Flaunting what you don’t got
On social media, it’s hard to miss posts where people flex their possessions. However, people may be purchasing these things when they don’t really have the funds to back them up. This is known as conspicuous consumption: attempting to achieve higher social status through display of expensive goods. According to an article in the New York Times, one Instagram account has the goal of exposing people who fake a higher economic status on social media.
The account is called @BallerBusters, and they strive to “expose phony entrepreneurs.” Oftentimes, people on social media claim to be influencers or young businesspeople who achieved wealth through some form of unspecified hard work, and Baller Busters was made with the purpose of cracking down on the liars who are not as rich as they portray themselves.
While it is annoying when people fake wealth or status on Instagram or other social media, is it really so deplorable that they need to be publicly called out? Pretending to be rich isn’t directly hurting anyone else. The worst thing that’s happening is lying, and in an era of photo editing and exaggerating online, lying on social media to some extent is almost expected.
Something interesting about the Baller Busters account is that it is a private account, which means only those who follow it can view their posts.
If this account wants to expose “#FlexOffenders,” as they call it, then why is it private? According to the New York Times article (which, by the way, Baller Busters now provides a link to in their bio), “The ‘busts’ themselves generally take place on Instagram Stories and are done in a tongue-in-cheek nature with plenty of emoji. (The majority of content on the account’s main feed consists of memes and parody videos.)”
Instagram stories are public to everyone, even if the account is private, but disappear after 24 hours, unlike main posts, which are permanent unless deleted. This means that the busting of Instagram phonies is done publicly, while the more fun content is just for their 38,000 followers.
So, with this risk of being exposed, why do people lie about their wealth on social media in the first place? Conspicuous consumption is done to make one seem like they have higher social and economic status than they really do. In our society, status is important. Our dominant ideologies glorify and glamorize having this status; they place importance on wealth, apparently over truth. So while Baller Busters on Instagram might call you out if you take your lying too far on Instagram, the reward usually outweighs the risk.
