Did anyone else catch the documentary Born Rich on HBO? It was thoughtful and fascinating. I was very impressed by the filmmaker, even though (or maybe because) he seems to be struggling and confused over the questions the film deals with.

I was also surprised at how normal looking and sounding most of these kids were. Just your average nebbishy New Yorkers you'd see on the subway, or at most upper-middle-class frat boys with their belt ends hanging down over their khakis (dude, why do they do that?). Apparently wealth can't cure acne... maybe it causes it.

And most of them (excepting the two Italian jerks) seemed to be nice, quiet, surprisingly self-effacing people, not in the mold of the conservative, snobby rich. Maybe the iconoclasts are the only ones who would participate in something like this.

The talk of drug use in that community, those kids who went to Friends and Trinity and Spence, rings true. The richest friend I had was also the one whose life was the most damaged, troubled, drug-addled.

I came away really thankful that I'm not in their position... and not just because of the side effects, because of the money and the stuff itself. It's a quagmire. It's complicated enough to navigate the ideas of work and leisure and what you're supposed to do with your life; when you don't have to do anything with it, when there's no dollar sign forcing you to get up and do something right away, the questions become more unravelable, more pestilent.

I had a very clear vision, by the end of it, of how lucky I am to be just a regular kid from a family of immigrants, to inhabit the financial middle. How having just enough, sometimes not enough, sometimes a little extra is a very good, natural way to be. I've always had a sense of how incredibly fortunate I am, compared with most people in the world. But you don't tend to think of it from the other angle.

Hmm, and I'm a little reluctant to discuss these issues. Which makes me think — the documentary made such a point of the fact that rich people are afraid to talk about money and seem in poor taste, but in reality I think everyone may be uncomfortable talking about money.

Thoughts, even if you haven't seen it?

I did see it and thought it was very well made. I was prepared to loathe these kids but I agree that most of them came off really well. Even Ivanka Trump who, besides being a rich kid has also doubled as a model, so I was doubly prepared to despise her and she ended up being one of my favorites. When she talked about finding out about her parent's divorce from seeing the front page of The New York Post, I really felt for her.

I do think money is a taboo topic, regardless of class. I was always taught that you should never talk about how much you spent on something, unless it was something you got really cheap. It was okay to tell someone you found a silk shirt for $3.00 but no okay to tell someone you paid $5,000 for an end table.

It's interesting because I have friends who live in some pretty affluent parts of Los Angeles. One lives in Bel Air and the other lives in (I think) the Highland Park area. It's where Nicholas Cage lives. Both of them are very cautious about telling people exactly where they live. When asked, they both just say Los Angeles. If they are talking to people who live in Los Angeles, the one who lives in Bel Air will say "Near UCLA" and the one who lives in Highland Park will say "About 10 minutes south of downtown." They have this sense that it would seem like bragging to tell people the truth. That it's somehow vulgar to let people know you live in Bel Air.

And I understand it to a certain degree because I have seen what envy can do to people. The woman who lives in Bel Air basically married a man who is a successful businessman and she continued working in her administrative job at the law firm I worked at. When people find out where she lives or notice the diamond on her finger and do the math, all of a sudden their attitude towards her changes. They seem to be looking for slights, for proof that she thinks she's better than the average person. It's ridiculous, really, the hostility people have for people with money, even though most people would love to have that sort of financial freedom. I don't really understand it but it does seem to exist.

I would definitely like to have more money than I have. I'm not looking to be super rich. I don't want that sort of responsibility. But I wouldn't mind making about $250,000 a year. That's the place where I'd feel comfortable. It's enough that I can travel nicely if I want to and I can afford to be pampered in the areas where I want to be pampered but it's not so much that I'd start to feel like I was becoming insulated from real life.

Heh. It's the Ivy League two-step! (You're in college? Yeah. Where? New Jersey. Oh, where in New Jersey? Um, Princeton? Which I will say in a questioning tone, because you may not have heard of it?)

I stopped doing that after deciding it was snotty, and I try to act the same way with money issues, though if I were Seriously Rich that might be different. But things like... for instance, my parents have two houses. We have The House, which I grew up in, and then when I was 14 or so we bought a lake house for the summer. Neither of these houses are terribly large, but I'll be talking to someone and say "the lake house" and there's always a little flinch, like I'm being arrogant because My Family Has A Lake House!

It's weird.

Salary I have no problem talking about, but then I'm in civil service, so there aren't some of the issues there might be otherwise. And we've had that conversation here before, haven't we?

Reminds me of one of my favourite stories about a friend who went to Brown with Jane Fonda's daughter. For some reason one day in a tutorial they were talking about their backgrounds and my pal, who comes from a very modest one, told a little about how difficult it had been for her to get there. Afterwards, Fondadaughter came up and said she could really empathise because "I'm the first person to go to college in my family too."

Heh, kmm. I've had both of those issues. My parents owned a unit in a dilapidated bungalow colony in the Catskills when we were young, and to this day I have difficulty when I have to use the phrase "one time at our summer house." Um, "the place where we summered?" Even worse.

