With the rise of social media, people over the past few years have been posting what they received or bought for their friends and family for the holidays. People, mostly influencers, will display their gifts in their videos in hopes of getting more views, thus gaining more followers and popularity. But to the average person, these “hauls” are not as normal as the people behind the camera are making them out to be. In these videos, you’re not just paying attention to the extremely expensive products being advertised. You may notice how large their house is from the background of the video. You may notice the expensive clothes this person is wearing. You also may notice their mannerisms, how they come across as dismissive of their environment. To anyone living off an average income, this kind of behavior seems abnormal.
The average salary for families in the United States is around $80,000 a year. Of course, depending on where you live, the cost of living may differentiate between cities or states. When factoring in the things you have to pay such as taxes, bills, insurance, and healthcare, you’re left with only a small fraction of what you started with. After paying everything you’re required to pay, you still have other basic necessities you need to buy. This includes things like groceries or supplies for school. Thousands of families in the United States are living paycheck to paycheck. Unless you’re a CEO or a founder of some major corporation, you’re most likely not going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars on the holidays.
When people on social media normalize this luxury-lifestyle, it can make other people feel as though they aren’t doing enough to have even half of what these people have, when in actuality, some of these people may not be completely honest with the viewers on the other side of the screen. Social media is so much easier to fake than you might think. The viewers never know what’s happening behind the scenes because the parts being shown in these videos are the parts that the creator wants us to see. It’s incredibly unrealistic to portray the “perfect life” when in reality, nobody has a perfect life, not even the people in these videos.
