America is obsessed with the wealthy – whether or not some want to admit it – in America’s culture and media, there has always been a curiosity about the ultra-rich and showcased by reality TV shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Selling Sunset. America’s heavy emphasis on materialism and wealth comes from the root ideas of capitalism, and has created a social system where most strive to ‘get rich’. And this obsession with the wealthy top 1% has translated into a fascination with absurdly overpriced quotidian items.
The idea of wealth and luxury items isn’t new, with high-end brands like Hermes, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton being around for decades, touting high-quality bags, perfumes, shoes, etc. However, the trend with exclusive items has taken a new turn with common items, and have been highly glamorized through social media.
One example is the $20 single strawberry sold in Erewhon, known as the Elly Amai fruit. It is grown in Tochigi, Japan, carefully picked, and flown across the ocean to America. The strawberry has caused a frenzy on social media, and despite its price tag, it’s almost always sold out. Why? Is it truly the best strawberry on the earth or is it the fascination with such an expensive strawberry?
It isn’t just strawberries that come with the hefty price tag, another obsession has taken the internet by storm: Dubai Chocolate. The Dubai Chocolate Bar, a traditional chocolate bar filled with pistachio, exploded on Tiktok last year, mainly popularized by influencers across social media platforms. The chocolate bar ranges from $20 – $40 for a single bar, usually sold at 5 times the price of regular pistachio chocolate.
While both items have claimed to be at another level when it comes to quality, Jimmy Kimmel recently put that theory to the test in a social experiment. The results were unanimous: people couldn’t tell the difference between the $20 strawberry and the 36-cent strawberry from Driscoll. It seems that the idea of luxury can make any price tag reasonable, or at least from America’s perception.
Although the idea of fine dining or luxury everyday items is something that has been a part of the culture for a long time (i.e. Michelin-rated restaurants), the new line of items has been extremely popular and intriguing for one key reason: accessibility. Even if these items are highly overpriced, in comparison to the experience in a fine dining restaurant, a strawberry is comparatively cheaper. The trend of expensive day-to-day items has been tailored to the American’s public desire to share the experiences of the 1% and has provided the opportunity for everyday regular Americans to get a slice of the pie. Due to America’s infatuation with the wealthy, we are stuck in the trend’s grip, and the absurdity of these prices has morphed into reasonability.
