The Goldfish Trap

A screenshot circulated online a few days ago. It showed that Tom Holland is set to earn over $100 million for the new Spider‑Man film. The top comment beneath it was not a congratulation but a dry, almost cruel joke:

"If those NBA podcasts have taught me anything, he might as well file for bankruptcy right now."

The person who posted the screenshot did not understand, so someone else explained: recently, several NBA and NFL players had gone on podcasts and argued, in all seriousness, that $100 million, or even a single million, is simply not enough to live on these days.

Odell Beckham Jr. said it while wearing a four‑figure hoodie. Carmelo Anthony mentioned he has to support an entourage of twelve to fifteen people, plus an entire extended family. CJ McCollum was more specific: he needs at least $4 million a year "to keep his affairs in order"—what affairs, he did not say.

The most telling statement came from another player on a different podcast:

"You give somebody a five‑year, $100 million contract… after taxes it’s $60 million. That’s $12 million a year. You have to spend it, save it, invest it, and flaunt it."

Circle that word. Flaunt. It turns the whole monologue from financial advice into a confession. It acknowledges what these athletes rarely state outright: a large portion of their "cost of living" is performative. The cars, the private jets, the island vacations—not because they need them, but because the person next to them has them.

Then the logic tips into farce.

If $12 million a year is "struggling," then Tom Holland really should file for bankruptcy. By their own math, after taxes his $100 million shrinks to $60 million, spread over several years. He might not even be able to afford a decent entourage. By that standard, he would have to move out of London and rent a two‑bedroom in the suburbs after finishing Spider‑Man.

This is the structure of the joke: take an absurdly distorted view of wealth as a given, then follow it to its logical conclusion. It is funny because everyone listening knows the premise is false—except the people saying it.

But the problem runs deeper than a punchline.

Among the thousands of online responses, one was buried in a thread and struck a nerve. Someone wrote: "I make $20,000 a year. I laughed at this post for three minutes, then went to my night shift."

It did not get the most likes. It was too specific, no quotable one‑liner, not shareable. But it offered a different frame of reference.

How does someone earning $20,000 a year imagine someone earning $12 million a year complaining about not having enough?

They cannot. They only see that huge number flash before their eyes, then they look down and calculate this month's utility bills. They do not understand why $12 million needs to be "spent, saved, invested, and flaunted"—any one of those categories would last them a lifetime.

But the limitation is not in their imagination. The athletes' reference frame has inflated so fast that a normal person can no longer keep up with the logic of their "poverty."

Economists have a term for this: hedonic adaptation. It means that as income rises, the baseline for happiness adjusts quickly. Last year you were satisfied with a Honda; this year you have a BMW; next year your neighbour buys a Porsche; the year after that, the BMW is "just okay."

But this theory usually describes middle‑class upgrades—from 50k to 100k, from 100k to 200k. When the baseline is $12 million a year, it is no longer adaptation; it has detached from gravity entirely. They are not adapting to a new standard of living. They are in a never‑ending status tournament. The prize is the next bigger number. The penalty, in Odell's words, is that "a hundred million is really not that much."

One commenter did a simple calculation:

"If I put $2 million in a 4% savings account, the annual interest alone would be $80,000. That is more than most American households earn in a year."

What they left unsaid: the $12 million a year that athletes call "tight" is sixty times that number. If even sixty times the interest cannot ease your anxiety, the anxiety is not about money; it is about the twelve‑person entourage, the Gulfstream, the social circle that forces you to "flaunt."

The numbers are stark, but time offers a crueller comparison.

One year of work at $12 million equals two hundred years of work at $60,000. If we count a career as forty years, that person would need five lifetimes to earn what the athlete makes in one. And the athlete says it with plain frustration—he feels squeezed.

The online post gathered that response not from envy but from cold, defensive humour after being insulted. When someone complains to you, using money you will never see in your lifetime, about how tight their life is, you have two choices: rage, or laughter. The internet chose laughter—but beneath the laughter, a different register is audible.

One of the most perceptive responses was this:

"Poverty is a true lack of choice. What the rich call poverty is just exhaustion from the game of comparison."

It was not praised as a great insight. It just sat there, like a mirror hung slightly askew.

The extra irony, when the joke lands on Tom Holland, is that he differs from those NBA stars in a crucial way. The difference is not in earning less; it lies in where the money goes. He built a non‑alcoholic beer brand, a long‑term investment, not a short‑term blaze. He is unlikely to go bankrupt, not because he is smarter, but because his reference frame has not warped to the point where he needs a private jet to prove he exists.

But that commenter was right about one thing:

"If he wants to maintain the lifestyle of that circle, then yes—he should file for bankruptcy right now."

Because in the inflation of desire, $100 million is indeed just a starting line. And that line has no finish; only bigger numbers, and emptier rooms.

The online discussion faded. Somewhere, someone turned off their phone and rolled over in the dark. They had work tomorrow. They had no twelve‑person team, no Gulfstream, no gold‑leaf caviar problems. They just lay there, thought about that post for a second, and fell asleep.

That is where the joke ends, not with a lesson, not with a call to action, but with a body turning over in the dark. And that, perhaps, is the only honest place to leave it.