Rich Kids of Instagram: a tumblog of greatness

[richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com]: Rich Kids Of Instagram. "They have more money than you and this is what they do." (via @mistergif)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Jared Bryant

Wow, look at all that hot job on job creation action!
- spacemunky
  
  I can feel it trickling down!
  
  (from billionaires to trust fund kids)
http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

Poppin’ bottles in the tub!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s a whole lifestyle based on a Snoop Dogg song.
- LikesTurtles
  
  …or, posing in the tub with empty bottles you found laying around after your parents hosted a fund raising dinner.
bbonyx

Awesome. I love that you kids know how to use all that money to party the right way.

Now it’s time to take all those resources and actually go accomplish something worthwhile, otherwise you’re nothing more than all the things your detractors will say about you after viewing these pics.

Oh, and I’m confused. I’m far from “rich” but I have a gold and platinum Amex. At what point did that become a token display of status? Black, I get. But who doesn’t have a gold?
- http://www.zhrodague.net/ Drew from Zhrodague
  
  Those of us that were hard working, and paid off all of their debts, cannot get credit cards.
  
  Also, I had to close the window after looking at a few of the pictures on the front page. I can’t think of a good way to describe how I feel after looking at them, but it isn’t good.
  - bbonyx
    
    ‘”Those of us that were hard working, and paid off all of their debts, cannot get credit cards.”
    
    Not sure what that means. I’ve worked hard for decades and have zero debt (other than my house) at the moment. I’ve racked up very low 5-figure debt and paid it off multiple times. That has left me with a credit rating of just above 800, which means I have no problem getting cards (quite the opposite, they won’t bugger off). If you worked hard and paid off debt I don’t understand how that translates to not being attractive to credit companies.
    - http://www.zhrodague.net/ Drew from Zhrodague
      
      I dunno – I apply for credit cards sometimes. I get denied every time. I have no outstanding debts, and (I think) I’ve paid all my bills ontime for the last – at least 8 years. It’s confounding. I think I’m 760+. My FCU denied my credit application. I make a decent salary. WTF?
- Dave X
  
  Remember, these are KIDS. My kid took $11 with her to the mall today, for comparison.
- Ipo
  
  Me. I don’t have any credit. With banks.
  
  Did you have a gold card before you ever had a job, just for ‘spending money’ from mommy and dad?
  
  No?
  See, that’s what makes this young man so superior.
  
  He poses with recyclable trash in a small bathtub.
  I wish I could buy that much style.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’ve had a platinum Amex for decades. Including the decade where I was making less than $20K per year.
  - bbonyx
    
    Exactly. I’ve never had a regular Amex. If I remember right, my first one was a platinum. And I wasn’t even making $30K/yr at the time.
  - http://www.facebook.com/lharden1 Laura Harden
    
    The annual fee is a biatch on that one. I cut mine loose for that reason alone.
- cegev
  
  For that matter, the two large champagne bottles are Clicquot and Moet & Chandon Imperial. Neither of these are expensive champagnes. While I do like Imperial (I liked the White Star label it replaced better, though), it is, if I recall correctly, the most-sold actual champagne, and is amongst the cheapest. Clicquot is similarly a relatively cheap champagne. Standard bottles of Imperial sell for $30 or $40; those are larger, but are still not very expensive.
  
  Those bottles are not the sort of bottles one saves, much less takes pictures with.
  - http://www.facebook.com/lharden1 Laura Harden
    
    You can buy those champagnes at Costco! Big pimpin’.
  - SumAnon
    
    I noticed that, and was a little confused.
- http://www.facebook.com/lharden1 Laura Harden
  
  Same here. I have a Gold Amex too. I had a Platinum but the annual fee was too rich for my blood, thankyouverymuch! Anyone with good credit and a good income can get gold and platinum. I have never been offered the black.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    They charge you an annual fee?
  - takurospirit
    
    A former boss had the black. His personal assistant used it to charge a shit load of expensive Thai food to feed everyone a tasty work lunch when he pissed her off. He never even noticed.
http://twitter.com/agraham999 agraham999

On this photo I’m just going to go with poser douchebag…Rich kids of Instagram and you are only sporting a Gold Amex? I hope the Platinum and Centurion kids beat him up.
- Boundegar
  
  Yea the 1% don’t pull stunts like this. But I would pay good money for a photo of Romney bathing in champagne. XD
  - blindidiotgod
    
    Hopefully a bubble bath…Ugh…The thought of Romney’s weiner bobbing in the water, combined with his range of expression is the stuff of nightmares.
    - snowmentality
      
      Yow. Please pass the brain bleach.
  - jnordb
    
    Come on, now… Romney is Mormon. It’s doubtful that alcohol has ever crossed his lips. Or a beverage from Starbucks for that matter. We all know that, rather than waste money on elaborate parties, he was prudent with his earnings and gave back to the country in the form of job creation and reinvesting in American industry.
- Donald Petersen
  
  I hope the Platinum and Centurion kids arrange to have him beaten up.
  
