Poor Little Rich Kid Explained: Why Rich Kids On Screen Are Always Miserable

I would rather be rich and miserable than poor and miserable because poor is not equal to happy, it's equal to lack of money, resources and opportunities.

My grandfather used to say “It’s much more comfortable to cry in a warm bed than under a bridge.” Money can’t solve all your problems but it can fix or at least alleviate the vast majority of them. The issue is that there comes a point of plateau or even drop off with this. Some things can’t be bought/owned.

Claire from "The Breakfast Club" seemed to be condemned by both the characters and narrative for living a comfortable lifestyle, and her parental issues almost felt brushed over. They all showed compassion with each other, why not extend it to Claire?

This is why the end of Succession was so perfect. Especially for Kendall. He was free of all chains, richer than ever, with endless possibilities at his fingertips, but had no idea what to do with any of it because it was outside the familiarity of his father's shadow.

I doubt that lack of empathy is the issue here. We are constantly asked to empathize with the wealthy while they expliot our planet's resources, refuse to pay an adequate share of taxes and price us out of our homes and third spaces. Empathy without discernment is like pouring from an empty cup while dying of thirst. Yes, empathy is necessary*, and so is self respect. *Edited because I misspelled "necessary," my spelling is atrocious, sorry!

I feel like "Downtown Abbey" is a more nuanced look at how wealth shapes you. Simply having money comes with many societal responsibilities and expectations. And once you have that wealth it becomes a constant job to hold on to the legacy and luxury.

I think it's important to remember that financial abuse is a real thing and deserves to get talked about. From the outside looking in it's funny to laugh at a rich kid who doesn't know how to clean, do their own laundry or know what a reasonable price for some items are, but some of those kids were raised that on purpose so they wouldn't know HOW to live free from their parents. It's actually quite horrifying for your family to demand that you stay in the closet or make you go into a college major you hate on the threat of loosing your car, apartment, or anything else you need, and then when you go talk about it with someone else their response is "But look how BIG this apartment is and you don't have to pay a dime for it. You should be grateful."

Materialism can only go so far for people in terms of bringing happiness. That lack of genuine affection from some wealthy parents and “superficial” or “fake” friends can be horribly damaging to their rich kids

Money makes life better, but it doesn't replace genuine love. Some people who are excellent at being successful aren't the best at the expressing love thing, and it affects their families

The Poor Little Rich Kid seems like a self esteem program for an audience that is not as privileged. Seeing the more privileged be miserable makes the less wealthy people feel better about themselves their own lot. This trope works for rich people who do not want more people to try join their ranks. If you think rich people are miserable, you won't aspire to elevate your own wealth and become a threat.

This trope is both useful, yet able to do harm. It brings the everyday experience of most people growing up in the last 30 years, the toxic household, and puts it in a palletable form (mental breakdown in penthouse). Yet, at the same point, leaves people who experience this with the added stress of financial instability, that much more jaded through its portrayal.

I'd rather be a poor little rich kid than a poor little poor kid anyday

Yeah because in the real world, rich kids are living a relatively easy life, full monetary support to pursuing their dreams and are laid back. Making them miserable always seemed so odd to me and the most "struggle" they go through is not getting parental validation. MentaI heaIth issues, body image issues, grief, familial conflict and working hard to establish a stable life/realise a dream are all universal and these are thrust on to these rich characters to give them depth & seem like these are world ending problems for said rich characters, while it's pretty freaking regular for 90% of the world.

There are actually some very messed up stories about rich kids who grew up abused and later became addicts

I always see this thing about “Omg which rich kids are these? We never knew them.” like even the most obnoxious portrayals of rich people comes from some grain of truth. Also, privileged people cosplaying as relatable is worse than a clueless loaded person.

I mean geing rich and having absent parents are two different things. Money is an advantage the later isn’t. So I don't get the trope at all, it feels more like media is trying to make us believe that rich people suffer by having too much money, even though that is a problem easily solved. Give your money away. The absent/not caring parents is something you can always have. And I would say with poor parents you have that even more since rich parents can at least afford having one parent (or both) stay at home. Poor can't they have to work.

Being a working-class person, the wealth of rich people in both real life and fiction was never relatable to me, however I did have some sympathy for them. The societal pressures, needing to excel for legacy purposes, and the traumas they may have gone through can make for good television and/or film that captures our attention. However, I do find these things in real life examples. Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth fortune, had everything money could buy but discovering her mom's dead body at age 4 and being sent to live with various relatives thereafter caused a lot of trauma, leading to addiction and failed relationships. Her only child's tragic death also added to her trauma and mental health issues. Then there's Prince Harry. While not a fan of him, I did sympathize with his mental health issues and how his mother's death when he was 12 on such a huge public scale affected him. So, while I don't sympathize with their wealth and status, I do feel compassion for some things, and it shows that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

I feel like Meadow and AJ Soprano need to be mentioned more in this vid. They fit a lot of these tropes.

It’s funny that Poor Little Rich Kid is a trope. Most rich kids are well loved by their parents. And parents make sure that their kids have a future, and learning multiple languages or going to great schools is easier when those school gives private tutoring in confortable environnement and when you have private tutors that are great pedagogues… It’s not that hard to go to rich kids school when you are rich…

SO much screen time is devoted to exploring every angle of the rich kid’s emotional landscape. Yet they are hardly the only people to experience emotional abuse and chronic feelings of disconnect—try being in foster care or be raised in a violent home in a violent neighborhood. And rich kids have FAR more access and resources to treatment and support and far less likelihood of ending up on the street as the result of their unresolved trauma. Because of their wealth, they can get the very expensive and hard to access high quality mental health treatment the rest of us can’t, and enjoy safety nets the rest of us don’t, especially in a country with high inequality and such paltry social welfare programming. Why aren’t there nearly as many nuanced dramas and meditative depictions of poor kids’ pain and inner lives? Could it be because to make it in Hollywood and in an industry like media requires wealth and connections that only nepo babies and rich kids have so it’s mostly their stories that get told?