Why is 'middle class' often an insult these days?

[IronicSeraphim]

Anybody insulting someone for being working class would be quite rightly derided as a snob.

It isn’t and never has been

No one aspires to be working class

What people laugh at is the constant dropping of hints that people do to let other know they are middle class

We'll have to disagree there.

Take some of the reactions to the climate protests for a start..

People are always desperate to point out how working class they are! No one wants to be middle class!

Exactly, @ThunderStorms!

But why? What is so terrible about it?

I don’t know, I think it’s because those who use the term middle class are normally doing so in an arrogant way. Not that everyone does but every blogger or person I know who feels the need to use the term regularly are always wanting to come across as the yummy mummy type

I wouldn't say no one aspires to be working class. Working class to me means stable employment, realistic expectation of good quality housing, health care, education, freedom to practice your religion and raise a family. What is not aspirational in that?
Middle class I would generally class as independently wealthy, others may say professionally employed and this is probably where the issues lays. No one knows what the rules are but some will go to great extents to "prove" that they are better than others. The small minority desperate to prove that they are better are usually described or self described as middle class, I think this is where the distaste/insult lays.

I've aspired to be working class whenever I've been unemployed.

So people aspire to having less money and less opportunities in life

Yes of course they do 🙄

Well those protesting didn’t actually give much thought to anyone who was using public transport to get to work or those who had saved to travel on holiday

Working class to me means stable employment, realistic expectation of good quality housing

That hasn’t been associated with the working classes in 40 years, except for maybe a few exceptional pockets of the UK

Tenbob
This is part of the problem. I count myself as working class, I'm an engineer in an office and have been for 15 years, prior to that I was a technician. We own a mortgaged house, have a couple of children and feel lucky for our lot. When did it become necessary to be middle class to achieve a basic family life?

It’s the smugness.

According to Cambridge Dictionary:

"Middle Class: a social group that consists of well-educated people, such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers, who have good jobs and are not poor, but are not very rich:

The upper middle class tend to go into business or the professions, becoming, for example, lawyers, doctors, or accountants."

They don’t aspire to BE working clas as such, but aspire to be CALLED working class (no matter their lifestyle). Salt of the earth, hard working ideals spring to mind, rather than struggling month to month. You see it all over threads here.