Supposedly ’posh’ things you think are common *trigger warning this is light hearted*

[ReadingWorm]

Obviously lighthearted and no need to explain your rational. But what are things that some people consider high end/ posh/ classy/ aspirational (I know they are not necessarily the same thing) that you don’t like/ think are tacky/ common / etc.

Again this is light hearted. We can complain but we must never explain!!!!!!

Here is my list.

Molton Brown hand wash
M&S food shop
American Style Fridges
Having a tan
Talking about exercising
Beauty Advent Calendars
Designer toasters and kettles
House of Fraser department stores
Posting photos from 1st class travel on instagram
Referring to your car by its brand name
Talking about your ‘forever home’
Shopping in Space NK
Visiting Disney World
Listening to Classic FM

I’m not sure this thread has really worked.

It’s become a list of things people don’t like - either because they envy them or think they are overpriced or just don’t want others having them for other reasons ( eg SUVs ).

The concept of poshness isn’t really much apparent. Indeed, there seems to be disagreement ( and confusion) as to what it even is.

Maybe none of this is a bad thing.

Macaroons and macarons are different things, similar but different.

Bags with very obvious designer branding

Well thank god it hasn't worked, maybe this will be the end of these tedious threads, and attaching 'light-hearted' doesn't justify plain old sneering at other people's taste.

But obvious branding is really not posh. It’s flash.

I agree. The majority of things listed on this thread are more popular but not widely liked, rather than actually posh.

There’s almost nothing posh on here and lots of things that would actually be seen as horribly “flashy” by posh people.

And Range Rovers are not all the same thing. A pimped up white RR with tinted windows belongs to an entirely different demographic from an older model, sober coloured Range Rover used on the farm or estate and country roads.

Yes. And the worst thing is sneering at “ posh” taste by lambasting things that aren’t even liked or embraced by posh people.

It’s like saying “ British food is awful. For example, I hate pain au chocolat.” 🤷🏻‍♀️

Car color …. Everything you want to know about why cars used to be colors and now it’s all shades of grey … in this podcast … and if you have/want an orange car you are probably a boomer!

freakonomics.com/podcast/car-colors/

I think TorroFerney's suggestion upthread of 'aspirational' as what these things supposedly are was good - and less culturally specific.

I have no idea whether I really think X Y & Z are common or whether I just regret that I can't afford them - who knows what I'd do if I was rich?

Well the competitive / corrective approach of so many posters asserting that xyz isn't really posh is a further annoyance of these threads. One upmanship is so tacky and small minded. Live a bit, embrace everything, calm down, do something useful, stop the curtain twitching and the boring class categorisations.

There’s almost nothing posh on here and lots of things that would actually be seen as horribly “flashy” by posh people.

That’s the whole point of the thread! Things which are perceived as ‘posh’ but actually aren’t…

(When I think about it now tho, not sure who this would really be aimed at – given that ‘posh’ people apparently don’t use the word or subscribe to the concept and people who aren’t ‘posh’ aren’t well placed to know – maybe aspiring poshos furiously cultivating, policing and gatekeeping things to set them apart from the lower middle classes??)

’Posh’ people absolutely buy Louis Vuitton or similarly expensive bags, expensive cars, and all the ‘flashy’ things associated with the nouveau riche. Those that are cash rich or aren’t heavily restricted by strict rules regarding what they can spend trust funds on do, anyway.

‘Posh’ is bloodline, not spending habits.

This is true. I’m always amazed by how many people on threads like this assume that the upper classes are all models of perfect taste, self-assuredness and good sense, rather than a mixed bag just like everyone else. The age of deference is alive and well.

Nothing to do with poshness, but a thing well-off people with houses in the countryside spend their money on that I wouldn't is those automatic electric gates. Partly because even if you don't have them, there aren't that many casual callers there days, for another I think they're potentially dangerous - I've heard too many 'funny' stories about them getting stuck closed.

So it's just as well I couldn't afford them anyway.

@DeanElderberry love our automatic gates. Just a click and no need to jump out of the car, drive in and jump back out to shut the gates. They hardly go wrong either. Same with the gge doors.

It's largely for security.

I come from old money. But all the money is kept in a trust and completely useless to me until I inherit and my brother will get the lion’s share (which is how old money stays old, land isn’t split up to the winds between the siblings), so I live my life now in the assumption that I need to make my own fortune and way in life. My mother encouraged me to “marry well”, in her eyes I married down, as my DH is lower middle class. Big however though, my inlaws are far more judgemental and class obsessed than my very U mother. (Even though much of their lifestyle would draw pursed lips from mother).

It isn’t always a benefit being U either. My friends with middle class and working class parents have received financial support at university and help with deposits for their first house. I’ve not received that, nor my U friends. Those who don’t ‘marry well’ have to get on with it.

My family are asset rich and cash poor, so I grew up with a make do and mend philosophy. That’s why many aristos drive beat up cars and wear darned jumpers, we can’t afford to replace them. Or if you can they aren’t a priority, your leaking roof is.

My aristo friends are all much the same. There are a few that have relatives in the generation/s before relatives that married money so have a bit more cash to spend.

As I say, I've hearf too many dodgy stories about them over the last few years to take the 'hardly go wrong' narrative on trust.

Though I did love the story about the time a dinner guest who, like me, distrusted them left their car parked beside the road, with the result that when the annoying host, in some excessive outburst of controlling everything, insisted on walking them to the car, he got locked out (on a lonely unlit road half way up a mountain).

Admittedly there was some local speculation that his wife might have pressed the wrong buttons deliberately.

Memory says the escapee was phoned and came back, the guests stuck inside climbed over the wall and were ferried home, and Mr 'look at all my lovely stuff' had to wait for many hours until the callout crew arrived (I think he had climbed back into his own property).

Much local mirth, but also many questions about what if an ambulance/doctor/fire engine needed to get in.

I don't know how to describe it but there's a very tongue in cheek slightly disdainful way upper class people talk about their kids and families.

It's very "Oh Buggerlugs has finally arrived has he?". In jest...sort of.

It seems someone is pissed off they can’t use chopsticks 🥢 😂

I am really glad I am not from the UK. The hysteria run high in this party of the world . Are they even self aware of how they look to people from other countries?

@dottiehens , I hope English isn't your first language. I'm all for parties and self-awareness, but not in the wrong context.

I really don't think they are! So hysterical and class obsessed, so so weird.

I chose my current car in a bright blue - easy to spot when I forget where I left it in the car park - amid all that boring black, dark grey and silver.

My car is a boring colour. I've been told it's ch4VVy. I don't care.
My previous car was an unusual colour. It bothered other people but it didn't bother me.

I thought that too, but more and more people are getting vivid blue cars and I can't tell where mine is anymore in a crowd.