“They Are Wallowing in Luxury, but Complain About the Struggles of Lockdown”

Abstract. Many people are fascinated by celebrities and like to follow them leave positive comments online about the luxurious lives they lead. There doubts concerns, however, whether celebrity posts regarding personal experiences advice generate responses when their audience is in a situation of chronic stress, such as during pandemic. On basis field study real COVID-19 Instagram posts, this tested model for exploring role both contextual (i.e., references luxury posts) individual upward social comparison orientation [SCO] attitudes toward celebrity) factors explaining how audiences respond emotionally behaviorally commenting) stressful period. The results indicated that audience’s emotional behavioral were more negative with cues luxury. SCO seems moderate these effects, indicating based on can motivate support certain level, but switches effects once focus becomes too strong. behind messages confirmed powerful variable establishing link between (amusement inspiration). These offer some first exploratory insights into representations global period which could lay future experimental research topic.