May 18, 2008

What role did MTV Cribs have in people taking out liar's loans, committing mortgage fraud, and generally living WAY beyond their means?

You know, before they got foreclosed on. Before they realized people making $50,000 a year can't live in $5 million homes. Before the realities of life kicked in.

MTV Cribs is evil. Make no mistake about it. MTV Cribs did more damage during the housing bubble than you can ever imagine.

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

Next, after MTV Cribs, is an MTV special "bitch slap, my life is over and I'm on the street again"

Anonymous said...

Disgusting, who is this punk?

Made me wanna go charge a Louis Vitton purse. NOW!

Beignet

Anonymous said...

He may have millions but he's still so ghetto!

Anonymous said...

I wonder when the fans are going to realize that it's their money that are paying for the glossy dining table that just sits there looking pretty and never gets used as a dining table.

Anonymous said...

NOt PC but Blacks bit it hard

Anonymous said...

Sociologists will have a field day with this one day

Andrew said...

Keith,
you are absolutely right. Just 40-50 years ago, people who lived in mansions really lived in a different world that was seldom seen by everybody else. the middle class had no idea how the ultra-rich lived because the affluent's lifestyles were not piped into their living rooms each night.

Keeping up with the Joneses meant painting the house, or adding some renos, or maybe a new car or second car.

that all changed. instead of feeling adequate because your neighbor got nicer car than you have, people began to feel inadequate because they don't live like 50 cent or Victoria Beckham.

Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was really not effective, mostly because it was so cheesy.

But shows like Cribs encouraged people to feel like crap because they did not have a 10,000 square foot home and a Lamborghini.

i worked with people who made $150k a year, owned a modest home, had cars, vacations, etc YET they still complained because they were not super-rich.

For a good but scary account of this affliction, read the book Affliction.

Anonymous said...

You can take da boy out o da ghetto...

but you can't take da ghetto outta da boy!

Anonymous said...

I honestly believe that television and the mind numbing effect it has on people is the root of some of the problems.

People see a guy who can rhyme words, hit a ball out of a park, throw a football, or sing on American Idol and get a record contract and they think that this is "reality"

There is no interaction with TV. It TELLS YOU what to think, what is "popular" or "trendy"

It's this same crowd mentality that lead to the housing bust. Follow the crowd; everyone's doing it.

If you didn't "own" a house you were not "trendy" or "in" because you were second class.

Some people prefer to think for themselves and not follow the crowd. Some prefer to do the opposite of what the crowd is doing. These people are called CONTRARIANS.

Kill your television.

Anonymous said...

Made rich by selling TRASH to stupid white kids!

Anonymous said...

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There goes the neighborhood!





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Anonymous said...

This creep is praised in those type of circles as having 'street cred' because he has survived gunshot wounds!

This is what your kids are looking up to....ain't it great!

Anonymous said...

The trash thinks they're losing "their homes" they could never afford

Anonymous said...

This guy is one of the reasons blacks are stereotyped!

Anonymous said...

Yawn, you're becoming incredibly trite dear Keith. Are you saying "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" was evil too?

How about focusing on the real issues, eh?

Anonymous said...

It was TV commericals, IMO, that drove everyone crazy.

There is no need to buy a car every few years now.

The list of things you don't need (and for that very reason must be heavily advertised) is almost endless. For example - Go ahead and buy that exercise machine, but you can get the same one at a garage sale on any given weekend for same the reason you will be selling it at a garage sale yourself one day.

As I have said here many times before, when I saw all those Countrywide commercials on television I KNEW something bad was happening. Who takes a loan on their house to pay for a vacation? The same guy who has a house full of things he doesn't need.

Anonymous said...

They've been having a tough time trying to sell this MTV "cribs" featured home.

It was pulled from the market when they couldn't sell it for 1.6M.

http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=68978728

Anonymous said...

You guys are idiots. He's made BILLIONS. He sold his vitamin water company to Pepsi.

He can afford whatever he wants. He's made it to billionaire status.

Anonymous said...

