What’s the psychology behind our fascination with these small-screen stories about wealth?
franchise, with their lingering shots of extravagant mega-mansions boasting unfathomably high square footage, are cashing in on our fascination with the monied.
Humans are inherently curious creatures, and our natural nosiness means we are fascinated by spaces that seem exclusive, inaccessible or somehow off-limits. It’s a collective trait that accounts for our obsession with the false intimacy of celebrity profiles, where rich and famous stars give us an insight into their private worlds, and also encourages our interest in other types of pop culture that take us behind the proverbial curtain.
You might expect watching shows about the super-rich to involve more upward comparison than down – after all, these characters seem to have everything . And sometimes, it does. Seeing all the trappings and wealth and luxury on screen can prompt a longing to have some of those opportunities, says Dr James Newman, chartered psychologist and psychology academic at
. “It comes out of a natural human aspiration to want to be more comfortable and provide more for ourselves, and following the lives [of these characters] gives us a flavour of that.”Yet it’s the downward comparison that really hooks us, especially when we’re diving into shows where the characters are realistically flawed, with seriously messy lives and dubious morals. “There is an element of seeing them at a level of human vulnerability that we can relate to,” says Dr Touroni.
Indeed, just a cursory glance at a character like Tanya McQuoid or Kendall Roy proves that money certainly can’t buy you happiness .at work here, Newman says: “Watching these programmes, seeing individuals having the same kind of concerns, challenges or worries [as us], might spark feelings of connection.
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