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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Rich Kids of Instagram: Consumerism at Another Level

When you think of a rich kid, you probably remember the girl in high school with the Michael Kors bag or the guy who had a new car before everyone else. To your dismay, those people are just average middle-class citizens. The real rich kids are the trust fund babies running around St. Tropez losing his or her Cartier watches and trying to keep his or her vintage Louis Vuitton luggage bags in check. It’s a different world.

The recently developed blog Rich Kids of Instagram exposes some of the luxuries these youngsters enjoy. The blog follows the children of the upper class as they post pictures on Instagram drinking bottles of exclusive champagne, jet-setting on private airplanes, lounging in beachside mansions and much more. What’s most eye-catching is the collections of clothes, shoes and accessories that these kids have racked up.

Some of us collect coins. They collect Hermes.

Hermes, a French luxury brand whose bags are priced at an upwards of $5,000, is one of the most common brands pictured on the blog. Most of them have more than one of these bags.

Rolex and Cartier are among the jewelry brands the privileged youth of America favor. Although some opt for the Cartier Love Bracelet instead of a watch, the Rolex timekeeper is as popular as ever in this crowd.

The big Lou’s, Louis Vuitton and Christian Louboutin, don’t seem to be of any expense to these kids seeing as some stock pile them by the dozens. They have so many boxes of shoes and accessories from these brands that they could readily start their own boutiques.

This isn’t to say that expensive pieces are wasteful or unnecessary. Every person with an interest in fashion should have a couple of luxury designer pieces because they are high-quality items that will last you forever. It’s an investment.

However, these people obviously live a completely different life than most and have no idea what the difference between cost and worth is. These items cost them, or his or her parents, a lot of money. Yes, they have a big price tag, and it is true that they have the means to afford it.

But the law of diminishing marginal utility states that as you consume more of a good, the marginal utility associated with consuming additional units of the good declines. Thus, it is completely useless to purchase such large amounts of the same or related goods because their value drops to zero.

As most of us struggle to calculate how deep we are buried in loans, we have to remember that these kids are struggling with issues of a greater caliber, like deciding which Birkin bag to take to the Hamptons this weekend. While we’re taking out these loans to pay for an education that will prepare us for higher-level careers, they are getting hired off the bat for those same jobs by family friends. That, my friends, is the beauty of life and capitalism. 

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