Rich Kids of Instagram

(WIP)

About

Rich Kids of Instagram is a single topic blog that showcases images taken with the photo sharing app Instagram by the presumably wealthy due to luxury items or lavish settings.

Origin

The single topic blog Rich Kids of Instagram^[1] began on July 13th, 2012 to showcase and critique lavish lifestyles of some teenagers who share photos on the app. The anonymous owners of the blog encourage Instagram users to use the hashtag #rkoi to collect the photos. Within two weeks, 1228 Instagram photos had the hashtag.^[2]

Spread

The blog was featured on the NY Daily News^[3], Buzzfeed^[4], the Atlantic Wire^[5] and the Huffington Post^[6], who published a quote from one of the teens whose photo was featured on the blog. Ninteen year old Annabel Schwartz, who was shown vacationing in Saint-Tropez, told reporters she was embarrassed to have her photo on the site, saying her and her friends “consider themselves to be a lot more substantial than their father’s credit card.”

On August 14th, CNBC^[7] published an article titled “‘Rich Kids of Instagram’: Overserved and Oversharing”, which compared the Tumblr blog’s voyeuristic appeal to the 2003 documentary film Born Rich^[8] and the MTV series “My Super Sweet 16.” The same day, PC Mag published the articles “Embarassing Rich Kids of Instagram”^[9] and “Oversharing Prompts Shutdown of Dell Daughter’s Twitter Account”^[10], which reported that a photo Michael Dell’s son Zachary eating on a family jet (shown below) was featured on the single topic blog. The photo had been shared on Instagram by daughter Alexa Dell, who was subsequently forced to shut down her various social media accounts.

On August 15th, MSNBC published an article titled “Rich Kids Are Oversharing on Social Medial; Are Yours?” On the following day, the Examiner^[11] published an article titled “‘Rich Kids of Instagram’ Set to Knock McKayla Maroney’s Meme Off Its Lofty Perch”, which quoted the blog’s owner who revealed that the site was doing quite well. Also on August 16th, the technology blog Gather^[12] published a post titled “Rich Kids of Instagram: You Haven’t Lived Until You’ve Doused Yourself in Dom Perignon.” On the following day, The Washington Post^[13] published an op/ed titled “Why the Internet Hates the Rich Kids of Instagram and the Brant Brothers”, which argued that the Internet reviles “ostentatious displays of wealth.”