There's a much deeper narrative here, which is that I feel there's an increased sentiment, across socioeconomic groups, that the investment with the greatest re

There's a much deeper narrative here, which is that I feel there's an increased sentiment, across socioeconomic groups, that the investment with the greatest return is the so-called "hustle" - that unique opportunity, largely (so the myth goes) a function of your own motivation and not external factors, that will catapult you into wealth and status more vividly and transformatively than any annually-compounding index-tracking savings would do. However often people in other times were shown pictures of celebrity, never before have we been bombarded so much with "started from where you are, now I'm a founder/YouTuber/influencer/multi-level marketing maven" stories. And in that context, anything that "centers" you on being able to sustainably hustle is an investment in the hustle. The gaming you do to wind down at the end of the day, the fancy dinner or vacation that will motivate you to want more of that lifestyle - all of it is an "investment" in your own mental state, no different than a business investing in good lawyers or accountants that can help avoid distracting drama. And hey, if you're in a position to actually turn that energy into concrete results, that's perfectly logical! But it's not for everybody, and I do agree with the OP that companies are taking advantage of the positioning to encourage people to go into more and more debt. The influencer economy is certainly not a zero-sum game and there's certainly not a hard cap on how it can grow, but looking society-wide I worry that expectations are so far misaligned that things are going to come to a head.