Makes sense to me. I also have a theory that with the world becoming more and more related with media being more and more similar across countries, your neighbors are suddenly all the celebrities and people on TV.

And we know that you value your worth relatively to what your neighbors have. So with your neighbors suddenly being much better off due to them being celebrities, you end up feeling poorer and must play the consumerism game.

I'll try to rewrite this to make more sense later - pretty tired now.