History Main / PennyAmongDiamonds

** When Marge buys a designer dress at a discount and gets invited to a country club.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Sheer irony of the trope name aside, Pink Diamond, being a Diamond, is essentially part of a ruling family for Gemkind, and are revered as goddesses and matriarchs by their people (and are each shown to be {{Physical God}}s themselves through their sheer power). Unfortunately, Pink being the smallest and lowest of the Diamonds means she didn't even have [[InformedPoverty one single world to her name]] in the beginning. Not being allowed to have one [[{{Hypocrite}} while the other Diamonds had so many to themselves]], combined with never winning [[AloofBigBrother Yellow]]'s approval, ''frustrated'' her.

* Gianna Parasini, an InternalAffairs undercover agent you can assist in ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' and again in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', reveals that she grew up poor among rich kids. She therefore knew how to be invisible. Gianna was also a ScholarshipStudent and in her own words was “middling at the science but was very good at extracting information from rich people”. This led to her career as an undercover agent investigating white collar crimes.

* ''Series/You2018'': Joe Goldberg didn't grow up well-off, but finds himself in several elite social circles anyway: New York socialites in season 1, obnoxiously rich suburbia in season 3, and London aristocrats in season 4. He's often uncomfortable in these groups and internally derisive of them and their wealth.

** [[spoiler:Cinder Fall]] is revealed in Volume 8 to be this; as a child, she was 'adopted' into a rich Atlas family. Said 'adoption' meant being MadeASlave with a subtle shock collar, so the head of the family could flaunt her charitable hospitality while secretly treating her own stepdaughter like trash. She spent six years between obeying the whims of her stepmother and bratty step-sisters and training to become a Huntress, until she finally ''snapped'' and killed her family and mentor.[[note]]This backstory is the core of her {{Narcissism}}, as she believes the world owes her a debt, but other villains are quick to call her out on her StupidEvil tendencies [[EntitledBastard from an inability to realize the world doesn't just hand things out to people who suffered]].[[/note]]

* In an episode of ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Joy and Darnell (plus Dodge and Earl Jr.) are relocated as part of WitnessProtection after [[spoiler: Darnell's identity was accidentally revealed.]] Joy keeps outing the family so she'll be able to live in a gated community...and eventually gets her wish. But she doesn't fit in at all with the other women, and her family is not ''actually'' wealthy. Earl has to help her fit in.

** Dorothea is the only commoner in the Black Eagles house(Petra, despite being considered a commoner in the Empire, is the princess of Brigid), having grown up as a street urchin before being discovered by the Mittelfrank Opera Company. Because of this, she's a bit hostile to nobles who flaunt their status, and one of her motivations for joining the academy in the first place is to find a rich spouse.

* In ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'', Runa is the poorest of the teenagers who attend Rie's party, being the daughter of a fishmonger and a cleaning lady. Rie herself is the daughter of a family that owns several resorts, while the protagonist's family owns their own home(something that's much more expensive in Japan than in the west).

* ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'': Much like Makoto above, Hajime Hinata is an average guy who managed to get accepted into Hope’s Peak. However, unlike Makoto,[[spoiler:he doesn’t even have an Ultimate title, being from the school’s Reserve Course program for talentless students. The only reason he’s on the school trip at all is due to his involvement with Ultimate Despair as Izuru Kamukura.]]

-->'''Haruhi''': [[CatchPhrase These damn rich people...!]]

* In the ninth episode of season one of ''Series/BurnNotice'', the client is Nick Lam, whose fiancee has been kidnapped for ransom. The problem is that Nick is just a ''house sitter'' who has stopped correcting people who assume he lives in the houses he watches. He never actually said he was rich, but it became very easy to let everybody assume he was because of his surroundings.

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->''"I toldja, it's like an turning an old lamp into a chandelier."''

* In ''[[VideoGame/PurgatoryRPGMaker Purgatory 2]]'', protagonist Ebel Alfie is a commoner who is able to attend the elite Ten Judges Academy for the children of nobility because of his exceptional skills.

* DarkChick AlphaBitch Satomi Ozawa and later protagonist Shiina of ''Manga/ShadowStar'' attend the prestigious Banda Academy despite being from poor and middle class families, respectively. Satomi's descent into villainy is mainly fueled by her obsessive need to prove herself superior to everyone in spite of her humble background as a result of her difficulties fitting in at such a fancy school, where by contrast Shiina's cheerful and friendly personality wins her plenty of decent friends who don't care about her background and she doesn't really take popularity or social status seriously, anyway. Which, of course makes Satomi resent her even more...

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia,'' Ochaco Uraraka is from a poor family from Osaka, when several of her classmates are fabulously wealthy, especially Momo Yaoyorozu. Uraraka tries to defy the trope of being TheIdiotFromOsaka by speaking standard Japanese instead of her native [[KansaiRegionalAccent Osaka dialect]] and not telling anyone about her poor family life, but earning money for her parents from hero work is her motivation.

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