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.
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.