I was doomscrolling Instagram during a break.
As usual, I was looking for memes and funny videos. That’s what I like to see when I’m not working. I don’t really like to watch “serious” stuff; I’m taking a break after all. But suddenly, among questionable humour videos, I ended up liking a video about lifestyle. I actually found it pretty cool because of the scenario and nice cars. Little did I know what a massive mistake I’d just made.
In the following minutes, my algo was flooded with lifestyle videos that are clearly for the .0% of humanity. So far, totally fine though. The problem starts when get-rich-quick schemes masked as biz opportunities started to appear. It’s literally a clear display of how greedy humans can be.
It’s all about ostentation, “get rich or die trying” slop, people whose reasons are money, money, and MONEY.
Often, people doing this kind of content are young men. But before we dive into the world of these people and why you shouldn’t care about them, let me quickly contextualise you.
I don’t know if I’ve already told you, but I’m from Brazil. Here, most people are poor. I won’t enter into politics or economics, but to summarise, everything is a total mess. And of course, as always, the poor are the most negatively affected.
That makes this portion of society especially vulnerable to these schemes.
That’s why the bad people behind these schemes can make a scary amount of money here. It’s sad and revolting. However, I hardly pay any attention to these videos when I see them. But just to exemplify how they usually go, 95% of the time they talk like this while in a luxurious car or house:
“I’m 17/18/19/20 and already retired or making $$$/mo. Comment ‘XYZ’ to discover my method.”
And these videos frequently have A LOT of comments.
Which drives me crazy because it’s way too obvious.
The strategy they use is literally to display their money and lifestyle, use the hype to take these vulnerable people into their funnel, and apply the whole psychological engineering to make these people take dumb decisions with their hard-earned money.
It’s crazy.
And before you start to call me something bad because I might be looking like a “Biz opp hater”, I don’t really have any problem with the business opportunity niche. I know you can easily find multiple honest influencers with great life experiences to share, and proven materials that really generate nice results.
But unfortunately, at least here in Brazil, most “influencers” inside this niche are charlatans selling trash that promises unreal results just to “legally” steal desperate people’s money.
It’s disgusting, and it’s the reality behind a portion of influencers who display an “amazing life” full of luxury, money, women, cars, etc. And we (hopefully you’re not one of them 🥲) innocently see their social media lives and think something like this: “woah, look at this guy… He is younger than me and way richer. I’m a failure.”
To be honest, if you take Instagram/X as a reference for life expectations, you’d pretty much be late in life no matter how early you had started.
Even if you had started to make money right after learning how to say “mama”, you’d probably find a spermatozoid who’d become rich earlier than you.
The number of young extremely rich people you can find on social media doesn’t correspond with reality, by far. That’s a fact. In reality, the majority of millionaires and “rich” people got rich after age 50. For Brazilians, if you make more than R$5k/mo (USD$1k/mo), you’re already richer than 80% of the whole population.
Each person has his/her own time and journey.
Comparison is a dangerous tool for self-sabotage. I know well because I frequently fall for it. I don’t think that aiming to be rich or simply financially comfortable in the early stages of life is wrong or impossible. It definitely is achievable.
What I’m saying is that if you somehow couldn’t make it, it’s fine. You’re not “late”. Believe it or not, you’ll probably still be in a better position than the vast majority of people in the same life stage as you just because you tried.
Another trap that irrational comparison causes is vulnerability.
When you compare yourself without wisdom, you also become highly vulnerable.
You become especially susceptible to falling for these “get rich quick” schemes, because now you’re desperate to achieve something that, most of the time, is unreal. Not only do you not respect your own journey and time, but you also don’t even know the reality behind these fancy videos.
What if the person you’re comparing yourself to is part of these money worshipers who are willing to do anything for it, including harming others? Or what if he/she came from a rich family and is just showing off using others’ results? You don’t know, and probably never will.
All things considered, you should never compare yourself to anyone. You are unique because nobody has ever walked your path in your shoes. You’ll be the first and only one.
Respect your time and enjoy the journey!
That’s what really matters.
Money is a consequence.
Daniel Costa
