We don’t hate rich people because they have money. We hate certain rich people because of how they act about having money. There’s a special kind of irritation that bubbles up when someone with endless resources complains about their heated floors not working in their seventh bathroom or expects applause for basic human decency. While not every wealthy person falls into these traps, the ones who do manage to unite the rest of us in collective eye-rolling. Here are the behaviors that make the wealthy particularly unbearable to everyone else.
1. Flaunting Their Wealth On Social Media
Nothing says “I’m insecure about my worth as a human” quite like posting daily photos of luxury watches, sports cars, and champagne brunches with captions like “Just another Tuesday #blessed.” We get it—you have money. But turning your social media into a shrine to your purchasing power comes across as desperately seeking validation for your lifestyle rather than sharing authentic moments.
The transparent attempt to inspire envy makes it even worse. These aren’t innocent shares; they’re carefully curated performances designed to position themselves above their followers. When called out, they’ll often defend it as “inspiring others” or “sharing their journey,” missing how genuine inspiration rarely comes from watching someone else’s conspicuous consumption. According to Transmission Private, a company that advises the wealthy, 25 percent of the public said flaunting wealth online negatively affects what they would think of a successful, wealthy individual.
2. Assuming Everyone Else Has the Same Opportunities
You’ve heard it before: “I built this company from scratch with nothing but hard work and determination!” Then you find out their parents paid for their Ivy League education, loaned them $500,000 to start their business, and introduced them to all their powerful connections. There’s something infuriating about someone who climbed the ladder with elevators available to them insisting everyone else just needs to take the stairs.
The dismissal of systemic barriers is what really twists the knife. When wealthy people genuinely believe anyone could be in their position if they just “applied themselves,” they’re not just being naive—they’re actively discounting the real obstacles many people face. This mindset allows them to feel like they deserve every penny while viewing those with less as simply unmotivated or unworthy.
3. Complaining About First World Problems
“Ugh, my housekeeper rearranged my walk-in closet and now I can’t find my summer Louboutins!” Listen, when your “problems” involve your fifth vacation home’s pool maintenance or having to wait for your custom Tesla, you’ve lost perspective on what actual hardship looks like. These complaints come across as tone-deaf when many people are figuring out how to afford groceries this week.
The real kicker is when these non-problems are shared with people experiencing actual difficulties as if they’re equivalent struggles. Watching someone stress about choosing between Aspen or the Maldives for winter break while you’re calculating if you can afford both rent and medication this month creates a disconnect that’s hard to bridge. It’s no wonder research published in Psychological Science has shown that wealth can actually impair a person’s ability to read others’ emotions.
4. Using Their Wealth To Influence Or Bully Others
There’s something particularly ugly about watching someone throw money at a problem to make it disappear—especially when that problem is another human being. The wealthy person who threatens lawsuits over minor disagreements or donates to get their mediocre kid into an elite school isn’t demonstrating cleverness; they’re showing us how they view the world as purchasable, including people’s dignity.
What makes it even more grating is how it’s often accompanied by a veneer of respectability. They aren’t bullying—they’re “being strategic.” They aren’t buying influence—they’re “cultivating relationships.” The language sanitizes the behavior while the impact remains the same: those with resources get to play by different rules, and they expect us to pretend we don’t notice.
5. Assuming Money Can Solve Every Problem
“I don’t understand why you’re still upset—I already paid for everything!” The wealthy person who believes throwing cash at a situation automatically resolves it misses how human emotions and relationships actually work. Not everything has a price tag, and assuming money is the universal solution reveals a profound misunderstanding of what matters in life.
This mindset becomes particularly evident in personal relationships. The rich friend who thinks an expensive gift can replace a sincere apology or the parent who substitutes quality time with lavish presents demonstrates the same fundamental misconception. When money becomes your only problem-solving tool, you start losing the ability to connect with people on a deeper level. Besides, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that beyond a certain point, more money does little to increase happiness.
6. Talking Down To People With Less Money
You can see it in their facial expression—that slight condescension when they discover someone doesn’t know about wine regions or hasn’t vacationed in the Seychelles. The subtle shift in how they speak, suddenly using simpler words or explaining basic concepts as if talking to a child, all because someone doesn’t sit in their financial bracket. This patronizing treatment assumes wealth equals intelligence or sophistication.
What’s especially infuriating is how they’ll often follow up with “I’m just like you” statements minutes after making their superiority clear. They’ll share an anecdote about once eating ramen in college as proof they understand struggle, completely missing how different temporary inconvenience is from persistent financial insecurity. This conversational whiplash between condescension and false relatability makes genuine connection impossible.
7. Avoiding Taxes While Using Public Resources
“Why should I pay more taxes? I earned this money!” they protest, while driving on public roads, relying on police protection, and benefiting from an educated workforce. The wealthy person who employs creative accounting to pay less in taxes than their secretary while simultaneously complaining about government inefficiency is demonstrating peak hypocrisy. They want the benefits of a functioning society without contributing their fair share.
