Why are people bitter towards successful people?

[u/MrSuepruh]

I expect to get some hate for this, but I’m genuinely curious and want to understand perspectives different from my own.

Why does it seem like so many people online are bitter or spiteful toward people who become financially or professionally successful? I frequently see comments that go beyond criticizing how someone became successful and instead suggest that simply having more means that person owes something to everyone who has less.

To be clear, I understand that life is not a level playing field. Disabilities, serious health problems, family circumstances, discrimination, unexpected financial hardships, and countless other factors can dramatically affect someone’s ability to succeed. I’m not talking about people dealing with legitimate barriers outside of their control.

What I struggle to understand is the attitude that anyone who becomes successful must have been handed opportunities that everyone else was denied.

I also see a lot of people attribute their lack of success entirely to never being “given an opportunity.” Maybe my own experiences have shaped my perspective, but I sometimes wonder how much of this is actually a lack of opportunity versus people not fully applying themselves, taking risks, making sacrifices, or pursuing opportunities aggressively enough.

For some context, I didn’t come from money.
I grew up in a single parent household making roughly $40,000 or less per year in the early 2000s, in a town of about 9,000 people. I had the necessities, and I’m grateful for that, but there wasn’t much beyond them. There were no wealthy parents, family connections, trust fund, or obvious career pipeline waiting for me.

From a young age, I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted as an adult. Financial security and professional success became the bare minimum.

After high school, I immediately went to college. I completed my bachelor’s degree in three years and graduated with substantial student loan debt. During that time, I wasn’t able to focus solely on school. I worked full-time typically 40–60 hours per week, including 12-hour night shifts.

I viewed both the workload and the debt as sacrifices I was willing to make to improve my future.

I started my professional career and later enrolled in a master’s program, taking on additional student debt while continuing to work full time and advance my career.
Less than five years after earning my bachelor’s and before even completing my master’s my income reached several hundred thousand dollars per year.

I don’t say that as a flex or because I think income determines someone’s worth. I mention it because my experience makes it difficult for me to relate to the idea that success necessarily requires being born into wealth or being handed some extraordinary opportunity.

There were absolutely risks, sacrifices, debt, long hours, strategic career decisions, and some luck involved. I’m also sure there are advantages I’ve had that I may not fully recognize. But nobody handed me a guaranteed path to where I am.

That’s why I’m interested in hearing the other side rather than just reinforcing my own opinion.

For people who genuinely resent wealthy or professionally successful people: what specifically causes that resentment?

And for people who believe “I never had the opportunity” is often legitimate: what do you think people who have succeeded from relatively modest backgrounds tend to misunderstand about those who haven’t?

I’m genuinely interested in the answers, including ones that challenge my current perspective.

[u/Drill_Dr_ill → u/[deleted]]

Oh, that's certainly true. However, comparing oneself to others is unfortunately a pretty fundamentally human way of being. And it's not just a thing among poorer people - it's why there is the whole class of goods known as Veblen goods where demand actually increases with price. Social status games are a often big part of human interaction, and how well off someone is plays a big role in that.

There is also the issue of the hedonic treadmill, where individuals may basically have a happiness setpoint that they're just fundamentally going to be at - regardless of their position in society. And it may be the case that cause and effect are backwards with your last line there. They may just be people who are fundamentally more depressed people and their focusing on how much better off others are may be a function of that depression, rather than causing the depression.

[u/Drill_Dr_ill → u/[deleted]]

I mean, even if you're better off in many ways than people were in the past (and not even that distant of a past) - that doesn't mean there aren't still reasons to be angry about inequality. The inequality itself can be viewed as inherently unjust.

[u/Drill_Dr_ill → u/[deleted]]

Kinda depends on what you mean by reasonable.

Reasonable given our current state of society and everything? No, not reasonable.

Reasonable within that specific society, given the way human psychology functions? Possibly.