If you've ever wondered what it's like to grow up mega-wealthy, now's your chance to take a quick look into the world of endless money and bountiful entitlement.
A while back, Reddit user u/martinkarolev asked people to share the wildest "rich kid syndrome" behavior they've ever experienced, and the stories just flooded in. Here are some of the top-voted responses:
1. "I lived with five guys and was the only one whose parents weren’t millionaires, not close at all. They never cleaned. About once a month, I would deep-clean the house, but two days later there was garbage and food on the floor. I found out they all told their parents the poor kid made all the messes when one of their moms came by to scream at me."
2. "I grew up attending a private school in a developing country, so a lot of my classmates were in the 1% of the country. Whenever we'd be swimming in the school pool, one friend of ours in particular would always remark that swimming is more fun if the pool has a current or waves. I had no idea what he was talking about and generally thought he was just being imaginative. One day, he invited me over to his house to swim and...he had a 50-foot indoor pool that generated a current/waves. He wasn't lying. They are a lot more fun."
3. "My college roommate's mom gave him $1,400 'for the weekend' just randomly. He blew through the whole thing by Saturday, asked his mom for more money, and screamed at her because 'she promised $1,400 for the weekend' and he'd spent most of what she gave him on Friday, which isn't part of the weekend."
4. "I had a friend in university whose parents, it turned out, owned multiple tea plantations. At this point, I had no idea she was wealthy, and she was driving me to work one morning. Her phone went off, and she said, 'Oh, just read that message for me.' It was all in German except for one bit that said '€1,400.' I read that number and said I couldn't read the rest, and she said, 'Oh great, Mum has transferred me the money'. I was like, 'That's a huge amount — is everything OK?' She said, 'Yes, I've run out of clothes, and Mum's sent me some money to get more this weekend."
"She said, 'I don't know how to work the washing machine, so I've sent my clothes back to Germany. I've got nothing to wear now.' I was so completely shocked I just sat there in silence. Then she said, 'I mean, €1,400 is only like four pairs of jeans, but it will get me through until next month when I go home.'"
5. "I knew a trust fund girl whose dad gave her the money to start a company. She lost said company when she went on vacation for six months and forgot she was supposed to pay her employees all the time. She assumed they wouldn't get paid for six months and be there when she got back."
6. "My college roommate threw a massive tantrum — like, on the floor screaming and crying — because her parents got her a used truck for graduation. It was a 2013 truck with less than 10K miles on it that was fully upgraded with every possible add-on. We graduated in 2014. The car was maybe a year old. She already had a 2009 Range Rover."
7. "A mega-rich guy in the UK got in a crash, with light damage to one side of his brand-new Mercedes. He called for one of his assistants to come get him, even though the car was fully drive-able. My friend rolled up on call with his tow truck and asked the guy where he wanted his car towed. The guy gave him the keys and said, 'Keep it; I don't want it.'"
8. "There was this family with two children who attended the elementary school that connected to my middle school. Every day, both parents would leave the house and drive separately to pick up their two kids before returning home. I should mention at this point that they each drove a Lamborghini, one black and one orange, back to back in the pick-up line to get their kids from elementary school. At first, I thought they were just being showy, but then I realized that both cars were two-seaters, so this was really the only way to do it."
9. "A dad bought his college-aged daughter a house in a VERY nice neighborhood so she and her friends could live rent-free while they attended university. He remodeled the entire house. In all, he probably spent close to $2 million. Two weeks after moving in, they left a candle burning while they went to the store to get snacks for a football game. They came home, and the house was on fire. A month later, it was good as new for them to move back in."
10. "There was a guy from Honduras who lived across the hall from me my freshman year of college. During one of the ice-breakers after freshman move-in, he leaned in to ask me if I knew when the maids were coming by to make his bed and clean his room. I guess his family was very well-off in his home country, and the entire semester was an eye-opener for him in actually taking care of himself."
11. "There was this rich kid in our class who was literally disgusted by us buying used stuff (like computer parts) on eBay. Once, during a conversation I said I bought a memory module for my PC on eBay, and he told me that I should have a little dignity, and if I buy used stuff, I should keep it to myself."
"I know a garbage man that works in rich neighborhoods, and takes out trash around the move-out time for an uber-rich-kid university. Every year, he finds 200–300 game consoles (the newest ones) and sometimes desktop PCs — the kids don't want to take them home, so they just throw them all out. He makes a good $40K a year on eBay because he just cleans the stuff up and sells it."
12. "My friend picked me up in a new $85,000 sports car one day. The newest Corvette, special edition model, fresh off the line. I told him his car was incredible. He said he wished everyone knew he had to work a full month with his grandfather to 'earn' it himself."
13. "My girlfriend's family is wealthy, but she still works. She was waiting to get a chance for a promotion and the words, 'I can't believe anyone would make somebody work for almost a year to get a promotion' came out of her mouth. I laughed."
14. "There are a lot of rich kids in my particular business program at university. I met one girl a few months ago at a social event. We were chatting a bit about our program, and she proudly told me about how she threatens to sue the school whenever things don’t go her way. She also said something to the effect of, 'They have to take the threat seriously, because they know I actually have the means to follow through.'"
15. "I once had to drive a girl home in her 2009 Chevy Tahoe. She asked me to crash it because it didn't have a touchscreen, and it wasn't fair her sister had a new one."
16. "My ex-girlfriend's friend said to me, 'Can you believe there are people who have never been on a private jet?!'"
17. "When I was in college, a friend that was heavy in the fraternity scene told me about a freshman who got kicked out for having a servant flown to town to do the hazing chores he was supposed to do."
18. And finally, "My first teaching job was at a private middle school in one of the wealthiest enclaves in the United States. I taught a kid who told me he didn't finish his homework because his helicopter had stalled over the weekend, so he couldn't leave his family's island. He was telling the truth."
What's the wildest/most out-of-touch rich-person behavior you've experienced? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.