  FTFY.
http://twitter.com/_Engineer666 _Engineer

I can’t watch this.
Toxa

I am not ashamed to say that I envy *some* of the pictures on the instagram.

Being a douche, no. Having (or having friends who have) a yatch full of hot women and expensive booze, yes.

Edit: I mean tumblr!
- malindrome
  
  It’s hard not to think about what good $14k could do in the world, instead of having been turned into one night at the bar for five (like in that one photo).
  - takurospirit
    
    I’m more selfish in my displeasure. I saw the $4,000 bottle of champagne and thought “That’s my entire property tax bill for the year. The one I’m worried I might not be able to pay this year. Which means the city seizes my house.” But then there are people born into shacks in Appalachia with no electricity that probably think I’m sitting pretty. Life, it has never been fair.
  - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
    
    Assuming you are a first-worlder, this is a bullshit and hypocritical argument. To much of the world, you are just as wealthy as these people are to you.
  - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
    
    Surely that receipt is not a $14k night at a bar, but instead the receipt from someone that has bought a bunch of drinks at a supermarket/bottleshop/etc somewhere with a currency that isn’t nearly as high as the USD.
    I think this, because I live in Australia where booze is god damn expensive compared to virtually everywhere else I’ve ever travelled. Yet there is no way in hell I would pay $550.00 for a bottle of Johnny Walker Black.
    
    I also can’t imagine many “bars” selling “2 x 6PK Water”.
klwarner

99% of these people are SOOO lucky they’re rich, cause they are SOOOO unattractive. Overcompensate much? The Dom only makes you cute if the OTHER person’s drinking it.
- jnordb
  
  so does that make them the 99% of the 1%?
robdobbs

I particularly like that you can change “richkids” to “douchebags” in the URL and it still works.

http://douchebagsofintagram.tumblr.com/
- Cowicide
  
  I thought you were kidding until I clicked the url. ^-^
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=795033809 Maggie Dean

There are some seriously tacky nouveau riche moves going on there. Conspicuous consumption anyone?
- Donald Petersen
  
  Are we to assume the Old Money kids act more tastefully?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Old Money never talks about money. That’s one of the ways that they manage to hold onto it for generations. In all the economic kerfuffles of the last few years, how many Boston Brahmins have been on protesters’ hit lists?
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Had to ask, since I don’t move in those circles. The only “riche” in my family is my brother, who started out on food stamps and eventually had success in Hollywood. After he’d paid off his house and had over a million in the bank, he still drove an eight-year-old Nissan Maxima.
      
      Our last President, however, comes from a family of Yalies going back four or five generations, and his youthful antics aren’t terribly far removed from this kind of horseshit.
  - retepslluerb
    
    Usually yes, safe the fringe nephews and nieces and likes. Because old money wants to stay old money and that means sustainable business and smart successors. Posers do not work out for them.
  - LikesTurtles
    
    Old money likes to hang around with other old money. Showing off a soggy receipt for a bottle that anyone in the group could afford doesn’t impress. The people in many of these photos are going out of their way to show off the money they have to those who don’t, which isn’t all the different than the showy display of gold chains and wads of 20s (likely surrounding a bunch of 1s and 5s) in areas of poverty.
  - SumAnon
    
    In my experience, yes. It’s the nouveau riche who are extravagant and ‘wasteful’, while old money is more tasteful and subdued. When expense means nothing, then conspicuous consumption looses its appeal.
TrollyMcTrollington

Somewhere in Spain, there’s a cliff and a pile of flails that sorely need to be put to good use.
Cowicide

I feel sorry for these inbred kids. Many of them will never know true self-worth and the satisfaction of accomplishing goals even when the odds are stacked against them.