He got one thing right, those Ferraris keep going up!

Anonymous said...

did he ever sell his CT mansion the one in the video, I know he tried to have a fire sale on it

Anonymous said...

Hey, nothing against 50 Cent. I don't listen to much rap, but maybe he is fantastic. It doesn't matter to me much whether he "deserves" his millions, anyway. I think the point is that even if he's super-talented, it takes a combination of incredible luck - like, lotto winner luck - plus certain other qualities that might include talent, in order to have wealth of this magnitude. It is ridiculous for anyone to model their lifestyle on such a person. I think the Cribs show is obscene - it's definitely something I'd call "housing porn". I'm still waiting for the MTV show where they follow the It celebs around and show what charities they give money to and volunteer for, etc. Now that would be worthwhile. I am pretty sure I will be waiting a long time for it, though...like an eternity, perhaps.

Anonymous said...

Far more people watched ( and were of an age to actually buy a home) the plethora of home buyer/remodeling/relandscaping etc shows on HGTV and DIY and your local Sunday shows than ever were influenced by MTV..I remember gagging at ugly being called elegant, ordinary (and should be cheap) little boxes being touted as a great buy for 240K and up for unsuspecting young couples who would likely find their marriage in shreds 3 years down the road...
What a travesty..Let's hear it for the free market...you don't have to have a conscience at all...

Grandma

Anonymous said...

"I wonder when the fans are going to realize that it's their money that are paying for the glossy dining table that just sits there looking pretty and never gets used as a dining table."

Never. They are all too stupid.

Anonymous said...

.
No Talent

No Shame

No Humility

Millions in the bank


He should be running for Prez!


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Anonymous said...

His house is located on Poplar Hills Road in Farmington Connecticut and is on the market for $18.5 million.

Anonymous said...

This gentleman is worth nearly 400 million dollars, thanks to a little luck, major talent, and a lot of sound business decisions. He bought this furnished home at foreclosure prices from Mike Tyson. Sure, this is excessive to us average citizens, but what he showed you on this video is a small piece of his world. Find a more suitable emblem of the your anxiety, and above all... don't hate!

Anonymous said...

50 maybe a bit douche but he earned every penny and still had the good sense to make good sound investments.
He made several hundred million from Coke and bought that house at a sizable discount from Mike Tyson.

This guy is very smart and a sound business man

Anonymous said...

Amazing. This man cannot form a complete sentence, yet he is living on par with Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. For all their faults, at least their empires contributed to America's infrastructure and economy. 50-Cent has gotten rich by promoting the stupefication of American youth.

Our nation has lost touch with reality and any reasonable sense of priority. In 50 years, when Chinese history professors are teaching their students how the East dethroned us as the center of global power, they will show clips like this and nod their heads in understanding.

Anonymous said...

WHy MTV?

Their show is for entertainment purposes only. It is the below 80 IQ crowd ( black and white) that bought all that glitter and gold.

America has a lot of stupid people, and some slick voulchers took advantage of this situation We will pay for this for a long time... and then repeat this again!

blogger said...

Warning - this comment is going to be very un-PC, since you can't talk about race in America without being a racist.

That said, and the point you should have gotten from this thread, is that blacks (along with women, mexicans and poor whites) ended up being 'the last suckers in' during the housing bubble, and they got slaughtered.

Bush's "ownership society" was geared at getting these "non-owners" into the Ponzi Scheme. And they bit.

So why did blacks jump in disproportionally - and jump in with dodgy subprime loans to buy homes way beyond their means that they should have known they wouldn't be able to afford?

Ready for it?

Ready?

Because of change in tone of rap music from gang-banging and drug dealing to consumerism and bling, and because of MTV Cribs.

So, now ask yourself, why did rap music change to be all about wealth and spending and buying stuff? Hmmm... They do call it the 'music business' after all. Lots of advertisers. Lots of corporate interests. And lots of willing rap musicians all too willing to the biding of their corporate masters. Come on - a few more product placements Fifty! Mention Louis Vuitton and Cristal again please. Nice boy. And make sure you show the Nikes and Porsches on Cribs.

