History

After conducting some research, I discovered that “the eat the rich” phrase dated back all the way to 1793, during the French revolution. At that point in time French revolutionaries violently turn against the country’s monarchs that have been treating them poorly for many years. During that time food was scarce and tension between the wealthy and commoners were at an all-time high (Ellis, 2021). Many people were killed during that period, “the widespread starvation and executions popularized a saying attributed to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau: When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich” (Ellis, 2021). This brief history showed us social inequality is something that has been embedded in society for a long time, it is not just a passing phrase, each time people had to fight to change the narrative. Now people everywhere are getting together to rally against the overly capitalistic economy that is damaging to the destitute, while encouraging the rich to get richer. People usually use the “Eat the rich” phrase toward humongous corporations that make billions in revenue but still pay low wages to their workers. Many people believe that the wealth inequalities that exist in society are due to the many flaws that a capitalist system has. Werner Sombart, a German economist coined the term “Late-Stage Capitalism”. Although it differs from its original definition, today people use late-stage capitalism as a phrase “that targets the inequities of modern-day capitalism. It describes the hypocrisy and absurdities of capitalism as it digs its own grave” (Amadeo, 2020).

Late-Stage capitalism

As mentioned by Amedeo the phrase “Late-Stage Capitalism” has become popular because it shows “indignities and absurdities of our contemporary economy, such as increasing inequality, the shrinking middle class, and the rise of super powerful corporations” (Amadeo, 2020), this phrase is closely related to #eattherich slogan, both communities are fighting against the same problems. According to Kimberly Amedeo “Late-Stage Capitalism” is extremely prominent in our society, and there are many characteristics we can look for in order to recognize them. Below are a few characteristics mentioned by Kimberly Amadeo that highlights “Late-Stage Capitalism".

• It's the sense that monopolies, and the oligarchs that run them, have rigged the system in their favor. They hired well-paid lobbyists to influence politicians (Amadeo, 2020).
• The people in charge send their children to private schools while cutting funds for public schools (Amadeo, 2020).
• It spotlights the immorality of corporations using social issues to advance their brand (Amadeo, 2020).

Communities

#eattherich is just one way that people who are fighting for social and wealth inequality are making their voices heard. After doing some research I discovered one of the many counter publics that highlight the shortcomings of capitalism, it is a subreddit community called Late-Stage Capitalism, it has 622k users. In that subreddit they discuss everything, from how perverse the capitalism system has become, to how the government is handling the situation. By creating this subreddit, they can use it to spread awareness on what the capitalism system is doing to our society. Moreover, there exist thousands of other communities online that operate, under the “#eattherich”, these communities can change the entire perspective of an individual, while giving them a voice to speak toward social and wealth inequalities. The digital age has given us a lot of tools that enable us to create a diverse community of people that fight toward the same goal to improve our society. Additionally, these counter-publics give people a way to gather a group of people to march and protest, making the people in power know that they are tired of the way things have been. Below are many examples of different communities using the #eattherich and “#latestagecapitalism” to make their voice heard.

#Eattherich Hijack?

One of the phrases that really stood out to me during my research on #eattherich, is that one of the characteristics of “Late-Stage Capitalism” is that “it highlights how the middle class is largely oblivious to the struggles of the poor” (Amadeo, 2020). People are usually oblivious to how much hardship the poor people really face, while they might be protesting to eat the rich, the people protesting might be considered the rich by many other people who are significantly impoverished. This is interesting to me because a lot of time people do not realize the small sign of wealth that they possess. One of the #eattherich trend on TikTok perfectly portrays that idea. I believe that this trend might be consider a hashtag hijacking because the #eattherich slogan was created to oppose the income and wealth inequality that exists in our country, but some people decided to use it as a way to show the hypocrisy of the people who are using it. As stated by Campbell, “Hijacking happens when a hashtag is used for a different purpose than the one originally intended” (Campbell, 2019). The entire trend consists of two people who are hypothetically eating the rich together with a fork or a spoon, then one of them realizes that the other one might be considered “the rich”. Below are many examples of content creators participating in the “#eattherich” trend.