They distanced themselves from the negative images of consumption associated with the wealthy... ostentation, materialism, and excess -- all markers of moral unworthiness

Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence. Rachel Sherman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017, http://press.princeton.edu/titles/11096.html

...they described their desires and needs as basic and their spending as disciplined and family-oriented.  They asserted that they "could live without" their advantages if they had to, denying that they were dependent on their comfortable lifestyles.  They distanced themselves from the negative images of consumption often associated with the wealthy, such as ostentation, materialism, and excess -- all markers of moral unworthiness.  These interpretations allowed them to believe that they deserved what they had and at the same time to cast themselves as "normal" people rather than "rich" ones.


See also: This Hamptons trailer park is a billionaire hotspot. By Jennifer Gould Keil. NY Post, Jul 26, 2017. https://nypost.com/2017/07/26/this-hamptons-trailer-park-is-a-billionaire-hotspot/

And: The Perils of Proclaiming an Authentic Organizational Identity. By Balázs Kovács, Glenn Carroll & David Lehman. Sociological Science, January 2017, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/perils-proclaiming-authentic-organizational-identity

And: Why Elites Love Authentic Lowbrow Culture: Overcoming High-Status Denigration with Outsider Art. By Oliver Hahl, Ezra W. Zuckerman, Minjae Kim
American Sociological Review, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417710642