Summary
This is certainly a show where you want to live your life vicariously through the participants.
Netflix’s Bling Empire season 1 was released on the streaming service on January 15, 2020.
While many enjoy these types of reality shows because of the drama amongst the wealthy, I like them for another reason. There’s something compelling about watching rich, young people achieving nothing. Their only achievement is being born, and while in some ways you can be envious of those having any life they want, I do wonder if these people are envious of the underdog rising from the ashes. I also find it fascinating how these shows work in a hierarchy — the parents or grandparents at the top living their lavish life but also keeping everyone in line. Wealth is a funny thing, folks.
Netflix’s Bling Empire opens up with a narration discussing Crazy Rich Asians and the narrator states how he didn’t think that lifestyle existed in LA, and then boom, lo and behold, we are introduced to absurdly rich Asian socialites, and the reality series becomes like any other. For some strange reason, the older I get, the less snobby I become — I’ve gone from hating Selling Sunset (to then loving it) to finding myself absorbed by the drama and covering my mouth with my hands at these half-planned dramas.
The devil in me wants to criticize Season 1 of Bling Empire but I can’t — I enjoyed it. I know that there are a million shows like this out there but it clearly triggers a part of the human mind that yearns for more. In the opening episode, there’s a drama that serves as a cliffhanger to end the chapter — “Necklacegate”. Let’s just say that veteran socialites are not pleased with each other, and there’s a bubbling cold war that everyone can feel at the dinner table — this is also a dinner table where each person has their own server. Oh, how the rich live.
But without spoiling it much further, Bling Empire brings a different demographic of a rich socialite with all the glitz, glamour and copious amounts of bling. This is certainly a show where you want to live your life vicariously through the participants.
