It was one of 2023’s great paradoxes. In the peak of a suffocating cost of living crisis — where we were overwhelmed with unaffordable rising rent, bills and food prices — pop culture was enamoured with quiet luxury. Partly thanks to HBO’s award-winning series Succession, the fascination with rich people paying extortionate money for logo-less clothes fueled an unhelpful obsession with people wanting to appear wealthy when, in actuality, many of us were broke. As “old money aesthetics” and ill-informed advice on how to appear rich proliferated across social media, one creator used his 2024 'outs and ins' to make a stand.
“Out: quiet luxury. In: loud budgeting,” declared New York-based stand-up comedian and TikTok star Lukas Battle in a now-viral TikTok. In an equally viral follow-up, Battle explained the basic tenets of his new mantra. “Loud budgeting is being unapologetically on a budget,” he continues, “It's not 'I don't have enough,' it's, 'I don't want to spend'.”
