11 Things Wealthy People Love That Normal People Find Tacky
Having different amounts of money often translates to vastly different tastes.
Dirima / Shutterstock Wealthy people tend to have different tastes than everyone else. They don’t just have more money. They also spend it on ridiculous things that a normal person wouldn’t spare a second glance at. This is really part of why there’s such a huge divide between those who are wealthy and those who aren’t.
Why do wealthy people choose to spend their money on things that are so tacky? One possible answer is that they think it makes them look even more well-off. According to New York University’s Maia McDonald, “The very obvious fact is that your appearance affects your public perception. It is the societal expectation and personal responsibility of people to fine-tune their appearance in accordance with how they want to be treated.” Therefore, wealthy people will seek to project an image of wealth. In the process, there’s a good chance they’ll make some choices that can only be described as tacky by the rest of the world.
Here are 11 things wealthy people love that normal people find tacky
1. Over-the-top trips documented on social media
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Most people enjoy posting a good vacation photo or two, but when wealthy people take a trip, sharing every minute of it is an absolute necessity. But maybe the social media documentation is necessary. After all, no one would believe how over-the-top their trips are without photographic evidence. From private jets to yachts to villas, wealthy people plan truly unforgettable trips that a normal person couldn’t dream of going on.
The trips wealthy people take definitely seem to be a bit different from throwing some things in the car and heading to the beach. Kostas Panagakis, a luxury travel expert from Travelworks, said, “From the lavish grand tours of the early 20th century to the highly customized and sustainable experiences of today, the luxury travel industry has consistently evolved to satisfy the aspirations of discerning travelers. Looking ahead, the focus on personalization, exclusivity, and sustainability is expected to remain in the luxury travel sector, paving the way for increasingly sophisticated and impactful experiences.”
For normal people, this will simply seem tacky. Curating an entire experience around your own interests and excluding anyone but a chosen few from accompanying you just seems absurd to them. And, of course, private travel is terrible for the environment. Posting pictures of an exclusive luxury trip on social media is like salt in the wound to normal people who could never afford such a thing, and see it as so out of touch.
2. Luxury cars
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Wealthy people certainly have a penchant for luxury cars. From classic brands like Mercedes-Benz to newer options like Tesla Cybertrucks, wealthy people love to show off just how much money they have through whatever vehicle they drive. To a normal person, this is just tacky. That’s a ginormous amount of money being spent on a car that could easily become wrecked, otherwise damaged or just cease working altogether.
Writing for Sofi, Kim Franke-Folstad shared that some of the top luxury car brands people with higher incomes tend to gravitate towards are BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Lexus. Tesla is, of course, on top for electric vehicles. However, she also noted that brands that aren’t luxury are doing what they can to get in on the industry by producing more expensive, showier models.
Franke-Folstad noted that luxury brands are respected for being generally reliable. However, there are disadvantages to purchasing them. For example, their value depreciates at a faster rate, and spending money on one can get in the way of other financial goals. This is all that normal people tend to see when presented with a luxury car. It feels ridiculous to them to spend so much money on something that can easily be damaged and will need to be replaced before long. These purchases are just tacky to them.
3. Designer merchandise with logos on it
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Perhaps the most cringeworthy thing on this list is designer goods that feature obnoxious logos from the brands. Think of the double “C” Chanel logo, the small “LV” printed across Louis Vuitton bags, or the Gucci “G.” Normal people scoff at these items, seeing them as tacky and annoying. Wealthy people love them, though. It comes down to the fact that they’re a status symbol. If someone knows you’re wearing Prada, they’re bound to respect you more, right?
Derek Guy, a fashion writer and menswear expert, explained why brands put those heinous logos on their clothes in the first place. It turns out that it all has to do with copyright. Clothes cannot typically be copyrighted. “So if a company likes how Levi’s 501s fit, they can copy the cut,” Guy said. “A logo that includes artistic design elements (i.e., not just the name on its own) is legally regarded as being a work of artistic creation and therefore will be protected under copyright law.” This only applies in certain countries, though.
