The practice of displaying oneself and one's possessions on social media is a phenomenon that shows no sign of stopping. It resembles a flood of performances covering every detail — expensive designer clothing, property, private jets, luxury cars, travel, accommodation, restaurants, and so on.
These and many more are what people now compete to showcase and photograph as decisive expressions of wealth, status, power and prestige, success, and so on. This has become well known and transparent to everyone — but what does such display actually achieve for them?
Psychologists and behavioural scientists interpret showing off as compensation for deficiencies, gaps, and flaws in the personality of the person doing it — someone who is trying to make up for much of what they were previously deprived of, or to fill shortcomings and weaknesses in their character.
Literature, art, and cinema in particular have interpreted this exhibitionism as a search or drive for recognition. Many traditionally wealthy people buy aircraft or palaces, open companies or hotels, or travel the world without anyone knowing about it, because they do so simply to enjoy themselves or reward themselves, or because it is part of the traditions of their lives and work. But some wealthy people and nouveau riche cannot pass up the opportunity to parade all these achievements before everyone's eyes in pursuit of entitlement — to see in others' eyes that they are self-sufficient people who deserve respect and applause.
In fact, in early 2020 an American film entitled The Nest, written and directed by Sean Durkin, was released. It addressed precisely this idea — the drive towards recognition — and how that idea costs its owner his happiness, his family, his relationships, his money, and all his successes, as every major symbol in his life collapses: his relationship with his wife, with his mother, his son's trust in him, his relationships with colleagues, his fortune, his work — almost everything. The reason is his insistence on presenting himself as a wealthy and successful businessman who owns everything, even as everything around him crumbles and slips through his fingers.
Everything begins when the protagonist decides to leave America and return to his home country, Britain, on the pretext of expanding his business and companies. He lies to his wife and leaves. When she follows him with their two children, she is stunned by the manor and large estate he has purchased — and, beyond the shock, she discovers that what remains of her husband's account balance is just 600 pounds, the result of extravagant and unjustifiable spending.