It's crazy how the world today seems to adore and glorify wealth to the extent that most people are willing to do anything to live a life of luxury. I saw a video on TikTok earlier today of a young man in a club just throwing money all around. He's got a bag full of money with him and after considering the denomination of the money he sprays all around him, I deduced that he's got nothing less than 5 million naira with him ($5000). That amount in dollars might seem small but to put it in perspective, over 50% of people in my country Nigeria don't earn up to that amount in a year.
But my main focus is not this young man and his bag full of cash, but the comment section. Ladies were wishing they get married to someone like the young man while the men were saying they would attain that level of wealth one way or another. It's this sort of mentality that has pushed young people into one crime or the other, all because they are in a hurry to become rich and they don't mind risking it all. Lorde saw this same problem and sang about it over 10 years ago in her award-winning song Royals.
If you listened to a lot of pop songs from 2013 to 2015 then you probably know Royals as it was very popular during those years. If I remember correctly, I heard it for the first time back in 2014, a year after it was released and what hooked me to it was its catchy pre-chorus; "But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom, bloodstains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room"... Yeah, that part. The song was so good that it even won Song of the Year at the 2014 Grammy Awards.
Anyway, Royals is all about rejecting the extravagant lifestyle that is commonly shown on social media by celebrities and influencers who flaunt expensive clothes, cars and jewelry, which in the end creates a warped perception of success. That TikTok video I watched today reminded me of the case of a Nigerian Internet fraudster called Hushpuppi (let's just call him Hush for short). Hush was always flaunting his expensive lifestyle on Instagram, as the majority of his posts are about him eating at expensive restaurants, driving expensive cars and wearing very expensive designer items (mostly Gucci).
Young men admired his lifestyle and wished they could live that way. Even when rumours went around that he was into fraud, it only inspired a lot of people to go into fraud as well because if Hush could hit it big, then so could they. Right now, there is a very high number of fraudsters all over the country. For every 10 men you come across, 3 are fraudsters. Eventually, Hush got arrested and is currently serving a jail term in the US. But even at that, he is still a role model to a lot of people and stories of his luxurious lifestyle on Instagram are still being told today.
One of the important messages of Lorde's song is that everyone should embrace authenticity. The society of today has set its own standards on what success looks like, and it usually comes with a fat bank account. This has made a lot of people not appreciate the little they have because they have seen something "better" on social media and now believe that the people who have more money are generally happier. Happiness shouldn't be tied to material wealth but from what I have seen on social media, that is becoming a norm.
But even at that, some people channel such societal pressure into doing legitimate jobs and improving their skills daily but many others want to cut corners in their quest for wealth and they do this by engaging in illegal activities. What many of them don't know is that some of these luxurious lifestyles being portrayed on social media are fake, done all for the sake of clout but I guess some of these people don't care. They just get busy chasing after money and keep comparing their life to what they see on social media which in my opinion is one of the worst ways to live.
This wonderful song by Lorde will forever be remembered for its catchy melody but a lot of people fail to grasp the subtle message it tells. A lot of covers have been done over the years but I especially love the one by Pentatonix which can be seen in the video above. I just hope people learn to find joy in simple things, rather than focusing fully on material things and living life according to society's standards. It's no wonder that depression is all over the place today, people getting depressed by what they see on social media, forgetting that social media gives a very warped perception of reality.
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