A new wave of social media creators has figured out a rather clever formula for building wealth online: pretend to be obscenely rich, mock the ultra-wealthy with surgical precision, and watch the brand deals roll in. When the British series ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’ arrived on screens back in 2015, audiences were genuinely appalled by the brazen hedonism on display as influencers showed off private jets and dismissed ordinary people as beneath them. Today, however, the landscape has shifted dramatically. The creators raking in serious money are the ones satirizing that exact world rather than participating in it earnestly.
Leading the pack is Gstaad Guy, a 28-year-old London-based internet personality whose real identity remains a closely guarded secret. He has amassed 1.7 million followers by inhabiting two carefully crafted alter egos. The first is Constance, a man in his forties whose summers are spent on yachts and whose winters revolve around St. Moritz. The second is Colton, his equally disconnected Gen Z cousin. Despite building an entire personal brand around the Swiss Alpine resort of Gstaad, he reportedly had not even visited the place for years after launching the account.
The satirical persona has opened doors that most comedians could only dream of. Gstaad Guy has been invited to the Grand Prix, delivered talks at Harvard, and landed magazine covers, all while poking fun at the very class of people sending him invitations. His success eventually translated into a real luxury jewelry brand called Poubel, which recently had a pop-up shop at Selfridges. Bracelets from the collection are priced anywhere from around $125 to well over $1,000. In a somewhat ironic twist, followers who initially tuned in for the jokes now regularly message him asking for genuine travel recommendations. “People really watch my characters to learn something. Although they are fictional, they are very convincing in their views and character. Either it’s excellent or it’s ‘à la poubelle’, meaning for the trash,” he told Palais Constance.
At this year’s World Government Summit, Gstaad Guy addressed what he sees as the function of his content more directly. “My content ultimately uses the language of comedy to depict the world of the super-wealthy, the way they spend and how they interact with their surroundings. Comedy is an excellent way to make such things more digestible,” he explained. He also acknowledged the inherent tension in satirizing privilege while simultaneously profiting from the same circles. “Sometimes I mock them too… they are immensely privileged, so you could say it’s punching up. But I think it’s practically impossible because it ultimately all turns into a humorous tribute,” he said.
Aris Yeager, a 25-year-old New Yorker, has built a comparable following of 1.4 million Instagram followers through his “rich kid comedy” content. His alter ego is the “European Kid,” a parodied version of a wealthy young socialite from no specific country who claims to have eaten caviar for breakfast and refuses to take a regular Uber because he is waiting for a custom-ordered Mercedes-Benz. The character has earned him invitations to luxury brand events including those hosted by Affaire and the Italian label Adda River. He now runs his own company called Storytime, which connects brands with influencers, turning his satirical platform into a full-scale business operation.
Ben Sumadiwiria, 32, brings a particularly interesting backstory to the mix. Born in Germany and now based in the United Kingdom, he built a following of 1.5 million by playing the son of an Indonesian billionaire, a character about as far from his actual upbringing as possible. He worked his way up through kitchens and even took jobs cooking on aircraft before the alter ego took off. Today he reportedly signs six-figure brand deals, has launched a watch in collaboration with the brand Azimuth, and runs his own food company called Bobby’s Burgers. His content centers on videos titled things like “my $1.5 million morning routine” and “shopping with my billionaire dad.” He reflected on the origins of the character by saying, “One day I woke up thinking how funny it would be if I were that rich, like a wealthy Chinese-Indonesian who could eat at fancy restaurants every day. It was a kind of thought experiment through which I explored my own culture.”
Rounding out this cohort is Jay Ma, a pseudonym for a creator who built his online identity around being an international student from Shanghai and the heir to a business empire connected to Alibaba. His videos depict a daily routine involving Balmain shower products, shopping mall trips with a bodyguard entourage, and lunch at the Louis Vuitton café. Despite the clearly comedic framing, his content has genuinely confused a significant portion of his audience, with many viewers debating in the comments whether he might actually be a secret billionaire. Even architect Dara Huang has been counted among his admirers.
The influencer industry actually started tracking satire accounts as a distinct content category only after several broke past the one-million-follower mark, because marketers initially couldn’t figure out how to classify them for brand partnership purposes. There is also a delicious irony in the fact that Gstaad, the ski resort that inspired one of the most successful rich-person parody accounts on the internet, has historically been one of the few places in Switzerland where you cannot legally build a new chalet if you are not a Swiss resident. And the word “poubelle,” which Gstaad Guy chose as the name for his actual luxury jewelry brand, is simply French for trash can, named after the 19th-century Paris prefect Eugène Poubelle who made household garbage bins mandatory.
Which of these creators do you find the most entertaining, and do you think their satire actually says something meaningful about wealth culture? Share your thoughts in the comments.
