What one person thinks is expensive, another might think is a fair price. It all depends on how much money they make and how much they usually spend on things. If we have different ideas about what is expensive and what isn’t, we may also have different ideas about what is luxurious.
17 Y.O. Zoe Gabriel was thrilled when her dad bought her a Charles & Keith bag, so she made a video about it and was excited to unbox her first high-end bag. Zoe’s use of the word “luxury” was criticized in the comments, so she responded with grace by explaining why she used it. Both videos went viral so much that they caught the attention of the brand.
Dad bought his 17-year-old daughter what she thought was a luxury bag, but when she posted about it online, people didn’t seem impressed.
Zoe Gabriel is a Filipina who lives in Singapore. Recently, her videos on TikTok have been getting a lot of views. All of it started with a video where she thanked her dad for buying her first expensive bag.
The Singaporean fashion house Charles & Keith is where the teen got the bag from. People thought Zoe didn’t know what a luxury bag was because it cost a little less than $100. Usually, a luxury bag is made by a designer and costs thousands of dollars.
The bag was from Charles & Keith and cost about $80. For those with more money, this may not seem like much, but for Zoe, it was a big deal.
If you look up the word “luxury” in the dictionary, you’ll find that it means “a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when it costs a lot,” “a non-essential, desirable item that is expensive or hard to get,” or “a pleasure that you don’t get very often.”
There is no set amount of money you have to spend on an item for it to be called a “luxury” in any of the ways the word is used. A lot of money for one person might not mean the same thing for another. It really depends on how you look at it.
The teen got so much hate that she had to explain herself and share her point of view.
Zoe couldn’t ignore all of the bad things people said about her, and she felt the need to defend herself. We found out that the teen’s family sometimes thought of bread as a luxury because they had trouble even getting food.
Knowing this, the teen was so thankful for her dad that he saved up money and bought her the bag. And he didn’t even buy the cheapest thing. He let Zoe pick out a Charles & Keith, which cost him $80, which is a big chunk of the family’s budget.
When her family moved to Singapore, they didn’t have much money. Sometimes it was hard for them to even buy bread.
After this video, people started saying nice things about Zoe, which made up for the bad comments. They all agreed that people have different ideas of what is luxury and that the other commenters had no right to take away her joy at getting a gift she wanted.
So many people liked the brand that the brand itself took notice and invited Zoe and her dad to the Charles & Keith headquarters for lunch and a tour. In an Instagram post, Zoe wrote,
It was so fun, everybody was so nice and accommodating. We had the chance to sit down with Keith and get to know their company a little better.
Charles & Keith commented on the post,
Thanks for visiting! We were happy to have you and your dad at our HQ office – hope you enjoyed the lunch and had a meaningful experience with us.
So Zoe thought it was a luxury for her dad to spend $80 on a bag when similar ones can be bought for less.
A few days later, Zoe posted another unboxing video. This time, the brand sent her a gift. A note on one of the gifts said,
Hope you enjoyed your time at our HQ campus and meeting our founders – we are all so impressed with the grace in how you handled the situation and displaying values that resonate with us greatly. We present you our iconic Gabine bag that we personalised specially for you, and hope that it will remind you of this special moment where you inspired so many others to be kind, compassionate, and confident.
Once the teen explained what she meant, people were very nice to her, and the videos got a lot of attention.
The bag’s brand, Charles & Keith, noticed them, and the founders invited Zoe and her dad to lunch.
Zoe’s situation shows how people with less money are made fun of because they can’t buy things. She is like the students who got a scholarship because their parents couldn’t pay for school and are now surrounded by people who were born with silver spoons. But she just put up a video that reached people who didn’t know anything about it.
Children whose parents don’t make much money are more likely to be picked on because they can’t buy food, clothes, new technology, or trips. Even though they are poor, that is not the problem. The problem is that they are a small group.
A study led by Frank J. Elgar, Ph.D. revealed,
early-life income inequality influences developmental trajectories in ways that is associated with later involvement in bullying (as targets in particular). To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of an association between early-life inequality and adolescent bullying.
Then, they gave Zoe two more bags that were made just for her and had her name on them.
In the video below, Zoe shows how excited she gets when she opens a new bag.
But Zoe’s story is a success because after she fought back against the haters, more people came to her side and told her to enjoy the bag and what it stands for, which is her dad’s love. Maybe she also got some of the people who were quick to judge to see the world the way she did.
We want to know what you think about the story and how people reacted to it at first. Do you think that what you consider to be luxurious is something you decide for yourself, or do you think that the word “luxury” has an apparent meaning? Tell us in the comments what you think.
After the first negative reaction, people told Zoe to enjoy her bag and agreed that what people think of as luxury is different for each person.
