Who are the Luxury Kids of Instagram?
From wads of cash to champagne baths, Guy Kelly looks at the latest rich kids flashing their lifestyles online
In an age where so many young, outrageously wealthy people pose on social media, it can be difficult to know just who among them is the most detestable. Fortunately, though, help is now at hand, in the form of several Instagram accounts dedicated to the public service of scouring the internet for such gaudy, eye-watering displays of offensive opulence that you are left wondering if the subjects are even real.
Alas, they are.
According to its online biography, one of the most recent profiles, “The Luxury Kids” – which has accrued almost 190,000 followers – proclaims to shine a light on the “Life of The Luxury Kids From The World [sic]”, and generally features the children of moguls and millionaires. They might be “from the world” – but it won’t be one you recognise.
A typical post shows a wellmanicured hand pouring a bottle of Armand de Brignac’s Ace of Spades Brut champagne (yours for £300 at Selfridges) into a bathtub, accompanied by the words, “I only wash myself with the best.” Another depicts a Rolex strapped, for no clear reason, around somebody’s fingers. “Peasants use brass nuckles, I use gold,” reads the accompanying, spellcheck-free caption. Elsewhere there are Lamborghinis, pet tigers, private jets, wads and wads of cash, mentions of “Daddy”, designer clothes, and not a trace of self-awareness.
It is vulgarity in excelsis, and yet every upload receives thousands of “likes”, along with an even greater number of outraged comments. It seems, 30 years after Harry Enfield gave us the original character on Saturday Live, members of Generations Y and Z have relaunched Loadsamoney – only this time they’ve ditched the irony.
Who exactly is behind The Luxury Kids account is not known, but they appear to be posting a mixture of their own excesses, photos submitted by fellow Luxury Kids, and random examples of young people flaunting their wealth, curated from across the internet – think loos being flushed with champagne and wads of cash shoved into sandwiches.
The Luxury Kids might be the latest (and most obnoxious) to gather the one per cent’s most obnoxious exploits in one place, but it is not the first. The original, “The Rich Kids of Instagram” – a similar blog that began in 2012 and reproduces photos in plush gold frames – has spawned multiple reality television series, spin-offs around the globe, and even a novel.
Many of the pictures are sent in by the “luxury” kids themselves, who are evidently keen for as many people as possible to despise them. One post on the Luxury Kids profile shows an array of expensive car keys, with the owner asking Instagram users which vehicle he should use, to which a commenter replies: “There are kids in Africa starving, why don’t you help them?”
Others are more sceptical, debating whether the images are Photoshopped or simply plucked from Google. But whether they’re telling the truth is besides the point; Instagram – with its likes and flattering filters – is the perfect stage on which to act.
Britain’s own versions – Rich Kids of London and Rich Kids of the UK – now have well over half a million followers, and almost as many on Facebook. The London site is run by an anonymous, 22-year-old financial broker from London. “I have always loved seeing rich kids’ lifestyles and I wanted to show them to motivate everyone to do well in their life,” he said in an interview last year.
The “lifestyle” of which he speaks appears to be one of endless supercars, people wildly misusing expensive items just for the sake of it (breakfast cereal out of a designer trainer, anyone?), holidays in Ibiza, and pointing at yachts they may or may not own. They call themselves “ballers” (slang for “living it large”), constantly congratulate themselves for having “made it”, and ensure the first thing they do in a five-star hotel room is take a selfie on the bed. Astonishingly, not everyone appreciates the motivational aspect of the rich kids’ exploits. “Sometimes the account gets a bad name for existing,” said the UK curator. “People do not like to see the posts of some people’s opulent lifestyles and some become envious and spiteful.”
While they can probably afford a tiny Stradivarius with which to accompany this lament, it’s a reminder that some of the subjects are real. So who exactly are the kids, willing to absorb the slings and arrows of online disapproval in order to let people know they have oodles of cash?
Many have tight privacy settings on their own social media accounts, but one who frequently appears on both the Luxury Kids and Rich Kids of London pages – though it’s unclear if he has agreed to do so – is Dave Sullivan Jr, son of the West Ham FC joint-chairman. While he ostensibly works in “nightlife and tech stuff ”, “The Notorious Dave Sullivan”, as the 19-year-old calls himself on Instagram, appears to still enjoy the spoils of his father’s estimated £1.1billion business fortune, which he will likely take over one day. The pair already appear to work closely together, travelling the world and attending every West Ham match in tandem.
Sullivan Jr recently appeared on Instagram drinking champagne. “West Ham 1-0 Swansea – Wearing a velvet smoking jacket in memory of Hugh Hefner #RIPHEF,” he wrote.
That was enough for Rich Kids of London to label him the “king” of the capital, which in turn garnered almost 3,000 likes from fans. Elsewhere on Sullivan’s account, he can be seen in a private jet, partying at Mahiki nightclub in Mayfair, attending a Miss Swimsuit UK pageant audition round, and inspiring his followers with the motivational message that “97 per cent of the people who quit too soon are employed by the 3 per cent who never gave up.”
That might be sage advice, were it not pasted over a still from The Wolf of Wall Street.
Other faces on The Luxury Kids include “Prince Osborn of Nigeria” – Osborn Nweze, who attends the University of Surrey in Guildford – returning to England in a private jet; a 24-year-old Canadian investor named “Neno”; and @samraja1986, who stares into the camera with Gatsby-like sad eyes, as he clutches some rosé champagne on a charter plane. The caption reads: “Money doesn’t buy class, but it does buy you business class.”
But a nastiness exists, too. One image shows a crowd gathered outside a branch of Primark, with a caption calling them “peasants” for shopping there. Another features somebody cleaning their suede shoe with a £50 note because a “peasant” touched them.
Mainly, though, these are just mind-blowingly wealthy people showing off. And by following and liking their every move, surely we have to take some of the blame for their online presence?
Now that’s one thing the Luxury and Rich Kids might not be able to buy – the oxygen of publicity.