It certainly made everybody aware of their place in society, and that there was always a rung above you, always more symbols of material wealth to acquire. Which is only what you'd expect of commercial TV, which existed to run advertising. It's always been the mission of television to soften up the audience and put them in a buying mood; and how better than to show "how the other half lives"?
One of the dark sides of advertising is that it treats consumers as a "collections of mindless numbskulls marching in cadence". Or not so much marching cadence, but a herd that could be nudged in the desired direction. We might not like to be thought of that way, but advertisers make their fortunes applying that truth.
I'm not denying that people are individuals, but perhaps less so than we'd like to imagine, and certainly enough alike that companies can make money dealing with us on a statistical basis.
Off Topic » in reply to I see the rebellion of the sixties as inevitability.
"Television fueled the have and have nots."
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