Fortunately, there’s lots of drugs available to wash away all those thoughts if they ever pop up in their inbred pea brains.
http://www.bauartcreative.com/ Bauart

Hmmm… I suspect this is probably just a rather clever viral marketing campaign for Dom Perignon Champagne. The photos are a little too “staged” and the occurrence of Dom just a little too frequent.
- Forkboy
  
  That’s probably just one of the keywords the guy/gall used to find the pictures in the first place.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

Good thing his (other) dick isn’t in the photo, next to these huge bottles and all…
BBNinja

I don’t really see anything wrong with a lot of those photos, just some privileged kids having fun, no biggie. However, the ones where people pose with receipts of their alcoholic purchases are more sad than anything. I’m also trying to figure out how “2 6PK Water” costs 84 bucks and how 3 Red Bulls cost 24 bucks from a receipt pic on the first page. Like…where do you shop that 12 bottles of water costs 84 bucks? That better be the tears of Christ for that price or you’re getting ripped off.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Assuming that those are dollars, it could be a hotel.
- bo1n6bo1n6
  
  Vegas.
- Jake0748
  
  ”I don’t really see anything wrong with a lot of those photos, just some privileged kids having fun, no biggie.”
  
  What fucking world do you live in?
  - BBNinja
    
    I said the booze and receipt photos were kinda douchey but a lot of those photos are just pics of some rich kids and their friends. Albeit their fashion sense may seem off to some of us but whatever. Are you saying we should just hate rich people because they’re rich Jake?
    - Jake0748
      
      No, not just because they are rich. But because they are rich and useless. Rich people have the potential to do good. But those who ignore that potential deserve nothing but scorn. I am sorry, but I can’t help but wish that some toaster would fall in to that bathtub.
    - http://marrickvillian.blogspot.com/ Al Corrupt
      
      yes
- starfish and coffee
  
  Roughly what would the booze in that bathtub picture cost? As well as that pink Dom Perignon that other guy is showing off.
Frank Diekman

The difference between “old money” and “new money” is like the difference between Jell-o and Jell-o with Cool Whip.
sockdoll

I can haz opulence?
ImmutableMichael

Rendered into a rich, buttery fat some of these kids could be useful for stopping my gardening tools getting rusty.
- takurospirit
  
  I just laughed then thought, “Wait, am I supposed to be rubbing my garden tools down with animal fat?” Really, though, should I being do that?
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    A light rub with a rag oily with canola is good.
    
    Animal fats might attract pests, in much the same way that Instagram seems to have done.
echar

That one that says Our everyday is better than your best day makes me they were stripped of everything (e.g. cash, credit cards, cell phones, etc.) and dropped right in the middle of some seriously poor neighborhood.

On their person will be firmly attached a sandwich board with that instagram picture. If they are not pelted with rocks, stinking awful, or tarred and feathered… Then maybe they can see with their own eyes what it’s like on the other side of the tracks. That is if they have a shred of compassion.

Trading Places – Down and Out Santa

http://youtu.be/Od4nSd9AVH8

American Psycho – Paul Allen

http://youtu.be/8WdEL8DzvaM
RJ

Rich kids are just mental problems floating in a sea of enablers.

This may seem off-topic, but maybe someone will find it useful or entertaining. I have a sort of redneck philosophy about the very rich and the very poor.

Most of us have heard what an old clunker of a car sounds like, idling at a red light. The muffler has holes in it, so it’s loud. The ignition timing is off, so the engine makes a gruff chug-chug-chug sound instead of a low hum. The car is worth $800, tops.

Something fewer people have ever heard (but you can find it on Youtube) is how a very expensive race car sounds when idling, especially top fuel dragsters. Those things are tuned to perform best at speeds no clunker could ever hope to achieve without an airplane around it. Yet the dragsters are still loud and the timing isn’t set up for low idle, so it makes a gruff chug-chug-chug at the light. Top fuel dragsters are usually worth about $200,000 each.

Both are automotive extremes. Both sound exactly the same when they’re sitting still where people can listen to them. Both run a risk of bursting into flaming ruin – one from being too poor to afford maintenance, the other from running too hard for too long on the same exclusive tracks.

Somewhere in the middle is best: reasonable, smooth-running and practical. So it goes in life. Trailer trash is just as irrational, adulterous and treacherous as the 1%. It’s those level-headed folks living the middle way who are most balanced.

