Preface: I’m saying this as a first world prole, so I understand I’m not immune to this as well. I might spend $40 on an old book i want, which that $40 could be someone’s monthly wage somewhere else. However, I do want to talk about this to someone who’ll understand.
I like my streamers. Well, I like watching their YouTube videos anyway, and I was Watching DougDoug’s charity event he held last year for the monterrey bay aquarium. There was one bit where another streamer (ludwig) gets into a bidding war with a viewer over essentially a backstage pass to the actual process of taking care of some of the sea creatures there. He spent $20000+ on it.
It wasn’t necessarily just an absent minded purchase, he did make a big deal of it, but it wasn’t something he was genuinely freaking out about. He essentially spent $20000 on a bit. [He was also donating to charity, but in comparison, I wouldnt spend probably over $2000 on charity over a year, if I was doing financially well].
So after this I Sat there and was just…jealous. Not of his lifestyle or his success or his business or whatever. But simply of his carefree nature about it. That spending $20000 on basically a joke was a “haha funni” moment and not a “What the fuck am I going to eat and where am I going to live” moment.
I also recently went on a Dr.Mike binge because I was sick (which honestly I feel like shit about because I already don’t like him), and there was one video where he casually mentioned he has a bunch if super cars? Like what? I know those cars suck in terms of actual utility for normal people, but if I had one of those I wouldn’t shut up to anyone. Those are the things I oggle at when I see them drive by, even if they’re obviously rental cars.
Then I was Watching a yt shorts (I know I need to get off of those, but hey it’s better than smoking so ill pick my battles) guy, who is a lawyer. And he was talking about this embarrassing bit where his elevator broke, and he needed the fire department had to come help, and when they entered all they found was a cigar dispenser [a “humidor.” I didn’t even know that was a thing]
I was obviously very confused. Isn’t smoking outlawed in commercial buildings? How does he even regulate that who uses that? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to have it in your office, if you’re allowed to smoke for some reason?
Annndddd then it hit me. He has an elevator inside of his home. Like…what? I hadn’t even considered the idea. Even the largest of mansions I had pictured didn’t have elevators in them. And he just…has that?
None of this inspires me to want to be like these people. Ludwig I just generally don’t like, and didn’t really do well in trying to do anything besides streaming (as he admits, and i don’t even know how much of that is just luck), Dr.Mike definitely doesn’t have supercars because he’s a doctor, and the last guy is a Bourgeois civil lawyer (I feel like I don’t have to explain this one). All of these people got lucky in some way or another. So all I’m left with is a profound sense of jealousy.
I’m just sitting there imagining what $20000 would do for me, or how much less stressed I would be if I had the same money as all of these people. I don’t need in house elevators or super cars or whatever, I just want a decent home, a lot of books, and a good computer. And these people just talk about it like they didn’t hit the lottery of life, that they get to love comfortably, way more comfortably than 99% of people. And I know this is kinda moralizing, I know, I try to stay away from it. But it just builds up inside of me and overwhelms me.
When I hear stories about people just spending a large amount of money like that, it doesn’t even feel real to me. These people live in a different world to me, literally. Like we’re in two parallel universes but I can somehow see into theirs briefly. But then I think someone in a slum in Calcutta probably feels the same about me. It’s just crazy how society went from egalitarian hunter gatherers to…this. And even crazier that it’s getting worse. It’s getting like Ready Player One, where a few trillionaires own everything and everyone else is penniless.
I had a similar moment but with Alpharad.
His newest Among Us vod was after his charity stream where someone donated 8000 dollars. Spending that amount of money got them a spot in their next Among Us game (the newest VOD). During the game, Alpharad made a comment to let the guy talk, who spent 8000 to be there.
The absurdity of spending that amount of money and what it got them made my stomach turn. Even if it’s for charity, having that kind of disposable income just willy nilly feels so wrong while there’s so much income inequality.
So on the elevator in home thing. It’s actually quite common in urban Chinese home because the costs of installation is subsidized by Chinese government especially for home with elderly families. It’s so cheap that our paternal village, which was almagamated to Guangzhou, could afford home elevator for elder users.
Huh.
I still think the situation is a little different, but that’s actually really interesting to know
A lot of the necessities in China that use by commoners are unfortunately seen as luxurious in the West, like heated floor or heated toilet that’s a thing even in every 3rd tier city apartment. Or even as interesting as the original use of liquid hydrogen for rural alternatives to fuel, now being implemented in PLA world’s most powerful non-nuclear warheads. China subsidies a lot of these projects into everyday living standards.
Wealth is wasted on the wealthy.
It’s to the point that some young men miss out on great advice because they refuse to accept the man bestowing knowledge upon them is wise, just because he is not rich.
