Appeal to Wealth/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The dubious claim that a position or opinion is correct because it's supported by the rich and/or famous.

  • Straight: An opinion gains support among the middle and lower classes because they've heard that the nobles support that idea.
  • Exaggerated: Everything that the wealthy classes claim an opinion on is accepted as fact and adopted by the lower classes, from who to vote for to what breakfast cereal to eat.
  • Justified:
    • The wealthy have access to more resources and better education, so they have a better chance of being right -- or, at least, having enough influence to ensure that they can convince others that they're right.
    • People are trying to fool others into thinking they are rich by acting like them.
  • Inverted: Dagger holds that anything the wealthy say or do is automatically wrong.
  • Subverted: A concept is whole-heartedly adopted by the lower classes because the wealthy have adopted it, but they soon realize how wrong the wealthy are and rally against it.
  • Double Subverted:
    • But that was only short term thinking. If they had looked only a week ahead, they would have realized that they just had to get through the difficult part of adjusting.
    • The wealthy people tell them to stop goofing around, and they unthinkingly stop their rallying against the wealthy.
  • Parodied: A wealthy person suggests doing something so obviously ludicrous that his fellows immediately look out the window to see the poorer people doing it, just to amuse themselves.
  • Deconstructed: It soon appears that the rich are the only people taken seriously, so the poor aped them in hopes of getting some respect.
  • Reconstructed: The real problem is that the poor ape their superficial traits, such as clothing color; the poor who copy them in insisting their children study at school, buying high-quality articles that last forever, and saving soon find they are not poor.
  • Zig Zagged: The poorer people are selective about whether or not they unthinkingly believe or disbelieve the richer people, and their selections have no basis on anything other than apparent capriciousness.
  • Averted: A rich man's opinion isn't taken any more seriously than a poor one's.
  • Enforced: The writer's put the trope in the story because his rich investors told him to do so.
  • Lampshaded: A poor person said: "Why does everyone listen to the rich people? Huh? Because they have money? What? But that's just nonsensical, can't you see that?"
  • Invoked: Lord Myron uses this to his advantage by leading other nobles to support each other, arguing that they automatically know what's best for the country thanks to their Blue Blood.
  • Defied: While the appeal is made, everyone refuses to listen to it.
  • Discussed: Two characters note how Lord Myron's statements are always taken as facts, and suggest that this Trope is in action.
  • Conversed: A character says: "Don't you ever watch the movies? The rich guy is always held to be right, just because he's rich."
  • Plotted A Good Waste: ???
  • Played For Laughs: A McDonald's employee walks into a homeless shelter where he becomes their king.
  • Played For Drama: Serious harm is done when a wealthy person spreads false opinions and prejudices among the poorer people in this fashion, leading to them doing terrible things because they think the wealthy person is unquestionably right.

You should go back to Appeal to Wealth. I hear that the rich people love that trope...

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Appeal_to_Wealth/Playing_With?oldid=1975705"