Here's an article on blacks and suprime mortgages from the Times.

http://tinyurl.com/3o2srk

Here's an article on rap music and consumerism

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2003841721_rapbiz20.html

Go ahead. Peek behind the curtain. Lot of interesting stuff there...

TZTUDIO (T's Studio) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I'd give anything to live like that. A whole fifty cents.

Anonymous said...

Maybe this guy has millions, but the typical recording contract is money in advance of earnings. The fancy digs, cars, bling can all be taken back if that next album does not sell. Of course everything goes passe sooner or later. In short, I would not be surprised to learn that some are actually crib debtors. This makes the googly-eyed, chimera-chasing effect even worse - longing for something that does not exist!

Anonymous said...

Imelda Marcos alert! Men should not have more than ten or twelve pairs of shoes and that includes slippers and sandals.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't understand a word that retard was saying. That's a nice house he bought from Tyson ... he'll probably be broke like Tyson.

Anonymous said...

50 is a fraud

Anonymous said...

Maybe 50 cent bent down to the owner if he could rent. cent, bent rent. :D

Paul E. Math said...

If you read between the lines it looked to me like Fitty was trying to say that all the stuff that his money buys is empty and meaningless. Perhaps that was just me.

He shows you the dining table that he never once used. See the shoes I never wear? See the cars that I never drive?

There is no purpose to owning that which you do not use.

The advertisers of MTV would never let him say it but Fitty knows it is all just vanity.

If you have money then, sure, why not buy crap you don't need. But for God's sake don't spend your life pursuing the utterly empty and meaningless.

Perhaps you are here for another purpose.

Anonymous said...

None, nobody watches that crap. At least nobody with "money" enough to "buy" a house does.

Anonymous said...

I agree with picking someone OTHER than 50 Cent as your Cribs bad example. Believe it or not he is a friken financial wiz. House not withstanding (yes he did get a great deal on it) he is famous for returning a sports car after a video shoot saying he liked all the zeroes in his account better then the car.
And there is almost NO chance of him being broke ever again. He saw an opportunity in that Vitamin Water stuff and invested money and time into it. When Coke bought it for 4.1 Billion his share of the company was worth 100 Million dollars. On top of that he has music studios, clothing lines, and a book that he wrote is scheduled to become a movie.

But lets face it, more people are just going to see all the bling and say I got to have it rather than look at how to be smart, invest your money for the long term and THEN go and buy the big house and fancy cars.

Anonymous said...

You can try to read into these statements by these stars anything you want ,but they are not good role models . I would like to know how much these stars help their oppressed brothers and sisters with their wealth .I don't even know what these people are trying to say ,but they should be saying that America is great because they went from rags to riches .

Everybody has a story of anger about how they were deprived in life of what they thought they deserved . If the highest goal of a society is the obtainment of pure wealth and a mansion ,than its a crying shame .Do people really think that they are somehow better than another person because they were somehow lucky enough to achieve wealth ?

Anonymous said...

Really funny, but Ferrarichat people claim the titled owner is some guy named SC. Image and money sell records (at least to this demographic), and it's more likely than not all this glitz and show is a record label marketing ploy.

Anonymous said...

MTV CRIBS?
Seriously Keith?

Does anyone with an IQ over 80 actually watch that show?

blogger said...

gutless - THAT'S MY POINT - nobody with an IQ over 80 watches the show. And then they went out and 'bought' houses they couldn't afford by committing obvious mortgage fraud

Anonymous said...

This ridiculus show also exposes the ugly fact that our national values are all out of whack. Our teachers, firefighters, police etc. are living like poppers while these no class, can barely utter the english language morons live like kings. Kind of answers the question why our society seems to get more stupid by the year. Pro atheletes that can barely utter a clear sentence making obscene amounts - no wonder you have kids in little league cheating and parents beating up other parents just to get their kid ahead. When the cannables begin to eat their own, the end is near folks.

Anonymous said...

