Welcome to the Roman Empire, 2006 edition. This is what happens when middle class families decide they want to live just like the super-rich people they see on TV.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a teen girl was thrown a six-figure 15th-birthday party including 150 guests and a BMW Z4. (Check out the videos, especially “grand entrance.”) In addition to the conspicuous consumption of food, the suggestive dancing, and the extravagant gifts, we have the objectification of young men. Five bare-chested teenage boys carried in the birthday day girl on a sedan chair and then did the bump and grind around her.
Five young hunks didn’t require an invitation to the party. The five Webb High School athletes were handpicked to mingle and dance with partygoers. Their uniform: pink bow ties, jeans, and a coat of spray glitter on their bare upper bodies.
“Basically, our job is to be eye candy,” said Jeffrey Johnson, a 16-year-old football player at Webb. “It’s an odd request, but we have a good story to tell for the rest of our lives.”
Jeffrey and the gang weren’t the only ones recruited to shake their moneymakers. Leslie hired dancers from the Performer’s Edge Dance Studio on Western Avenue as part of the entertainment.
Imagine if this had been a 15-year-old boy and these were teen girls. Then again, don’t.
Conspicuous consumption and they don’t care
The question is if parents are doing this for 15 or 16, then what’s left? What do you do for graduation from high school or college? What’s left for a wedding? What 15/16 year old needs a car like that?
The list can go on and on.
It’s sad.
“This is what happens when middle class families decide they want to live just like the super-rich people they see on TV.”
Somehow, I doubt this was a middle class family.
Caligula would have been impressed.
If you read the article, it says the mom is a transportation coordinator for a brokerage firm. While it may be a lucrative position, I doubt it would qualify them in the “rich dilettante” class.
Gag me with a spoon.
What only adds to the irony of it is that this isn’t an over-the-top, embarrassingly decadent “Sweet 16” party—oh no! Waiting till 16 was too much!
Kind of like what you’re doing now?