You're a high roller, mj. I was thinking after the show ended that $50,000 a year is the magic number. Enough to live well (well, obviously, if you're just one person and not supporting a family or children), but not so much that you have to get into things like houses and mortgages and business managers and accountants.

If I ever achieve my goal, eej, I promise to invite you to a weekend at my lake house.

Hee.

I think that cringe thing goes two-ways. I remember spending my senior year at high school (a private/prepatory school) cringing whenever someone had asked me where I had chosen for college because I opted to go to a state school. Then I spent the next 4 years at UMass cringing whenever someone asked me where I went to high school.

I didn't see the documentary as I don't get HBO. It sounds interesting though. Rich Girls is the new MTV series, right?

Yes. It debuts tonight. I figured they were similar enough and that we'd get more use out of the thread if it was joint. There's a third show, too — the one that puts a Hilton sister and Lionel Richie's daughter in a poor home in Arkansas — but I can't remember the name of that one.

And now I feel like a greedy bastard or something. I think I'm with MJ on this though. 50k is less than what I make and I'm pretty sure I'll be getting another raise soon..And I feel wicked strange admitting that I make more than that, for the taboo part of the subject.

I don't know why we treat people differently when we know how much they make or are worth, but I definitely see the difference in the way others in my office treat me since my last promotion - and all that they're aware of is a title change. I dunno..people are f'd up, y0.

The salary taboo has always seemed strange to me, too, maybe because as a public sector worker anyone who really cared enough could find out my salary scale without too much trouble. However, as I’m getting older and some of my peers are starting to significantly out-earn me, I’m finding that I’m becoming more sensitive about it.

I’m with Nalian and mj on comfort levels, too. I earn more than $50k (though exchange rates and so on probably don't allow for a meaningful comparison) and while I save a lot and can afford most things that I want, I certainly wouldn’t say no to more. I guess I wouldn’t want to be so rich that my hypothetical future children had a skewed world view or didn’t need to make their own way—but I’d be happy to be rich enough that I could own a penthouse flat in downtown Vancouver, a summer house somewhere and maybe a boat. Or that I could work 3 days a week and maintain my current lifestyle.

Add me to the camp that thinks $50k is certainly enough to be comfortable, but not enough to be comfortable. (Which is how my parents always described being upper-middle class, but not rich.) I think it's a case of no matter how much you earn, you can always use a little more. And even at that tidy sum, I have experienced people judging me based on how much I earn. In fact, I experienced that when I made $10k less than I make now.

I have exactly the opposite problem when it comes to college, though. I was a big slacker in high school, so I ended up at a public school with an open admissions policy. But when I had the opportunity to transfer, I didn't. The major I decided on when I was a freshman was only offered by two schools in the state as an undergrad, and I knew I'd never be able to hack the Upper Peninsula. Still, it would be nice to be able to tell people where I went to school without them asking if I'm a pharmacist.

I finally got a chance to see "Born Rich" and agree that Ivanka Trump came off the best of all of them, with the possible exception of SI Newhouse IV. She seemed very well-spoken and fairly down to earth. Plus, I think she was one of the few kids who had come to terms with the ridiculousness of her situation and had a definite idea of what she wanted to do in the future. SI Newhouse is just a plain ol' nice guy. I do suspect that if he had had a better relationship with his father, he might have been a little less detached from that part of his life, though. The two Italian guys were annoying. There was the German baron/Italian duke (prince? count?). Yeah, um. Nobody cares. Your titles mean nothing except a good table at a restaurant. The other one, the "textile heir," ugh. Quite possibly the biggest snob in the world. "This is the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica before they were re-written for the masses and became shit." Oh, shut up and go play with your antique phones.

I liked that Josiah Hornblower kid, but I worry about his future. He seemed a lot more troubled than the others. I wanted to take him home and feed him a nice bowl of hot soup. Maybe make him some chocolate-chip cookies.

That Luke person, the one who sued, started out on par with the other young men, but took a nose dive fast. He ended up being the one who annoyed me most of all. First because of his comments on "ungrateful bitches" thinking pre-nuptial agreements are unromantic, then because of the whole suing thing. I think what happened is that he realized after the fact that he'd said some things that were mean-spirited and/or hinted at current drug usage and he wanted to cover it up. But it wasn't even the suing that made me dislike him. It was the fact that after he sued, he went to Johnson's 21st birthday party. Whoo! Way to hold on to your convictions in the face of the biggest party in Southampton. Ass.

Most of the other girls were kind of undistinguishable from each other. There was the girl who liked to buy handbags and wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she grew up, and there was the girl who wanted to ride horsies. And there was Ray Floyd's daughter who seemed kind of nice, but we didn't really get to see much of her, and I suspect that my lack of ire toward her is based on the fact that she's new money.

I had a hard time getting a handle on Jamie Johnson, other than the fact that he really needs to stop narrating things. At least he displayed some intellectual curiosity. And I did love the "what the fuck are you talking about?" look on his face when his dad suggested building a collection of historic documents as a career. I'm pretty sure that I had the same expression.

I thought it was an interesting documentary and while it did make me feel sympathetic toward the group in general, it also confirmed some very negative assumptions about kids raised to privelege.

