REPORT: Bling Empire Triggering PTSD for Service Workers Across the Nation
Symptoms include cold sweats, nausea, and the taste of gold jewelry punched in your teeth.
February 10, 2021
By: Julia Zhen
LOS ANGELES – Netflix’s new reality TV show starring a primarily extremely rich all asian cast, Bling Empire, is set in the most luxurious parts of LA. It has managed to trigger the most horrifying PTSD episodes that any service worker could ever know. Server at popular LA eatery Pine & Crane, Lisa Jung recounts her story.
“Right at the beginning of the first episode, Dr. Gabe Chiu and his wife Christine Chiu, rented out the entirety of Rodeo Drive for a night of festivities celebrating The Lunar Year. First of all, renting out Rodeo Drive like that is fucking unheard of. I cannot imagine the gathering of that many rich people and what kind of nightmarish hell it would’ve been like to work that night. I had to turn it off immediately.”
Jung is an aspiring actor and prior to her time at Pine & Crane, she had worked at various other catering companies that have serviced similar parties such as the ones shown in Bling Empire.
“One time, I worked a catering gig for the Kardashians, and we ran out of smoked shrimp hor d’oeuvres and Kylie got so angry she started berating me and then ripped out my cartilage hoop. She also chipped my front tooth when she threw her drink at me. But then she gave me $25,000 and said that all the ‘bad coke from Vancouver’ and her period were making her moody and walked away. Never apologized.”
Moments when the uber wealthy cast of Bling Empire flaunt their status, Jung immediately feels waves of anxiety, breaking out into cold sweats and shivers. She says to this day she cannot enter any of the wealthy areas of the city in fear that another coked-out millionaire will just randomly start attacking her for no reason.
PTSD expert Dr. Henry Wu concurred.
“We see this often among service workers. They get shouted at, spat on, in general, just pushed around at their jobs that they cannot bear to venture into the battlefield again. This research has been proven; as a matter of fact, you can go into any Whole Food across the country, and ask them about their work experience during the holiday season, and their whole faces will go pale. It’s like reliving Vietnam for some vets. I definitely would not recommend any of my former service worker patients ever watch Bling Empire.”
Lisa Jung can’t bear to watch the rest of the show, but she can hear her roommate watching it in the other room. Some nights, Jung wakes up suddenly in her sleep and will sleepwalk to the kitchen to grab plates and start smashing them on the floor until the show gets turned off.