So, it sounds like designer brands include annoyingly large logos because they have to. Of course, wealthy people don’t have to buy those designer clothes that have logos on them, but what is a rich person without a Gucci belt? Again, they’re a status symbol, so people with lots of money don’t mind donning the pieces that may be a little less attractive because of their logos. On the other hand, normal people just see those logos as tacky.
4. Huge houses
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Another thing wealthy people are known for loving is giant houses. In some cases, these could even be considered mansions. Obviously, any rich person needs a giant swimming pool and enough guest rooms for everyone they know. Meanwhile, normal people drive through the richer parts of town, just shaking their heads at the houses they pass, unsure what someone could possibly do with so much space. To them, it looks tacky.
Investopedia’s Lisa Smith clarified that the previous trend of “McMansions” largely went out of style with the Great Recession of 2008. Wealthy people are still buying big homes that averaged around 2,164 square feet in 2024, though. While they’re close to the same size as McMansions, they would more accurately be called “McModern” homes as they are part of a new era.
Wealthy people like to show off their wealth, and one way to do that is to buy a huge home. As rent rises and mortgage rates skyrocket, only the super wealthy can truly afford such a thing. Normal people just don’t have the money needed to keep up. They might not be living in shoeboxes, but they still can’t afford anything like what their rich counterparts can. And, really, such an ostentatious show of wealth is tacky to them.
5. Talking about how much money they have
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Just like wealthy people love showing off their money through their purchases, they also love talking about their money. If you have more money, chances are you are pretty financially literate, or someone in your life is. This means there are endless opportunities for them to bring up little-known financial facts and use them to flex on their own net worth. Normal people never talk about money so openly, and think doing so is downright tacky.
Admittedly, part of the reason wealthy people talk about their money so much could be because it’s what they’re familiar with. Also, money shouldn’t be avoided in conversation entirely. Wendy De La Rosa, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said it’s important to discuss money openly. “If we’re friends, if we’re genuinely friends, I care about your well-being and you care about my well-being,” she said. “Why not talk about one of the most important parts and predictors of our general well-being, which is our financial security. I might learn something from you. You might learn something from me.”
There has to be a happy medium. Many would argue that rich people talk about their money too much, but it seems like the average person does so too little. There has to be a way to make these matters no longer “taboo,” as De La Rosa said, without making it seem like you’re being tacky and just bragging about your financial status. That could keep everyone satisfied.
6. Gaudy jewelry
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Another thing wealthy people seem to love but normal people think is tacky is big, expensive, gaudy jewelry. The wealthy can afford huge pieces with gems the size of their fist, while most normal people barely even have any gold or silver pieces to their name. We’ve all seen a wealthy woman with an abnormally large necklace or brooch, and seen a man wearing a watch that turns heads.
CNN Business contributor Parija Kavilanz reported on just how deep rich people’s love of expensive jewelry goes. She said that the wealthy were actually spending money on luxury jewelry during the pandemic, when no one really had anywhere to wear said jewelry. Signet Jewelers shared that their own sales in August of 2020 were up 10.9% from the year before.
Knowing that wealthy people were spending their money on jewelry during a pandemic that left many normal people out of work and struggling financially shows just how out of touch they can be. While their friends could have been struggling, they bought new, expensive jewelry. It’s no wonder that normal people find it to be tacky.
7. Intense cosmetic surgery
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Cosmetic procedures are largely out of reach for normal people. They’re just too expensive. The same isn’t true for the wealthy, though. They can afford everything from Botox to a BBL. Sometimes, this can be done in a classy way, but sometimes it can come off looking nothing short of bizarre. When rich people overdo it on cosmetic surgery and end up looking like a completely different person, normal people think it’s just tacky.
In 2024, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported that cosmetic surgery rates were holding steady despite economic uncertainty. Both surgical procedures, such as tummy tucks, and minimally invasive treatments, like injections, were in high demand. So, the economy may not be booming, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting the cosmetic procedure industry. Wealthy people are still keeping it going.
Many normal people who don’t have access to these procedures have come to see them as unnecessary and over-the-top. They are just fine-looking and aging as is. Instead, when someone comes away from cosmetic surgery with overly smooth and tight skin, they just shake their heads at how tacky it seems to them.
