The Problem With Laughing At Poor People

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Edited By: Andrew Gonzales

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Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images

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I can’t believe I have to say it… you shouldn’t laugh at poor people…

But doing exactly that has become one of the most popular content genres in personal finance, and even if you are the one doing the laughing it’s still probably costing you money. Personal finance is not really that complicated, which is a problem for the people that have built entire media brands around the subject. Nobody is going to tune into a radio show, buy the latest book, watch a weekly upload or attend a two-day seminar that just says save money, avoid high interest debt and invest broadly on repeat.

Some of these people are making millions of dollars every year from their audience so they need to come up with new and exciting ways to say the same thing. One of the most popular ways to pad out personal finance content has become live reactions to people’s personal situations.

A guest will come on the show to discuss their personal financial situation and the host will give advice to the person to help them clear up their debt, earn additional income, reduce their expenses, or make investments. You might think this sounds like a harmless way for people in desperate situations to get some much-needed advice, and for the “finfluencers” audience to learn from other people’s mistakes.

Two years ago, when I first covered the problems with personal finance influencers, I said their reaction content was the least harmful thing they did when the alternative was making uneducated predictions about specific stocks or cryptos. But I was wrong, for three reasons… The first reason is that there is very little to learn from these shows and all you ARE going to get from them is financial stress. Did you know that having a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt and choosing not to work full-time is bad for your personal finances? If so, you probably already know everything you could learn by watching people in extremely poor financial situations.

So why else do people watch it?

The Dave Ramsey show has over twenty-three MILLION listeners every week, Suze Orman had similar viewership when her show aired on CNBC and even on YouTube the genre is insanely popular. Financial stress is at an all-time high. A 2022 survey conducted by CNBC found that 70% of Americans were stressed about their personal finances. Watching people that have made even worse personal financial decisions is a great coping mechanism to put personal worries into perspective, but it’s not a good long-term solution.

Watching this kind of personal finance content makes it easier to justify poor financial decisions because “at least it’s not as bad as that guy who financed a tesla while working part time at Arby’s.” These shows also bring on guests that are doing extremely well financially, which will only add to a listener’s financial stress. If the show can’t find an extremely wealthy guest to talk openly about their finances, the show host themselves will normally step up to tell everybody watching how rich they are.

Comparison is not only the thief of joy, but it can also motivate people to take unnecessary risks to catch up to people that are not representative of a normal financial situation. The producers behind these shows know that extreme financial situations sell well in today’s fight for attention and this leads to stories that are simply made up. Now I am not calling out anybody for directly lying to their audience, but these shows get millions of views and people are willing to do crazy things for their fifteen minutes of fame.

If the guest makes up a crazy story about being in terrible debt or making million dollars a month from drop shipping at the age of twelve, then that makes great content that will stand out even if it does come at the expense of the viewers financial understanding. Made up situations are not going to teach you anything about personal finance. You are probably not in the extreme financial situations of these guests, you don’t need to know how to most effectively cash out of your late stage startup and you already know that payday loans are bad. You are really watching this for entertainment, and that entertainment is not harmless.

So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out the problems with laughing at poor people… yes really…