History Main / ConspicuousConsumption

[[caption-width-right:260:[[http://www.computer-choppers.com/ Because high end laptops alone don't scream "I'm stinkin' rich!"]]]]

In a nutshell, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption conspicuous consumption]] is any extravagant spending that has no real purposed other than just to show off someone's wealth. Sometimes this leads to a vicious cycle of "keeping up with the Joneses", when two people or families each feel that they need to buy more things to show they're just as wealthy as the other, sometimes going UpToEleven.

* Richie Rich had gold-plated, gem-studded ''everything''. ConspicuousConsumption is ''only'' joke in his comics: mundane gadgets festooned with precious metals and minerals, landscaping feature like hedges and swimming pools shaped like dollar signs, the immense size of the Rich estate (requiring multiple ZIP codes, needing its own transit system), and so on, ''ad nauseum''.

* NeroWolfe is a master of ConspicuousConsumption.

BTW, even non-wealthy people can do this, if it's an IfIWereARichMan sequence or a MockMillionaire maintaining the charade.

[[AC: {{Anime}}]]
* In ''{{GundamWing}}'', Dorothy Catalonia seem to have a thing for gold-plated vehicles: a limousine, a space shuttle and a truck.
* In ''SpeedGrapher'', there was a Euphoric who literally eats diamonds. If she eats enough, she becomes a walking, talking, diamond.

* ''{{Goldfinger}}'' likes gold so much, he kills people with it!
* The title characters in ''FunWithDickAndJane'' are very much concerned with what the neighbors think--and what the neighbors think is that it's best to show off one's wealth. This intersects ''brutally'' with their poverty.

* EARLY example- in the ancient Hindu epic, the ''{{Ramayana}}'', several entire chapters are devoted to explaining the over-the-top splendor of Ravana's palace, of which everything constructed is constructed of rare metals and stones, and everything natural (i.e. gardens) is of only the finest, purest quality.

* In RobertEHoward's ConanTheBarbarian story "A Witch Shall Be Born", Salome goes in for this.

* Interestingly averted by Star Trek's Ferengi. Their entire society is capitalism taken to the point of parody, but their profits seem to go mostly toward making ''more'' profit rather than getting wasted on ostentatious frivolities. Although Ferengi occasionally engage in some form of debauchery, their vices are surprisingly minimal. In one episode of ''DeepSpaceNine'', Quark is amazed that humans would buy their own poison in the form of cigarettes.

* On ''{{Lost}}'', several characters, especially evil tycoon Charles Widmore, make a show of drinking the fictional [=MacCutcheon=] whiskey, a bottle of which costs several thousand dollars.
* On ChapellesShow, one MTV Cribs parody sketch had an insanely rich celebrity (Dave Chapelle himself) who ate dinosaur eggs and sprinkled diamonds on his food because it made his "doody twinkle."

* [[{{Cracked}} Cracked.com]] has a list [[http://www.cracked.com/article/188_7-great-products-telling-world-youre-rich-dick/ of real life ways to show off wealth]].

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* The Golden Opulence Sundae. A $1000 sundae that's covered in 23k edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world's most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela's coast.

-->''Salome was clad in the barbaric splendor of a woman of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on her gilded sandals, on her gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held them in place. Gold anklets clashed as she moved, jeweled bracelets weighted her bare arms. Her tall coiffure was that of a Shemitish woman, and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in her ears, flashing and sparkling with each impatient movement of her haughty head. A gem-crusted girdle supported a silk shirt so transparent that it was in the nature of a cynical mockery of convention''

Not to be confused with IncurableCoughOfDeath [[IncrediblyLamePun (someone is suffering from what used to be called "consumption" in a very conspicuous manner).]]

* On ChapellesShow, one MTV Cribs-like sketch had an insanely rich celebrity who ate dinosaur eggs and sprinkled diamonds on his food because it made his "doody twinkle."

[[quoteright:260:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gold_mac_laptop.jpg]]

SuperTrope of BlingBlingBang, EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry, GemEncrusted, PimpedOutDress, PrettyInMink, BigFancyHouse, MaidCorps since most instances of those tropes are this.

Compare MoneyFetish, UpperClassTwit, {{Egopolis}}, UpToEleven, BlingOfWar.

Not to be confused with IncurableCoughOfDeath (someone is suffering from what used to be called "consumption" in a very conspicuous manner).

SuperTrope of BlingBlingBang, EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry, GemEncrusted, PimpedOutDress, PrettyInMink since most instances of those tropes are this.

SuperTrope of BlingBlingBang, EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry, GemEncrusted, PimedOutDress, PrettyInMink since most instances of those tropes are this.

SuperTrope of BlingBlingBang, EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry and GemEncrusted, since most instances of those tropes are this. PrettyInMink is this about half the time, as well. Sometimes justifies WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture; servants and slaves are conspicious consumption in a culture with slaves.

->''I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,\\

And one more leading nowhere, just for show''
-->--''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', "If I Were a Rich Man"

* An oil tycoon in ''EliteBeatAgents is prone to this.
* In TeamFortress2, a Heavy Weapons Guy achievement for eating 1,000 Sandviches references the trope, mixed with XtremeKoolLetterz, as Konspicious Konsumption.

* In the {{Futurama}} movie Bender's Big Score, Earth is taken over by alien scammers who buy a fleet of solid gold, GemEncrusted [[StarWars death stars]] to defend it.

* Richie Rich had gold-plated, gem-studded ''everything''. The almost-universal cover gag on his comics involved some kind of mundane gadget festooned with precious metals and minerals, or some landscaping feature shaped like a dollar sign. Longer gags involved the immense size of the Rich estate (requiring multiple ZIP codes, needing its own transit system).