8. Throwing huge parties
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Something else that wealthy people love is throwing huge, lavish parties for their equally wealthy friends. It’s like the wealthy try to outdo each other with whoever can throw the most extravagant bash, and likely spend the most money in the process. Normal people, on the other hand, find these parties where everyone tries to one-up each other strange. They can’t get over the tackiness of a bunch of wealthy people coming together and showing off their money.
A report from Business Insider found that parents were spending up to six figures on their children’s birthday parties. “Nowadays, kids’ birthday celebrations can put most weddings to shame, with Instagram and celebrities inspiring a seemingly endless game of one-upmanship,” they said. If this is how wealthy people pull out all the stops for a kid’s party, you can only imagine what they do when the adults are the ones partying.
Normal people scoff at these parties, whether they’re for children or adults. They can’t see the sense in spending so much money on a one-time event that only takes place for a few hours. Instead, the large amounts of money dropped on throwing the best party just seems tacky to them. They don’t understand it, and they don’t want to.
9. Expensive wellness trends
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These days, the wellness industry seems to be all the rage. McKinsey and Company’s 2025 Future of Wellness survey found that younger generations had turned it into a $2 trillion industry. The areas they found to be growing the most quickly were functional nutrition, beauty, longevity, travel, and weight management. If normal people want to improve their nutrition or work on weight management, they are largely on their own in doing so. There’s no expert to help them out because they can’t afford one.
McKinsey and Company reported that most Gen Zers and millennials fell into the “maximalist optimizers” category of wellness buyers. They were influenced by social media, but wanted scientific results. They make up about 25% of wellness buyers and spend 40% of the market’s $2 trillion. One interesting thing to note is that this segment typically worries more about the quality of a product or service than its price.
Normal people can’t fathom spending so much money on wellness fads that aren’t even guaranteed to work for them. The fact that the wealthy would spend so much on passing trends that may or may not help their actual wellness feels tacky to them. In their eyes, it’s not a remotely practical way to spend money.
10. Always buying the newest gadgets
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It seems like everyone has at least one person in their life whom they can poke fun at for always buying the latest technology the moment it’s available. Wealthy people make this a hobby. Just because an older phone, computer, TV, tablet, or even a car still works well, that doesn’t mean that they won’t just go and buy a new one because they can. Normal people see this as a waste and think it’s tacky.
Writing for Lending Tree, Maggie Davis shared some startling facts. 26% of Americans have gone into debt — approximately $1,492 of it — to pay for new technology. On the flip side, 41% of Americans have regretted the amount of money they’ve spent on technology. Based on these statistics, it seems like wealthy people aren’t the only ones who spend an exorbitant amount of money on the latest tech gadgets.
Buying new technology may be something that a few normal people are willing to partake in as well, but most still see it as tacky. The average person can’t comprehend spending so much money at such a fast rate. Their phones and computers, which are a few years old, are just fine for them, and they’ll get as much use out of them as they possibly can.
11. Bizarre artwork
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The last thing wealthy people love that normal people find tacky is some bizarre artwork. Whether it’s an abstract painting that looks like pretty much anyone could have created it, or a giant, imposing family portrait that looks like something out of medieval times, wealthy people have very unique taste in how they decorate their big homes. Normal people, who tend to stick to Target and Hobby Lobby for wall decor, can’t really imagine spending so much money on pieces of artwork that seem relatively worthless.
As Bloomberg’s arts columnist James Tarmy wisely stated, “Art is for everyone, art collecting is not.” Reporting on art auctions, Tarmy said, “The top 10 lots of the last two weeks of auctions totaled $759 million, with $2.5 billion worth of art sold total. The most expensive piece was a 1964 silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, selling for $195 million to mega-dealer Larry Gagosian.”
Buying actual art, or having custom pieces made, is expensive. Perhaps the worst part is that everyone has different tastes, so no one is going to agree on whether a piece looks good or not, anyway. That makes it kind of seem like a waste of time. It’s not hard to understand why normal people would find spending money on items that some people don’t even like because they are so tacky.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
