How the internet turned class into a performance
Recently, fashion influencer Sophie Silva found herself at the centre of online backlash after promoting YouTube’s new artificial intelligence (AI) tool for generating music. On TikTok and Instagram, criticism in the comments quickly extended beyond the sponsorship. She was accused of being too wealthy and buying too many clothes, representing everything supposedly wrong with influencer culture. Some criticism is perfectly reasonable. Influencers should absolutely be questioned when they promote potentially harmful technology or encourage excessive consumption. But somewhere along the way, I started wondering when ‘rich’ became an insult.
Internet users spent years loving glimpses into unattainable lifestyles. Wealthy influencers like the Kardashians offered enormous mansions, designer clothes, lavish parties, elaborate meals, and luxury vacations. Now, however, online attitudes towards wealth seem to be shifting. The same lifestyles that once fascinated us are increasingly criticized as overconsumption, privilege, or ‘nepo baby’ culture.
There is nothing inherently wrong with criticizing wealth. Extreme wealth can come from exploitation, inherited privilege, underpaid workers, and monopolistic power, all while many people struggle to meet their basic needs. These things deserve scrutiny. The problem is when we start treating class labels as moral categories.
The internet loves a success story about someone who supposedly started with nothing and built their way up, becoming a ‘self-made’ hero. As a result, being born into wealth can be treated as evidence that someone’s accomplishments are illegitimate. But privilege and talent are not mutually exclusive. Acknowledging someone’s advantages does not require one to assume they have no abilities of their own. The term ‘nepo baby’ is used to describe someone whose career has benefited from family connections (nepotism), and has become increasingly common in online discussions of celebrity success. I have also noticed more women celebrities being labelled with it. Has the term become a new, more socially acceptable twin of accusing successful women of ‘sleeping their way to the top?’ Being born into wealth does not automatically make someone unethical, just as being self-made does not automatically make someone ethical or immune to exploiting others.
The contradiction becomes even clearer in the way online culture aestheticizes wealth. Internet users have spent years romanticizing fancy homes, designer bags, expensive watches, and nice shoes. This might explain the popularity of classy luxury aesthetics. We apparently don’t mind wealth as long as it is aesthetically pleasing and able to be duped on Shein for a fraction of the price. The same internet that tells us to ‘eat the rich,’ a slogan used to condemn wealth and excess, still has an appetite for their home tours, wardrobes, vacations, relationship dramas, and lifestyles. Wealth hasn’t stopped being entertaining. We’ve just started treating it like a guilty pleasure.
But the internet doesn’t only romanticize wealth. It romanticizes poverty, too. There is a difference between appreciating thrift, resourcefulness, and making the most of what you have, and turning poverty into an aesthetic. Consider how beloved the ‘struggling artist’ is in popular culture, from starving-artist characters in films and television to the romanticized image of the broke, young creative living off instant noodles. There is nothing charming about not being able to afford what you need to live. A wealthy person choosing secondhand clothing because they like the aesthetic is not experiencing the same thing as someone who cannot afford new clothing. Someone choosing a tiny apartment or pursuing ‘van life,’ living in a vehicle by choice for the freedom or minimalist lifestyle, is not experiencing the same thing as someone who has nowhere else to go. These lifestyles become aspirational when we know they are voluntary and temporary — but not when they are born out of necessity.
This leaves us with some strange contradictions: don’t be poor, because poverty is embarrassing. But don’t be rich, because wealth is immoral. Eat the rich, unless they’re your favourite celebrity. Admire the poor, but only if their poverty is inspirational. Call them ‘trashy’ or ‘too ghetto’ if not. We want influencers to sell us the latest fashionable clothes and ideas, but not look like they’re trying to make money. We want wealthy people to look wealthy, but not act wealthy. We want ordinary people to look effortlessly fashionable while somehow never appearing to buy too much. And above all, we want this performance to look authentic.
Wealth has always been something people perform. ‘Old money’ and ‘quiet luxury,’ aesthetics built around understated, expensive-looking clothing and possessions, are performances of wealth that avoid looking excessive or gaudy. Now poverty can become something to perform on the internet, too: ‘broke student,’ ‘starving artist,’ ‘thrifted,’ or ‘self-made’ are all common phrases demonstrating this. This may also explain why audiences become so furious when a celebrity or influencer appears supposedly ‘inauthentic.’ We don’t necessarily expect celebrities to actually be ordinary people. We know they aren’t. We simply want them to look relatable enough that their lives can still be aspirational without seeming completely unattainable. We want the fancy home tour and the designer shoes, but we also want to hear that they bought some pieces used, on sale, or from the same stores we shop at. We want luxury, but we want it to feel accessible to our budgets.
Perhaps this is why accusations of ‘cash grabbing’ have become such familiar criticisms online, too. Audiences generally understand that movies, music, books, fashion and journalism are industries, and that people need to be paid. What people often resent is the feeling that making money has become the primary purpose. The problem is not that influencers get paid; it’s when an endorsement feels careless or an influencer appears to recommend something solely because they were paid to. It loses its authenticity.
Perhaps we should apply the same principle to conversations about class. Instead of asking whether someone is rich or poor, we could ask more useful questions: Are they exploiting people? Are they encouraging destructive consumption? Are they using inherited power to harm others? Are they dishonest about the advantages they had? Are they treating people differently because of their class?
Calling someone ‘privileged’ can be useful when it describes a real advantage, just as ‘nepo baby’ can be useful when nepotism actually explains their career, and not talent. Criticizing overconsumption can be useful when someone’s consumption becomes excessive enough to cause real harm. But when these terms are thrown around simply because we dislike someone, they become petty, and lose their meaning.
Class affects people profoundly, but it does not determine their moral character. If we actually want to talk about inequality, exploitation, and consumption, we need to become more comfortable making specific criticisms instead of turning someone’s bank account and family history into the entire argument. Otherwise, we’re not really having a conversation about class. We’re just consuming the kind of rich person we currently like watching.