Get rich quick culture:
When the dream is the product.

I started selling lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers for two reasons. The first was to help teenagers and educators start better conversations about digital literacy and critical thinking. The second, if I am honest, was the hope that I might make a little passive income on the side.

I had no idea at first what that would actually involve. Now I understand it better: it is hard work, and it is a long game. And that is fine. In a way, it makes the progress more satisfying. You build something useful, improve it, keep showing up, and gradually earn trust.

For young people who do not yet have a steady job, get-rich-quick promises can be very attractive. My son told me recently that he wanted to make a dropshipping website for T-shirts. I like the entrepreneurial spirit behind that. But it is also a little naive, and that is exactly the kind of naivety that can remain if we do not help young people understand these dynamics.

Too often, the people selling a course about getting rich quickly are making their money from selling the course, not from the strategy inside it. That is a kind of toxic genius: sell the dream, make the outcome look easy, and let other people take the risk. It is not what I want my kids to aspire to.

What is get-rich-quick culture?

Get-rich-quick culture is the online world of promises that money can be made fast and easily, through trading tips, dropshipping, paid courses, passive income schemes and luxury lifestyle content. Often the people promoting a system earn most of their money by selling the course, not by using the strategy. Students need questions that separate real skill-building from a sales pitch.

Why this topic matters right now

Get-rich-quick culture sits at the intersection of money, aspiration, media literacy, and psychology. It reaches young people through videos of luxury cars, “financial freedom” routines, trading tips, paid communities, dropshipping promises, and courses that claim to reveal a system most people do not know about.

There is nothing wrong with ambition, entrepreneurship, or learning a skill. The problem begins when a business makes its money primarily by selling confidence, urgency, and imagined outcomes rather than by being clear about the work, risk, cost, and uncertainty involved.

The US Federal Trade Commission warns that some business offers and coaching programmes make it sound easy to set up an online business and earn money, then charge people to learn a supposed shortcut. That does not mean every course is a scam. It does mean students should learn to ask what is being sold, who actually profits, and what evidence supports the earnings claim.

Teaching get-rich-quick culture in your class

This topic works in financial literacy, enterprise education, media literacy, citizenship, economics, advisory, and careers lessons. It should not tell students to abandon their ambitions. It should help them distinguish the healthy desire to build something from a sales pitch that treats effort, uncertainty, and failure as somebody else's problem.

Students do not need to disclose whether they have bought courses, tried dropshipping, followed trading accounts, or worried about money. Start with the content itself. What feeling is the post trying to create? What information would a careful buyer need before paying? What would count as evidence that the method works for ordinary people, rather than a carefully selected success story?

What the activity covers

The activity starts by helping students spot the tactics. They identify how aspiration, scarcity, social proof, urgency, lifestyle imagery, and simple-sounding systems can make a course or community feel like a rare opportunity rather than a product being sold.

Students then investigate the course model itself. They compare a genuine skill-building offer with a business that earns mainly by selling the promise of earning, and consider what a transparent seller would be willing to show: realistic outcomes, costs, risks, qualifications, and evidence that does not rely on testimonials alone.

A case-study discussion gives them a chance to apply those questions to a realistic online offer. The final section turns the analysis into a practical checklist: before handing over money, attention, or trust, what should a young person slow down and verify?

How to run it well

Open by putting two short promises on the board: one that describes a skill someone could practise, and one that promises a rapid transformation. Ask students which one feels more exciting, then ask why. The gap between excitement and evidence is where the conversation begins.

Keep the tone curious. Students may genuinely want to start a business, make videos, sell a product, or learn about investing. The goal is not to mock those ambitions. It is to show that the most sustainable path is usually less glamorous: learn, test, improve, make something useful, and be honest about the risks.