A Look at America's Fascination with the Rich

Money cannot buy happiness, but can it buy our hearts? The American society values money, due to greed, entirely too much. Money and possessions are the basis of the ideal life. Our heroes and idolized stars of today are portrayed as great, mostly because of their wealth.

The portrait of a perfect life changes with opinions and mindset. In recent years, our idols and people we look up to are greatly influenced by the media. It has been set in our minds by television that being rich is the only way to live. This can be seen through the newest hit shows. Shows such as MTV Cribs and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? have allowed people to see what it is like to not only see how millionaires live but actually experience the life of being a millionaire. Many people found new stars to strive to meet or be like after watching how many lived on MTV Cribs. This was just the beginning of the entertaining shows that continued this ongoing pursuit to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Then after those shows began to get old, the nation was swept away by another sensation, Survivor. Survivor opened up new possibilities for producers to use the public's greed for their personal benefits. It showed people will risk their lives and endure torture for a million dollars. The love of money has always been a major issue throughout our nation's history, but with the increase of these shows promoting greed, the problem has since grown to levels this country probably hasn't seen. This ties in with heroes of the American public because our heroes are constantly changing.

Our Heroes change as different shows give us different people to want to imitate. So when these extremely popular shows only give us greed to imitate, it corrupts the qualities we look for in heroes, in turn corrupting our morals and qualities. Dreams and ambitions have a great deal of influence on our choice of heroes. If we dream of doing something, the people we look up to tend to be living that dream. Our heroes are people we would like to be. Our society tells us we have to be rich; therefore, our main ambition in life, even as a child, is to have a lot of money when we are grown. Putting this idea in our children's minds forces all morals and their mindset later in life to be centered around money, which forms a greedy population as a whole.

The outcome of these corrupt desires could be the demise of our country. That is the most extreme result, but it is still a possibility. Although I try not to be, I am undoubtedly greedy. I am a product of my environment. Something needs to change, but unfortunately, a change is unrealistic. As long as people are making money off of these influential ways, it will continue.