n.
Stress and anxiety caused by the sudden accumulation of unaccustomed wealth.
Example Citation:
"Even the 'winners on the [Antiques Roadshow] those who make it on air, tell and receive stories, discover sudden wealth are not delivered. On television we see only their whoops and blushes. Off the set, if given the chance, they will worry out loud about family squabbles, the cost of insurance, the threat of theft. They exhibit the same 'strange melancholy ... in the midst of their abundance' that Tocqueville noticed in 1831, the same strange melancholy of new billionaires in Silicon Valley diagnosed with 'Sudden Wealth Syndrome,' or lottery winners who descend into dysfunction."
Joshua Wolf Shenk, "The Things We Carry," Harper's Magazine, June 2001
Joshua Wolf Shenk, "The Things We Carry," Harper's Magazine, June 2001
Earliest Citation:
"Many tribes do not have the financial experience to manage money, nor do they have the necessary sophisticated planning," Adamson said. "These tribes are really being hard-pressed with the sudden-wealth syndrome. There is abuse and misuse in any community."
William Flannery, "Native American Backs Reservation Business," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1997
William Flannery, "Native American Backs Reservation Business," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1997
Note, too, that there's a broader sense of this term that applies to larger entities such as companies and countries. This sense goes back quite a bit farther:
|
Notes:
It is dashedly but not all at surprisingly difficult to find a commentator who feels even the slightest pity for someone who "suffers" (they always put "suffers" in quotation marks) from sudden wealth syndrome. The more likely reaction is snide sarcasm or even outright derision. Apparently, it remains lonely (and somewhat stressful) at the top.
The "wealth" part of sudden wealth syndrome has normally been associated with the riches accumulated from dot-com IPOs and the rapid rise of the Nasdaq stock market in the late 90s. However, it also applies to lottery winners, estate heirs, and people whose get-rich-quick schemes actually worked.
Related Words:
affective forecasting
affluenza
debt porn
hedonic treadmill
investorism
maffluent
miswanting
nanny bubble
plutonomy
starter castle
sudden loss of wealth syndrome
wealth effect
worried wealthy
affluenza
debt porn
hedonic treadmill
investorism
maffluent
miswanting
nanny bubble
plutonomy
starter castle
sudden loss of wealth syndrome
wealth effect
worried wealthy
Categories:


