You may be familiar with flexing, as in bragging and showing your muscles after long gym sessions. However, in recent years, a new trend, financial flexing, has spread like a disease among social media users and content creators. This article will reveal how contagious and dangerous it is to humans, and whether you are guilty of spreading it.
What is financial flexing?
Financial flexing is an action with the intent to brag about your wealth, income, the latest purchases, or general high-end living. Generally, such behavior doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but thanks to social media, everyone can participate. After all, if you feel the need to post stories about your visit to an expensive restaurant, but skip sharing that you ate ramen noodles to afford it, you are not only financially flexing, but also creating false narratives about your life.
Such behavior is also typical among Gen Z, who treat their digital identity as equally important as their real-life identity. Hence, we see stories, Instagram posts, or TikTok videos that focus on embellishing reality and creating an illusion of wealth.
Combat the financial flexing habit
If you’re guilty of depicting your financial situation in a much better light online, you might reconsider your approach. Without even realizing it, you can affect people’s perception and insinuate that people must be at a particular financial point in their lives by a very young age.
Nurture positive actions and fix mistakes
Instead of working on another braggy post, consider reviewing your financial situation and the damage you have done over the years.
For example, the fancy clothes and trips left quite a mark on your credit card. Then, start refocusing and dedicating your time towards more conscious spending and continuous earning. An online earning website can be a way for students or busy adults to earn extra income each month.
Options like JumpTask let you earn by completing various gigs or microtasks, such as testing apps or watching videos. Consider freelancing on Upwork or Fiverr to improve your finances.
Go for positivity and genuine posts
If you enjoy being active on social media or even make money from posting, you could adjust your posting style. Instead of showcasing only a luxurious or glamorous lifestyle, try keeping it real by adding a few more realistic posts and stories. To many viewers or potential followers, such a change might feel more relatable.
Flex your lifestyle and actions
Flexing your genuine achievements and skills is not discouraged. After all, you have worked hard to afford that trip and can safely say that no debt is involved in it. In other words, you can share your joy of buying something or being able to afford something. However, it shouldn’t delude itself by sharing only these expensive moments and skipping more realistic tendencies.
Share your experience on financial flexing
If you feel confident sharing such stories, you can also spread awareness of financial flexing. After all, many Gen Zers and other generations feel pressured to present their lives in a better light than they are. Sometimes, it takes a village to prove that such overwhelming pressure isn’t proper, and it’s okay not to try so hard to meet standards we sometimes set for ourselves.
Conclusion
So, ‘fake it till you make it’ might be a fun saying, but it shouldn’t mean that you need to fake your lifestyle online. If people go significantly overboard with trying to create a specific image of their lives, they can do a lot more damage than they expect. For example, credit card debt could stock up, and those credit scores could drop to less than favorable conditions. Hence, it’s crucial to understand that deceptive financial flexing is not worth it if it means ruining your finances.