Thus concludes the Top Fuel Dharma. *GONG*
- archzero
  
  Except that fellow in the “old clunker” will probably stay fueled up on a combination of drug and welfare money. The rich kid’s Amex will definitely keep his Lambo topped up, while your Prius gets repo’d because you are broke, unemployed and lost all of your credit in the housing slump. Your “redneck philosophy” is the argumentum ad temperantia and in this recession-plagued nation, with a rapidly declining middle class, I fail to see how it is even plausible if taken at face value.
  - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
    
    So there’s that.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000566886652 Jason Thomas

Sites like this give me a renewed sense of hope for the future. Can you imagine how many corrupt/inept past and current politicians could have been prevented from ever rising to a position of power if they had been raised in a culture where every single stupid action they ever participated in was documented forever and ever in the public domain? There’s gotta be at least a few dozen aspiring political careers for whom the eventual seeds of their premature destruction is being sown via Instagram and tumblr. Not to mention all the amazing smear campaign fodder being posted via twitter, facebook, etc. The up-and-coming politicians of the future are going to have to either be complete luddites or be purposely trained by their parents/nannies/handlers from an early age to avoid having any internet presence whatsoever. Either that, or maybe (just maybe) be normal, well-adjusted, non-sociopathic, smart, normal people who just want to make their communities and country a better place to live. #silverlining
- Daneel
  
  Sure about that?
lovestospoog

Ok, this is rather disturbing. The “Our everyday is better than your best day” jerk has a scene from American Psycho where PB contemplates killing his secretary as his Twitter wallpaper: https://twitter.com/collinjohnstone. I think this tells us all we need to know about our leaders of tomorrow.
http://redesigned.com redesigned

depressing
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

The tumblr pics and the comments above are a prime example of the symbiotic nature of status display and envy. One would be no fun without the other.
- echar
  
  Status is an illusion… also, being a dick is being a dick. Some of them could do with being knocked down a peg. If not by the hand of another, then by natural means. I can tell you this, If I had those resources, I would respect those resources. I would also do something with those resources to benefit everyone.
  
  Such as supporting bills that encourage financial diversity. Also I would refrain from flaunting my fortune, for directing attention to fortune attracts thieves and others who have no qualms with parting others with their fortune.
infocommie

When my wife and I take extra long walks, we sometimes end up in the opulent neighborhood with the hotel sized mansions. That’s where the sidewalks are, and the shade trees. We gawk disgustedly at the huge houses with the $200,000+ cars in front for a while, but the talk always seems to eventually devolve into picking the longest stretch of windowless wall on these monstrosities that would serve best to line the inhabitants up against. It becomes kind of a game.

And we’re comfortably middle class.

Just sayin’.
dcorbett

The truly sad thing is that these people see nothing at all wrong with their behavior.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic
  
  What would a bunch of refugees from some impoverished war-torn country saw a photo of you sitting in a Honda Civic holding up a cold soda and a bag of Mc Donalds?
- twianto
  
  Well, better spend the money than just keep it in some trust fund, right?
  
  Ideally they wouldn’t have that kind of money in the first place but now we’re in fantasy land…
Teller

One man’s gold grill is another man’s Dom-in-a-tub. Show-offs are show-offs.
http://www.facebook.com/lharden1 Laura Harden

This all seems very déclassé and nuevo riche. From all that I have been taught, the truly rich don’t flaunt (and in such a ridiculous way)or behave in this manner. Too easy. I have never been rich. I spent my childhood in a solidly middle class environment, and I still exist there (maybe a little better).

I don’t know the ways of the truly rich. I have been around it a few times and found it all intimidating. Best days are made of money, on that point I strongly disagree. I have done the jet set thing a few times with rich friends and days spent with my family are a million times more soul satisfying.
http://twitter.com/eschenfelder Norman Eschenfelder

Bathing with champagne bottles while holding daddys golden Amex-card between lips.
Leider geil
http://marrickvillian.blogspot.com/ Al Corrupt

I just woke up with no job, no money and I am eating a bowl of porridge – because that is all the food i have left.
This is the first post I looked at today.
The ‘humour’?
Lost on me.

I want to kill them.
KIll.

Them.

All.
http://marrickvillian.blogspot.com/ Al Corrupt

Fuck Instagram
verde

How come nobody mentioned the original:
http://www.mirrreybook.com/
aaronmhill

I don’t understand the point of this tumblog. Is it meant to shame them? Because I’m pretty sure none of them really care … I mean, they put their photos on Instagram, publicly, in the first place. They’re showing off. If it’s meant to make us envious, like MTV Cribs or whatever the cool kids are watching these days, I don’t have time for that.

Fuck ‘em.

There’s nothing constructive about that tumblog.
jakobfricke

I just wanted to know more about the anonymous behind the blog, so I did an interview with him/her: http://blog.getpicpack.com/post/28470446791/spotlight-rich-kids-of-instagram