orange fuckwit. And Elon Musk is genuinely rich but there is certainly nothing I admire about him.

Thinking of other rich people, I can think of plenty who are a) abysmally dressed, b) have terrible taste and c) are embarrassingly ignorant.

Beyond that I don't take much notice of them.

Once you have enough, money doesn't matter.

I don’t think in people do worship the rich, there’s always been an element of teenagers etc having idols whether that be actors, models, musicians etc etc and I think that’s just perfectly normal for that age group (and was me in the 90s)

I do think social media now does mean there are strange ideals pushed on susceptible people … but I find this stranger in older generations i.e middle aged men who were buying Andrew Tate merch, cigars etc at the time.

in times of societal hierarchy / class structures that’s always been there in one form or another.

What a lot of drivel.

The behaviour that irks me is treating rich people as experts outside of their sphere.

I had a university friend who responded to any sort of criticism of any public figure with, "well, when you've achieved what they've achieved maybe you can comment - they've made lots of money, they know what they're talking about".

I've seen this attitude come up a few times - the assumption of credibility.

I don't worship rich people and I'm not sure I've ever met, in real life, anyone who does. Envying them is another thing...

Do you actually know any young people? They are as keen on 'labels' and 'status' as anyone! They do like cars, and nice homes, they wear make-up that I'd never even heard of. They want the latest tech, the latest gadgets. They like their holidays!

I'm not convinced they care all that much about the planet either! I think people my age are more concerned with recycling etc than they are! As for "selfish and uncaring of the planet" - when was this? When did global warming become a 'thing'? It was never touted as an issue when I was much younger. Far from destroying the planet, my generation recycled glass bottles, we carried our shopping in reusable bags, we didn't drive big gas guzzling cars and there were way fewer of them, we didn't buy 'fast' disposable fashion and a lot of our homes didn't have central heating... I could go on!!

YP don't care where 'old money' came from because it never so much as crosses their minds! They are indifferent for instance to the royal family. They are very often indifferent to politics. They are however broad-minded and open to minorities from wherever they come.

It’s aspirational. What’s wrong with aspiring to be better ?

Everyone in UK is obsessed and still living in a class society.

It's madness!

You can see it with Brexshit too.

"We are better than you"

LOL.

Exactly - if you didn't have aspirations, what would motivate you?!