50 cents, smart and stupid at the same time. All of this is part of his marketing the dream to the stupid and illiterate. I believe he is still a thug at heart, only this time he had the since to use money to earn more money. As far as I am concerned his music videos and other dealings are just one giant commercial. One hint for my white brethen, thugs have to sound dumb and illiterate to be thugs! It is a rule they can not break. It is what is done behind the scene that is important.

Anonymous said...

for all you people who are capping on black people, dissing us and trying to make us look stoopid, as I have said before with your steriotypical thinking Keith must be a very young man to not remember who started all this mess, it was Robin Leach with Lifestyles of the rich and famous and I don't remember there being any black people on that show. This is simply a rip off of that show. I wonder how many of those who were on that show from bartenders to megamoney now live in trailer parks and sing about Glory Days. So give the WORLD a break with your narrow minded thinking. Rich white people are crying everyday because they know the gig is up there are no more stoopid black people to steal money from so they don't have to work and who's gonna pay for their lifestyles. At least 50cent didn't have a big boat sitting there hooked up to a hummer like I see white people do. F You.

blogger said...

Oh my god you're right - Robin Leach DID start this whole mess!

TM said...

I don't know a thing about him, but he seems like a pretty honest guy in that clip. If you really listen to him, there's not much to envy. He has a bunch of stuff that he doesn't really use. He sounds like your average Joe Six-pack, except the clutter is more expensive (though probably proportional).

blogger said...

This post wasn't about 50 - it was about sheep watching MTV Cribs and then going out and pretending they too were 50

The cars, the houses, the threads. Oops, wait, but without the income!

Jonathan said...

its people like this who spend money like crazy that end up going bankrupt when they are 40? You got Mike Tyson's chairs? How much did he make per fight? About 10 million a fight. Now he is bankrupt. Who will have your chairs when you go bankrupt? I have to admit that I am a little envious of that kind of cash, especially when I know that I could invest it so much more wisely.

Anonymous said...

It can not be denied that a TV show devoted to showing off fancy houses will play a large roll in stimulating demand. After all, most of the time we are just fine until we see that next something. That show is like an extra long commercial.

However, the other part of the problem is us. We covet what we see, and we judge people unworthy to have what they have, and we think we could put it to better use than them.. When I look inside myself, I can't think too harshly of 50 cent, because I know I would want to buy all that stuff too.

I don't know his background. He may have come from a life of poverty, or maybe he didn't.

I don't know what kind of attitude he displayed, because I turned down the volume; I just wanted to see. Maybe he was grateful, maybe he was insufferable, I don't know. Call me weird; but I worked very hard on feeling happy for him, rather than being jealous.

Anonymous said...

financial wiz...whatever. If he's not giving most of it away to charities or trying to help out his fellow brother then what's the point of having all that money?

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got.
I'm jest jenny from the jenny on the block.

If money were food, all these "super" rich people would be the most hated humans for "hoarding" all the "food" while the vast majority of the world starves.

Please don't give me shit about being a socialist or a communist or whatever you think I am. I'm just a person who knows that the world will never have peace until humans decide to abandon these things and work towards the higher good.

And you don't need to respect people just because they have money. What a silly thought.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sue how much blame you can place on "cribs" but I do know that our society's value system has been driven consumerism since they started putting ads on the radio. Obviously, things are progressed to the point in which w can't walk five feet without being reminded of what we don't have.

Anonymous said...

HEY FIDDY--

Money buys a lot of things, but it won't ever buy TASTE.

Anonymous said...

Oooohhh YEAHHHHHH BOYYYYYYYYYY

Gimmeee some a that THUG LOVIN!!

Anonymous said...

Thugs like FIDDY will never give up their bling and crap for the greater good.

They grew up poor on the streets, and material possessions are a symbol of getting out of that life that they just love to rub in other hoodie's faces... They are not sophisticated enough to get the concept of philanthropy.

Anonymous said...

.



This DumbAss was just busted for assault on a woman at his home

Then two weeks later his house burns down......hmmmm!


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