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Notes -
Hey that is me sometimes.
Well sort of. I don't know what those Indians are smoking but as a Turkish guy living in Western Europe for a while at this point, I do sometimes get into discussions with friends of similar background to the tune of "here things aren't actually better sometimes huh?".
A lot of it comes down to all of us being potential upper-class candidates back home, way above average in education and social stature and earning good money etc. Very few things can really substitute for relative social standing. It is difficult to get any above-mediocre social standing in Europe as a first-gen immigrant. So some of what you are observing is snarky comments from bitter people, but they have good personal reasons for being bitter.
GDP is a fine indicator but it will hide a lot from you in terms of living standards if you are ignoring costs, housing and taxes. For example Turkish PPP is at 44k, while German PPP is 62k from quick googling (Greece 41k lol). That is not such a massive difference. Pretty much all Anglo countries and Western Europe is suffering from gigantic housing problems, especially in major cities, especially effecting people who by definition could not have gotten into the mortgage market 10 years ago (i.e. young immigrants you are most likely to come across in white-collar and university settings). High progressive taxation systems are crippling for people who feel they deserve an upper class lifestyle and are trying to build it up with high-value professional labour income. You are basically slaving away for funding the boomer retirees of your host country. These boomers aren't even your own family so you won't benefit from this even in the form of inheritances. This creates massive resentment.
Often the first-tier cities of decent third world countries are actually quite decent places to be. They tend not to have "progressive" policing structures so ambient crime can be less of an issue (big variance here). They often have ample housing, and recently built. The infrastructure is often much newer.
And lastly, don't underestimate how much cheap low-class labour can improve one's life quality and how difficult it is to get accustomed to living without it.
So the comparisons come from a mix of real and perceived advantages of the home country, as well as people expecting an upper-class lifestyle not finding it in their host country. Also India is definitely not it, but a lot of "emerging" countries "emerged" quite a lot in the last decades and sometimes the perceptions didn't quite catch up in the West (and GDP is just not very good for comparisons between service and industry based economies)
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