Have you ever gone grocery shopping with someone who was well off? It’s jarring. I’ll be reading the price tags, and comparing weights to see what the best deal is meanwhile they just grab w/e. I have a list and actively talley what im spending as i shop to make sure my card doesnt decline at the register. If potatoes are 2$ more expensive than i expected i dont buy them. Meanwhile it’s common for people to pay 2x as much for the same thing because it has a different logo on it. It’s mind boggling.
Edit: I want to be clear I’m not even exaggerating. I have less than 3$ in my checking account, and my CC are maxed. I’ll be rationing my food until payday next week. Sure is a blast living in the richest country that has ever existed in human history.
I have less than 3$ in my checking account, and my CC are maxed. I’ll be rationing my food until payday next week. Sure is a blast living in the richest country that has ever existed in human history.
This should be a headline tag (or whatever they’re called) on this site.
While I haven’t specifically gone grocery shopping with someone like that, I do understand the feeling.
For me the comparable thing would be food wastage and sitdown restaurants. I actually get incredibly stressed from throwing away food and stuff (long story short: generational trauma from my great grandmother growing up during the depression). So I’ll basically always clean my plate and try to eat whatever I’m given, even if I don’t like it (I won’t eat like, sawdust, but unless I actively feel like I’m throwing up ill eat it.) But then just got to go to the east coast with a nurse friend of my mom and she would order something from a restaurant, and if she didn’t like it she wouldn’t finish it. And she would also get a full course of meals (app., Main, Desert) and drinks and stuff while whenever I got to go to sitdown restaurants (which would be once every two months basically), we could only get main dishes (and nothing super expensive, obviously.) This also goes for cooking, which I actually fear doing because I know I’ll mess up and I don’t want to waste food.
On the flipside, casual fast food is like this too. My lunch is an egg salad sandwich, which in total costs about $0.50. The dozen eggs are two dollars, the bread is two dollars, and the mayo and mustard are like $4 each at most (but theyll usually last me a while and can be used for other things, so i dont have to buy them weekly). That’ll last me 6 lunches, so it comes to about half a dollar. But I know some people who will casually just go to a fast food place for lunch, which can range between $8 and $11 for one lunch. I mean, it’s not inconceivable, I occasionally go to them if I forget my lunch of if i need food for whatever reason, but its a big decision. I can’t just casually spend $11 a day on lunch.
I always think about the animal suffering that went into wasted food too. Some animal lived its life in a crowded cage, got crammed into a truck and driven hundreds of miles in torturous conditions, dragged into an abattoir and died painfully in terror to make this food and someone just throws most of it away.
Yeah 11$ a day on lunch is crazy expensive. That’s more than all the food i eat in a day costs.
I grew up poor. Mum was studying while I was growing up as her body had broken down working (she was a cleaner at a hospital) so she could only work the weekends. After she finished her studies she got good wages (she ended up working at the hospital as a psychologist at the oncology section, and her colleagues were very confused why everyone at the hospital knew her) and we also found out that the man she had shacked up with who lived in a cottage without running water in the middle of a forest actually had a very wealthy father who he reconnected with after decades of no contact and ended up getting a sizeable inheritance when he eventually died. So they got enough money to move into a house with a garden for mum and they managed to retire, which I’m very happy about.
Anyway I get actively stressed when I go shopping with mum when I visit. I just see her putting in things at full price and have to fight my urge to put them back on the shelf. She wants to spoil me and I get mild panic when she spends money on me as I know when she did that when I was younger it meant that she didn’t get to eat. I know I can also afford shopping like that but it makes me feel physically ill to get vegetables if they are slightly more expensive than usual (which is why I do the grocery shopping alone instead of along with my partner, I end up spiralling if I let her pick stuff).
Long story short, I absolutely get that feeling even now after being financially stable for well over a decade.
Sometimes i wonder how parents do it tbh. Like i guess the economy wasnt as bad as it is now 20 years ago but imagining trying to feed like 3 kids plus yourself on just your own income… and they wonder why we arent having as many kids.
I know what you mean. I’ve been trying to spend money on more ethical things (no nestle, etc). But it still hurts when I look at the price of two similar items being so different
3rd world prole and I can somewhat relate regardless of borders.
I’ve seen crazy wealth too with my IRL friend, mansions, swimming pools, perfume collections, too many cars I don’t know, factories etc.
I feel plenty of jealousy as well but it also reminds me of the sheer privilege and power people around the world have from birth and how they got it, and honestly also makes me want to selfishly chase such wealth in return.
Pretending these people work harder to get their wealth is the capitalist lie and thus leads to us to despising them, honestly what can we really do about it than to funnel that into something productive and something that will mean something to you or society as a whole?
sorry if that wasn’t too helpful my brain can’t find the words.
