I’ve come to expect exorbitant displays of wealth from the Kardashian–Jenner–Barker–Gamble–Thompson–Disick clan to saturate my social feeds come Christmas time, usually in the form of chic holiday décor or the family’s annual A-list Christmas Eve party. This year, though, their holiday season extravagance was presented to me via a nine-minute Christmas gift haul video from none other than Alabama Barker. In it, she runs through the designer shoes, handbags, lingerie, and tech she received from her family members this year—items that are estimated to cost, in total, at least $200,000.
Holiday haul videos are nothing new; they were a mid-2010s YouTube staple, which I'd gleefully binge as a teen. And like Alabama's, they're typically prefaced with a semi-self-aware admission of privilege or a quick speech about gratitude. But Alabama’s (which has over 8 million views, a significant fraction of which came from me) stands out in the category for a few reasons. There’s her AAVE-inspired tendency to describe every gift as “nasty” (including in the now widely repeated phrase, “[This] with a Pucci outfit? Nasty.”). But there's also its context.
Today, the Kardashian machine seems at least vaguely aware that our country’s dire economic climate and waning enthusiasm for luxury spending make overt gift-flexing harder to pull off/reap likeability points from. As a family, especially post-Kim’s 2016 Paris robbery, they’ve leaned into subtler displays (like a Birkin tucked into slide four of an Instagram carousel). Which is why Alabama’s haul—in which she names one by one who gifted what—landed as a rare, candid wealth reveal from the clan. One that thousands of people have spent their post-holiday rot week dissecting.
The haul kicks off with Alabama admitting she’s lost multiple pairs of Hermès slides, which is why she’s especially grateful for Kris Jenner’s gift, a furry pair that goes for $1,250. Other highlights include a $3,000 Chanel bag from Kylie, a $2,990 Balenciaga bag from Kendall, and a bright pink Birkin from stepmom Kourtney (who, Alabama says, consulted Kylie about the kind of bag she would’ve wanted in her “King Kylie” era). That’s not to mention the Cartier jewelry, brand new computer, and Agent Provocateur lingerie that her father, Travis, also gifted, the latter choice raising eyebrows. (Apparently, Travis deferred all actual lingerie selection to Kourtney and an informed sales associate.)
Missing from the haul was a gift from Oscar nominee/press tour maven Timothée Chalamet, Kylie’s boyfriend, though one revelatory gingerbread house photo suggested he spent the holidays with the entire family. (Which only fueled a wave of “the concept of Alabama and Timothée spending Christmas together” comments.)
One eagle-eyed user, Jose Zarate, went a step further with his haul reaction. He went ahead and researched the price tags on all the items Alabama received, in a video that now boasts twice as many views as the original haul. He was unable to track down every piece and could only find the secondhand pricing for many of the luxury handbags, but even so, the total he calculated was $164,082.
The findings inspired a (predictable) conversation about how the 1 percent spend, and what purpose the haul videos that flaunt it serve. “The rich aren’t being taxed enough,” and “Her whole Christmas haul is somebody’s annual salary,” quips were popular. I’ve seen many iterations of that reaction for as long as I’ve watched the genre (back when Olivia Jade was its preeminent artist), but now I’m more aware of the spectator’s role in the haul ecosystem. We can’t look away from the spending we can’t fathom because it confirms a suspicion: that the wealthy aren’t using their excess on anything useful, or even tasteful, depending on your opinion of the items themselves.
These videos are out of touch and probably unnecessary. But they’re also addictive. As are the price breakdowns that cut through the haze and let us compare extreme consumption to more practical luxuries: a house, a college tuition, maybe a couple of years' rent. To digest the frustration and discomfort we have with that truth, people default to reaction videos, item-by-item judgment, and maybe light comment-section mockery. If that’s a fair trade-off between the haves and the have-nots, who’s to say? But a critical view is a view just the same.
