If a 20-something finfluencer makes you feel like a loser, chill, it's fine
Instagram reels, a wizened financial expert — a finfluencer — who looks part-sage, part-hotel general manager, shows up on a podcast with a Gen Z child, stating that if I'd bought Rs 1,000 of Wipro stock or something like that in 1975, I'd have hundreds of crores today. Given I didn't, with the feeble excuse that I wasn't even born, the podcast guest chides and relegates me — and people of my ilk — to the dustbin of poverty.
Hoping the next reel will be more uplifting I scroll up, only to be told by another finfluencer that because I don't have a certain HDFC Bank credit card, I have lost many valuable opportunities. Seeking solace in my loved ones and achievements till 48 is futile. Because what, indeed, is the meaning of anything if I haven't availed of bonanza cashback rewards points. Or the free airport lounge Nimbooz bottle.
In two minutes, Instagram has made me feel more inadequate financially than years of being a Bengali only-child could. And the fact that I am a loyal ICICI FD holder only makes matters worse, as the next reel tells me, 'FD investments are for dinosaurs.'
I live in India of 2024, where financial advice is given by a shouty 20-year-old (sitting under an oversized dangling mic), in under 90 secs — 'Do you know that if you just did these two simple things during the Indus Valley Era, you'd be retired today?' — to plopping sound effects and Disney chart graphics. The more I listen, the more I realise, I have failed to avail of SIPs, SWPs, ADHDs, R2D2s… So, I should just, like any loser uncle,