Capitalist is a fucked up world order, is all I can say. I would probably be a much happier and healthier person without chronic financial fears and how they tie into access to basic needs. I’m lucky(? I guess) that I’ve never been in poverty, but I’ve never been anything resembling “rich” either. I’ve always resided in that weird between place where the possibility of things unraveling is very real, but they haven’t yet. I was just protected from the knowledge of that possibility in childhood. Most of my adult life has been spent not having a lot to spend, but nevertheless being okay on the most essential basics. It’s a suffocating existence in a way because so much of capitalist life revolves around being able to blow disposable income on various things to “participate” in society. But it also could be a lot worse and knowing it could be and that there’s no real safety net makes it hard to even enjoy what I do have.
The idea of living a “rich lifestyle” is foreign to me. Even if I logistically could, I don’t know if I could bring myself to do it. I was raised Catholic and I went full atheist in my late teens and haven’t budged on it since, but I think some of the basic spirit of it stuck with me, the parts that are more about being humane and humble. I don’t know, it’s a way I make sense of it I guess. That the idea of living in great excess while others are starving is so weird to me. I would take loving community over a mansion any day. A mansion lifestyle sounds very lonely anyway. What do you even do with that kind of space? There is a certain hollowness to excess and I don’t know if some rich people just don’t see it that way, or they do see it but they do it anyway because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do with money. I guess what I’m getting at is, if I had the money to do so, living a stereotypical rich lifestyle honestly sounds more depressing than living frugally. I just want the barriers to standard needs out of the way. Excess doesn’t fill those holes.
Don’t watch them. Discourage others from watching them.
Watch small streamers instead, even. There are many.
eceleb culture is everything wrong with society.
That wasnt necessarily the point, but I appreciate the advice
I know it wasn’t, but I prefer tearing down the privileged over sympathising with jealousy.
Especially when that 40 you offhand mentioned would be enough to feed me for two weeks.
🤷♀️
DougDoug is a pretty good egg tbh. His most recent video is about a bit he did on stream where whoever gives him the most money dictates what he does, which he repeatedly stressed is a terrible use of your money and you shouldn’t give him any. Over the course of the stream people gave him like $8k, which he was so uncomfortable with he gave it all to charity.
He’s a lib and rich, but he’s a good dude and you could be watching and supporting much worse people
he did on stream where whoever gives him the most money dictates what he does
Over the course of the stream people gave him like $8k
That’s what happens when you’re a big enough streamer. It really is crazy how much money people throw at them.
It’s kinda funny how several people wrote their own analyses of “NPC streams” trying to unearth all the reasons why they exist from any possible angle and then it just turns out… they make a shitton of money doing it.
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium is not SeaWorld, comrade. They do serious work in conservation and their animals are rescues. Calling it a “psychological torture facility for wild animals” is beyond terminally online.
All aquariums and zoos are torture facilities.
Yeah, like I said, beyond terminally online. You’re talking about an animal sanctuary.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is not an animal sanctuary by any measure. This doesn’t need any special investigation to demonstrate. Here’s some information that was gleaned from a very short and cursory look at their Wikipedia page:
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Like most aquariums or zoos only some of the animals are rescues, the overwhelming majority are not. They’re kept for entertainment and to attract visitors.
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Its goal and aim is not to be a sanctuary for rescued animals. It is a typical aquarium no different to any other aquarium or zoo in how it operates, with the typical appeals for conservation that we would expect. It’s part of the US Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
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Speaking of SeaWorld, Monterey Bay Aquarium “takes no official position” on the use of whales for entertainment and breeding. Their vice president of communications said in relation to this, quote: "I will say the Vancouver Aquarium and SeaWorld [San Diego] do a lot of great things.”
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Monterey Bay Aquarium has a “Seafood Watch” program that promotes “sustainable” fisheries and provides advice and recommendations for businesses and industries, not to stop murdering sea creatures, but to “do it the right way”, so to say.
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Monterey Bay Aquarium serves murdered animals, including fish, at their own cafe at the aquarium.
What such aquariums, zoos, and institutions consider a “sanctuary” is no different to what the NED considers a “democracy”.
I would encourage you to look into the issues regarding zoos and so-called “conservation” efforts from an animal rights/vegan perspective to better understand the systemic issues inherent to them and how they are ultimately more harmful for the animals.-
You’re such a fucking brocialist stereotype.
To give ludwig some credit he does try to help people, made his company a co-op, and admits that he got lucky to be a big streamer. but also has some very nasty qualities as well. Like he had this one interaction with this one person where he said ‘i lost more moeny than you will ever make’ and it’s disgusting and he keeps repeating it like it was a good thing.