Ha! The Ivy League two-step! I know it, though I don't do it myself: since I grew up in the Boston suburbs and live right in town now, there's absolutely no point to the evasion "where are you going for college?" "Boston" because there's no chance the followup question won't be asked.

I'm on a private forum with a bunch of Harvard folks and their friends (it all started when this one guy decided to colonize alt.fan.karl-malden.nose because it was just sitting there empty), and even there there's a separate area, essentially spoiler-protected so as not to offend, if people want to talk about finances (because it's the sort of forum where we ask each other for advice from "how do you choose a good street bike?" to "has anyone tried this sex toy?" to "what sort of terms do I want on my mortgage?"). Because some of us are doing extremely well financially and some of us have trouble finding barista jobs and some of us are in the middle.

One of the standard quotes from someone who used to be part of the forum is this:



It is of course not true, but it feels that way sometimes.

I haven't seen the show but I'm sure rich kids fall on a spectrum like anybody else--not with *more* worries, but with different ones.

Okay, that gave me a hearty snicker. Yes, god forbid you should read the same encyclopedia as the masses!

Yeah. I have fun imagining what a conversation ender "My grandfazzer was Kaiser Wilhelm" must be at parties. Where do you go after that?



You might want to include some methadone. I don't think cookies are going to cut it.

I watch Rich Girls and I feel like I'm watching Rome after the fall. It's the degradation of the human race.

Is Ally mentally ill (anxiety disorder?) or is she just really that stupid?

Whereas, The Simple Life is genuinely entertaining. Paris Hilton redefines the phrase "vacuous tramp." Nicole Richie... I don't know. She seems nicer than I anticipated. But I do wish that they had included the family's reaction to the groceries, because you know those eggs were all broken. Speaking of which- why would a family raise chickens to eat, but not raise chickens to lay eggs? I think I just figured something out. They had eggs on their grocery list because the directors knew that the girls would break them and they wanted it for effect. You know, if it wasn't Bunim-Murray, I might not have been this suspicious.

But didn't they also buy things that weren't on the list? That's what put them over. So it's possible that they picked up eggs even though it wasn't on the list. I don't know if I'm oging to be able to hang with this show but it's mainly because the announcer's fake southern accent bugs me.

I actually thought both Nicole and Paris were reasonably nice, although Nicole seems to have been raised with better manners. I would have loved to have been in the hosting family's living room when Nicole suggested a three-way to Paris with the teenage son. The little boy is adorable and I noticed Paris wiping some of the banana off his mouth almost absent-mindedly so I just couldn't hate her. But Paris Hilton has absolutely no ass.

That little boy is going to kill Tinkerbell, isn't he?

Okay, I know that they were somewhat setup to fail, but their actions while filling the milk bottles? Completely reprehensible. How stupid are these girls, anyway? Actually, I think they've just never needed to use their brains in a practical way before.

I really like the family that they're staying with. But I have to say I'm getting really tired of that "Miss Hilton" song.

I agree about their behaviour with the milk - no excuse for that, especially after Paris turned her nose up at because it wasn't pasteurized. Overall, Nichole is a little more likeable, though I do think it's possible that Paris is exaggerating her reactions. Poor Tinkerbell! I was afraid she was going to get hurt on the slide.

I've gotten hopelessly addicted to Rich Girls. I hadn't watched the show to begin with, or any of these shows about rich kids, because I figured the girls would be obnoxious about all their money and whatnot but they really aren't that bad. They certainly are in better shape than say the Osbourne children or Jessica Simpson.

I like Ally. She just seems so happy and positive most of the time it seems like it would be hard not to like her. I also lust after Charles the navigation system. If I had the money I would have gone out to buy one right after the episode where he was introduced.

I had to cringe when the kept calling Clinton the president though. Also Tommy Hilfiger dancing at the graduation party was cringe-worthy too.

Ally's okay, she's harmless, a little lost and self-absorbed but that's to be expected given her age and her status. Jamie is a whole 'nother ball of wax, though. She's supremely negative and between the smoking, the tanning and the bad skin, she looks decades older than she should. I'm having a hard time believing these kids graduated with honors though. Ben Franklin invented the light bulb? C'mon.

Oy. I hate them both. I think the Osbourne children (yes, even Kelly) and Jessica Simpson are smarter, nicer, and better adjusted than either of those malformed dimbulbs. But they have some competition from the Hilton/Richie duo, who I find amoral and repugnant.

Know what you mean about Paris and Nicole. At first, I thought they might turn out to be funny and somewhat likable, but I'm disgusted by Nicole's disbelief that people won't just give her things and the lack of respect from both towards the people in town, unless they are male, age 18 -25. I'm sure they've been told to camp it up for purposes of the show, but they are coming across as bratty and self-absorbed. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.

Going back to Rich Girls for a moment...

I just saw the first episode after seeing the rest of the season. I must say that I think after the first episode or two I think they took the show in a different direction. In the first episode it seemed like the girls were very focused on all the petty things that one would expect from this show. I think that the later episodes were much more interesting and focused more on the lifestyle of two teenage girls who happened to be rich, rather than the life of two rich girls.