The argument we make here is a straightforward one: constant news-media coverage of the excessive lifestyles and consumption patterns of the so called super-rich normalize their extreme privilege, while obfuscating the privilege of many others. We examine a series of typical news stories (print and broadcast) together with examples of popular books to show how the mediatization of the super-rich is ambivalently organized through a mixture of celebratory and derisive stances. In tandem with the logics of capital and the tenets of consumer culture, these lurid spectacles fuel a complex mix of anxiety and desire among target readers-viewers, while absolving us from responsibility for our own relatively and seemingly modest excesses. We are invited also to defend ourselves on the grounds of superior judgement and taste.