Money & Culture | Volume 1 • No. 1
Social media has a favorite pastime: convincing you that you’re broke.
“$100,000 isn’t a lot of money anymore.”
“A $250 first date is the standard.”
Going 50/50 on living expenses with your partner? Apparently, that’s a dating red flag.
The bots are working overtime to rage-bait us for engagement, and we’re doing exactly what they’re designed to make us do: post more content “humbly” proving to strangers that we have money. Look where I am! Look at what I can afford! But beneath the engagement farming is something more consequential.
Social media isn’t explicitly telling you what to buy or how much money you should have. It is parading a 1% lifestyle in your face so frequently that eventually, it stops looking extraordinary and starts looking normal. And there’s a danger in that if you don’t pay attention.
Social Media Is Quietly Raising Your Cost of Living
Instagram, TikTok and Facebook aren’t just making us compare our lives to other people’s. They’ve effectively given us a new cost-of-living index and it’s completely detached from reality.
We now discuss Audemars Piguet watches like they’re Casios. Ferraris and Lamborghinis appear in our feeds so often that a $200,000 car can start looking like an everyday vehicle. Trips to Turks and Caicos get discussed less like a luxury international vacation and more like a second-date getaway. Athletes croon on podcasts that $100M contracts aren’t a lot of money.
The algorithm doesn’t have to convince you that you want something or that you don’t have enough money. It just has to keep showing you status symbols, post after post, until they start to feel normal, and you start wondering why your life doesn’t resemble an Instagram reel.
Welcome to the Highlight Economy
Here’s the uncomfortable part: some of what you see online is completely real.
Some people are making $1M monthly. Some people really do own an AP. They really do drive the Lambo. They really do spend $8,000 on a vacation without checking their bank account first.
You just don’t know how they did it (or how they’re continuing to do it).
Maybe they’re drowning in credit-card debt. Maybe they’re juggling five Buy Now, Pay Later loans. Maybe they’re a scammer.
But the reverse is also true.
You don’t see the person who bought the watch after spending years building a seven-figure investment portfolio. You don’t see the conservative budget that made the luxury vacation possible without dipping into the retirement savings. You don’t see the cash-flowing side hustle that paid for the foreign car.
You see the outcome, not the financial decisions that produced it. It’s selection bias with a ring light.
Humans are terrible at judging what’s normal when we’re constantly exposed to abnormal examples. If you saw a Ferrari once a year, you’d recognize it as a rare car. If you see 40 Ferraris before lunch, your brain starts filing them under “normal things people have.”
That’s the algorithm’s real influence on your finances. It isn’t necessarily making you want more. It’s making excess, luxury, and extraordinary incomes feel so normal that they start to feel like the baseline.
If grown adults are susceptible to that pressure, consider what the constant exposure is doing to teenagers and young adults who are forming their relationship with money in real time. They aren’t being shown what wealth looks like. They’re being shown what they’re “supposed” to have without the financial literacy required to understand what that lifestyle actually costs.
And that distorted baseline doesn’t stay on the screen. It shapes expectations. It should come as no surprise that financial expectations are losing touch with reality. A 2024 survey revealed Gen Z believes they need $587,797 to be successful—more than three times the median household income of $83,730—and an average net worth of $9.5M. Those figures were nearly 2x the responses from Gen X.
What This Means For Your Money
The answer isn’t to become allergic to nice things. You should enjoy your money. Want the designer bag? Buy it. Take the trip. Eat at the restaurant. The goal isn’t to eliminate the things you enjoy; it’s to stop letting the algorithm dictate your finances.
Start with budgeting your flexes. If Turks and Caicos is the trip you want, figure out what it costs and save the money until you have enough to book the trip. If fashion is your thing, establish a fashion savings account. Set aside money each quarter; buy fewer, but high-quality pieces you’ll actually wear and ideally ones that retain some resale or consignment value.
It might be tempting but do not finance your luxuries. A credit card or Buy Now, Pay Later can make a $3,000 purchase feel like a $30 decision. It isn’t. Have the cash before making the purchase. Use a credit card to complete the purchase and earn points, then immediately pay off the balance.
A good rule of thumb: if you can’t buy it twice, you can’t afford it.
There’s another way to combat lifestyle inflation: invest in the companies you are constantly spending money with.
If social media has you studying what everyone else is buying, flip the perspective: study where your own money goes. Your spending doesn’t automatically make a company a good investment, but it can tell you where to start looking.
Lastly, increase your income annually but decide what “enough” means before the algorithm decides for you. More money should expand your options, not create an endless obligation to spend more. Knowing how to keep more of your money is just as important as knowing how to make more money.
The Bottom Line
Sometimes the real luxury isn’t owning the thing. It’s knowing that you can afford it and not needing to prove it. That’s a luxury worth pursuing.
If you aren’t there yet, start with turning the smartphone off. Go touch grass. Spend time with actual people. Have dinner with friends. Visit family.
Something strange happens when you step away from social media:
You realize the people around you aren’t buying $1,500 sneakers every week. They aren’t flying to St. Barts every other month. They aren’t driving $200,000 cars to brunch.
The world outside your screen has a very different definition of normal. But the algorithm doesn’t care about normal. It cares about engagement.
It will keep showing you content until the house you want gets bigger, the car you want gets faster, and the “basic” vacation gets more exotic. You can spend your entire life upgrading your lifestyle to keep pace with a feed that has no budget and no definition of enough.
Eventually, you may find yourself chasing more not because your financial goals changed, but because repeated exposure to luxury and status content quietly reset your baseline. You may end up spending all your money trying to keep up with a life you never actually wanted.
About the Author: Femi F. is the Founder of Hustle & Finance and a personal finance expert. He is a disciplined student of markets, money habits, and long-term wealth creation. Femi combines institutional-level market expertise with a culturally relevant, real-world approach to wealth building. His principals are based on living your best life today, while managing your money responsibly for tomorrow.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The views expressed are solely the author’s opinions and are not recommendations to buy, sell, borrow, invest, or take any specific financial action. Financial decisions should be made based on your individual circumstances, risk tolerance, and consultation with a qualified professional. Readers are solely responsible for any actions or decisions they take based on this content. Neither the author nor the platform assumes any liability for losses, damages, or outcomes resulting from the use or application of any information, opinions, or strategies discussed.