The best is when they frame tax avoidance as patriotic rather than self-serving. They’ll lecture about “government waste” while their companies receive subsidies and bailouts. This selective approach to civic responsibility—taking what benefits them while minimizing what they give back—represents an extractive relationship with society that fundamentally undermines the social contract we all depend on. And the numbers are staggering too—according to CNBC, the nation’s millionaires and billionaires are evading more than $150 billion a year in taxes
8. Overspending On Ridiculous Items
A $10,000 gold-plated iPhone case. A $200,000 watch that tells the same time as a $20 one. A handbag that costs more than a car. When wealthy people spend obscene amounts on functionally useless status symbols, they’re not just making a purchase— they’re making a statement about what they value and how disconnected they’ve become from normal financial reality.
It’s not so much the spending itself, but the defensive justifications that often accompany it. “It’s an investment piece” or “You wouldn’t understand quality” they’ll explain, as if the rest of us simply lack the sophistication to appreciate why a plain white t-shirt should cost $800. This attitude transforms simple consumer choices into moral judgments, implying their extravagance reflects superior taste rather than excess resources.
9. Isolating Themselves In Their Bubbles
Gated communities. Private schools. Members-only clubs. There’s something deeply unsettling about watching wealthy people systematically remove themselves from contact with different socioeconomic groups, and then express confusion about why “regular people” think or behave the way they do. This self-imposed isolation creates a feedback loop that reinforces their distorted worldview.
The real damage happens when this bubble influences their decision-making in ways that affect everyone else. The CEO who doesn’t understand why employees can’t simply “work harder” to afford housing in the city where his company is based or the politician who can’t grasp why public transportation matters has lost touch with basic realities. This disconnect isn’t just annoying, it’s dangerous when these same individuals hold power over systems that impact those they no longer understand.
10. Refusing To Acknowledge Their Privilege
“Nobody gave me anything—I worked for everything I have!” Maybe they did work hard, but pretending that being born healthy in a wealthy country to educated parents with connections and resources wasn’t an enormous head start is delusional. The wealthy person who attributes their success entirely to personal merit while ignoring the structural advantages and lucky breaks they benefited from aren’t just wrong—they’re reinforcing harmful myths about success and failure.
This denial becomes particularly toxic when used to judge others. If you believe your success is 100% earned, then logically, others’ struggles must be 100% deserved. This worldview allows wealthy people to feel morally superior rather than fortunate, viewing poverty as a character flaw rather than a complex social issue with multiple causes. The refusal to recognize privilege actively perpetuates inequality.
11. Disregarding Environmental Concerns
Private jets. Multiple massive homes. Hundred-foot yachts. The carbon footprint of some wealthy lifestyles is staggering, yet many rich people become defensive when questioned about their environmental impact. There’s something particularly galling about someone lecturing about bringing reusable bags to the grocery store after flying private to a climate conference.
The disconnect gets even more absurd when they position themselves as environmental leaders while maintaining lifestyles that would require multiple planets if everyone lived similarly. They’ll donate to conservation causes while their investment portfolios fund the very industries destroying habitats. This selective environmentalism—where sacrifice is for others while they maintain their carbon-intensive comforts—reveals how sustainability becomes performative rather than principled when convenience is challenged.
12. Treating Service Staff Poorly
Nothing reveals character faster than watching how someone treats people they perceive as beneath them. The wealthy person who speaks rudely to waitstaff, ignores retail workers, or treats household employees as invisible isn’t just being rude—they’re demonstrating a fundamental belief that human dignity is tied to economic status. This behavior becomes even more repulsive when contrasted with their charm toward those they consider peers or superiors.
“I pay good money so I expect perfect service” becomes the rationalization for treating other humans as objects rather than people with their own lives and dignity. This transactional view of human interaction—that money purchases not just services but the right to diminish others—shows a profound moral bankruptcy that no wealth can disguise.
13. Assuming Everyone Wants To Be Like Them
“Don’t you wish you could afford this?” they ask, genuinely bewildered when someone expresses different priorities or values. There’s an irritating presumption that everyone aspires to their particular version of success—the specific car, the certain neighborhood, the exact lifestyle they’ve chosen. This assumption ignores how people might consciously choose different paths based on different values, not just financial limitations.
The conversation becomes truly unbearable when they start dispensing unsolicited advice about how to achieve their version of success. “You should really invest in property” or “You need to network more” they’ll explain, never considering that perhaps you’ve made deliberate choices based on priorities they don’t share. This projection of their values as universal creates conversations that feel less like exchanges and more like unwanted sales pitches for a lifestyle you never expressed interest in.
14. Using Philanthropy For Their Image
“Look how generous I am!” announces the billionaire donating 0.1% of their wealth while naming buildings after themselves and holding press conferences to celebrate their benevolence. There’s something deeply cynical about treating charity as a branding exercise rather than a genuine attempt to address systemic problems—especially when those same individuals often helped create or perpetuate the very issues they’re now “solving.”
The performance becomes transparent when their philanthropy conveniently avoids questioning the systems that enabled their extreme wealth in the first place. They’ll fund scholarships for a few students while lobbying against education funding that would help thousands. They’ll create foundations to address homelessness while opposing affordable housing in their neighborhoods. This selective generosity—highly visible but strategically limited—reveals philanthropy as reputation insurance rather than an authentic commitment to change.
