How The Influencer Economy Inspires Class Resentment
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It is common knowledge that members of the established economic elite would never indulge in the flaunting of excess wealth, lest they want to come across like newly rich plebs or, god forbid, invite the envious gaze of common folk into their pompous lifestyles. But in the age of social media in which displaying one's success and possessions is the first order of business, the 1% seem to go by a new creed: new money shouts, old money vlogs?
In her TikTok videos, fashion influencer Lara Cosima Henckel von Donnersmack tries on ball gowns against the backdrop of tall embellished walls in her Paris apartment. In other videos, she displays her glamorous life as a fashion student or shows herself partying with her likewise rich and beautiful friends. Lara’s life appears on our phone screens as part gossip girl, part opulent pastel dream directed by Sofia Coppola. Online, these lavish visuals collide with the zeitgeist of a generation that made “eat the rich” its guiding imperative, memed the death of Queen Elizabeth into oblivion and happily celebrated as the billionaire submarine dematerialized in the Atlantic ocean. When a 20-year-old Lara started vlogging about her Dior internship in Paris, her audience immediately started speculating about her presumedly privileged family background. But it wasn’t until people found out that this influencer wasn’t your usual nepo baby, but the daughter of an old Austro-German noble family, that this disenfranchised generation found its very own Marie Antoinette.
An avalanche of discourse following her videos is characterised by a surprising honesty, as social media users pre-empt the classic response of “you’re just jealous”, by outright expressing the jealousy, sadness and/or frustration they are experiencing watching Lara’s content. To feel upset at the good fortune of others, the inverse of schadenfreude, isn’t one of the more graceful human emotions, and its outpouring as a reaction to Lara’s Tiktoks might be a long pent-up consequence of influencer culture. As Youtuber Natalie Wynn (aka Contrapoints) puts it, social media puts us in constant comparison with everyone around us, filling our feeds with intimate snapshots of completely unattainable lifestyles and creating “an incubator of envy”. Suddenly, seemingly innocuous “get ready with me” and “fit check” videos become the symbol for a gaping economic divide that only keeps growing.
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We have come to view influencers as a new social stratum, which however divisive they might be, managed to turn social media into a tool for upwards economic mobility.
But what makes Lara Cosima different from any other rich influencer flaunting their wealth? It might be that we have come to view influencers as a new social stratum, which however divisive they might be, managed to turn social media into a tool for upwards economic mobility. We’re used to the idea that people capitalise off their online personas and might even feel inspired rather than jealous when the spoils of brand sponsorships and new-won cultural capital are shown off to us. But Lara Cosima exists outside of this content creator archetype: Old money tends to keep a more mysterious profile, and we aren’t used to seeing a level of wealth we can never dream to aspire to. As more people discuss Lara Cosima online, openly envious of the exclusive parties and balls in Spain, of the coveted job and seemingly endless opportunities, the jealousy turns into class resentment.
As Katharine Hu points out in the Atlantic, the increasingly common desire for a career in influencing amongst young Americans is a reflection of a “deep economic pessimism on the part of Gen Z”. Amidst the inflation and progressively unstable employment conditions, this generation holds dire expectations about their future in traditional employment. While disillusioned about the American dream, social media, the “great equaliser” of influencers grown from algorithms and personality keeps the fantasy that anyone might just be able to make it alive. Lara Cosima exists as an exception that disproves the rule, reinforcing that the upper classes have shortcuts to success that those born into lower class families will never have access to.
Last year’s debate on nepo babies in the entertainment and fashion industries gave many celebrities a taste of this resentment. The following outrage didn’t just stem from the fact that they live more fortunate lives, but that this section of the famous elite didn’t earn their status.
Envy is so much more frustrating if it is directed at the undeserving and worse, those that are blissfully unaware of their privileges. Reminisce on Lily-Rose Depp declaring that she landed her first Chanel campaign at aged 16 on the merits of honest, hard work alone. For Lara - a nepo baby of literal aristocrats - it’s crucial to display a certain level of self-awareness, so as not to appear like those 18ths century monarchs who believed their position was a divine right. Or be prosecuted as such.
But amongst the wave of emotion welling up because of this influencer - jealousy, hatred, admiration - a somewhat surprising sentiment stood out: relief. As one Twitter user writes: “I didn’t realize she was royalty I feel so much better now”. It makes sense - to constantly consume content of other people's superior lifestyles is to be painfully aware of our own insufficiencies. Influencers can make us feel unaccomplished and lesser, relentlessly adding items to the list of things we could never be; things we weren’t even worrying about before.
This feeling of relief is the opposite of the frustration one might feel about an untalented second-gen model. It’s the realization that this person leading a seemingly perfect life didn't achieve it all by just being better than you. They don't actually deserve it! Thank God! Within this relief lies the very core of capitalist delusion and competition mentality: That we can look at a person living in a palace and think “Am I not working hard enough to deserve this?”
What the collective consciousness needs to realise next is that nobody could ever be deserving of such a life. It's impossible to amass such amounts of abundance without relying on an inherently exploitative economic system and aristocratic influencers are no exception. Consuming content made by the uber-wealthy is neither productive nor good for us, and most importantly we should realise that the upscale lives we so desperately try to vicariously experience through our phone screens, shouldn’t be aspired to.
Words: Florence Mbuyi