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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel very old-fashioned or just out of step?

124 replies

Prole · 06/03/2016 19:17

I'm not vain and don't see it as a virtuous trait. I'm not narcissistic enough to think my life is interesting enough to broadcast on the internet - even my dinners. I think conspicuous consumption and branding is just hideous. (To me a designer whatsit covered in branding just screams "look at me; I'm a consumer too". And 'Haul videos' WTAF?

All the above weren't seen as desirable traits when growing up (born late sixties into a piss poor family) but now seem to be acceptable if not positively encouraged.

What's it all about? It seems so prevalent I almost daren't call it 'wrong' but just 'beyond my ken'.

Am I just a scruffy, boring slob with rubbish clothes who's out of step with the Twenty-first century? Do I need to get with the program and stop shopping at the army surplus?

OP posts:

AppleSetsSail · 06/03/2016 20:31

I doubt they're pitied by their social-media foot soldiers, it's a circle-jerk.

Modern culture critiques are becoming a bit tired, I think consensus has long since had it that people who take selfies are losers. Let's just ignore the whole thing and maybe it will go away.

Original poster

Prole · 06/03/2016 20:32

Jassy - yes people show their FB pages around a lot. Not an office with computers so always on phones. I'd be delighted (and a bit less bored) if it wasn't tolerated

OP posts:

AppleSetsSail · 06/03/2016 20:34

People show you their FB pages at work? WTF?

theycallmemellojello · 06/03/2016 20:35

Sorry but sneering over other people's holiday snaps is pretty horrible. No reason to think that they didn't engage intellectually/emotionally/aesthetically with a place just because they didn't take photos of it (I myself generally buy a postcard of landmarks/pictures rather than attempt my own photo). And it's normal to want memories of time spent with your partner on holidays and to take photos together. I think you're massively projecting assumptions about your colleague's holiday, which says more about you than about them.

AppleSetsSail · 06/03/2016 20:36

I guess I'd be pretty irritated if I had to look at selfies at work - can't you just say 'please don't show me your stupid selfies anymore'?

bettyberry · 06/03/2016 20:37

Selfies - its proof you have done something. With such access to countless images its easy to fake a life. I know of people who have faked blogs (thanks reverse image searches!).

By taking a selfie with said ancient site/natural wonder it is proof you have been, an achievement, something ticked off the bucket list.

You'd be surprised at how many times I have been asked if they are my photos If I'm not in them and I don't really travel. I just find interesting things in the landscape/hidden off the beaten track locally.

FreeButtonBee · 06/03/2016 20:38

Meh. My mum (in her 50s, one of 12 growing up with various waifs and strays taken to add to the numbers) is the most conspicuous consumer in my family. She doesn't overspend but likes her bling/designer bags etc. She certainly has more than me and I earn multiples of what she does. She might not share it on social media but it exists.

It's people. Some like buying stuff and some don't. Some buy lots of heap stuff and some buy lots of expensive stuff and some buy a little cheap or expensive stuff.

lorelei9 · 06/03/2016 20:40

Prole, of the friends I mentioned, one grew up very poor and her mum (her dad is no longer here) is pretty horrified with her spending. but the friend says having loads of stuff makes her feel better about having grown up poor. I do worry because she isn't spending on credit but doesn't save much and tbh, at 55, if you think you've got bags of time to save, it only takes redundancy and it could all go very wrong.

But she thinks I'm mad!

In terms of social media, I was on holiday with the 44 yr old and 47 yr old recently and they Facebooked every cocktail they had and put what location we were in...they said "oh it's just to show other people who insist on showing off". I don't get.

AppleSetsSail · 06/03/2016 20:42

So, not unlike an arms race then.

LoveBoursin · 06/03/2016 20:43

B7t selfies are awful.
Yes a picture of your partner etc... but selfies are so close up that they never look nice.

Actually my readong around social media terlls me that if their photos are just seflies they aren't up to date. They should have one, nicely reworked etc... for Instagram, selfie for FB and then another social media site I forgot ...

Original poster

Prole · 06/03/2016 20:43

Theycallmemello - how have I sneered? They were perfectly happy with their holiday pics. If I'd gone there and come back with no pics of the actual place I'd be glum but they weren't. I made no comment of course. Up to them innit?

They didn't have much say about it either - I s'pose I was disappointed not to get the full travelogue which wasn't owed to me anyway.

OP posts:

JassyRadlett · 06/03/2016 20:44

In your situation I'd be exercising my 'not really my thing, thanks' muscles with your colleagues, since this is annoying you so much.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here enjoying people bitching about how dreadful social media is and how they don't use it... on a social media site.

lorelei9 · 06/03/2016 20:44

Apple, thank you, I was looking for a good way to phrase that! Next time they do it I'll ask about their place in the arms race

theycallmemellojello · 06/03/2016 20:45

Sorry, I think you know full well what you're implying. They didn't give you the travelogue - because they were too busy taking pictures of themselves to enjoy the place properly presumably.

FirstWeTakeManhattan · 06/03/2016 20:50

Am I just a scruffy, boring slob with rubbish clothes who's out of step with the Twenty-first century? Do I need to get with the program and stop shopping at the army surplus

Nope. Not if you don't want to. I'd hazard a guess from the wording of your OP that you're not particularly cowed by any of the things you mention, just that you fancied having a go about them.

Nothing wrong with that, this is AIBU, after all. I did find your OP a touch sniffy about it all, which is why I'm a little baffled as to why you're apparently wondering whether to join them.

People have showed off for thousands of years. It's just the latest way of doing it.

LaurieMarlow · 06/03/2016 20:51

Tbh, unless taken by an awesome photographer, I'm always underwhelmed by snaps of historic sites without the travellers in them. They lack a 'story' for me and become a bit dull and impersonal. Knowledge and imagery of 'things' are so plentiful nowadays. I don't want to see an inferior version of a shot I can find on the Internet, I want to see someone's personal experience of macchu picchu.

pippistrelle · 06/03/2016 20:53

I think I'd mostly just file under 'People Are Different'.

I do wonder what you mean by 'vain' though.

Original poster

Prole · 06/03/2016 20:55

bettybetty - to prove??? WOW! I go on my hols when I can afford them. I try to have a good time, enjoy myself and come back feeling a bit better. Why would I have to prove I went anywhere? Why would anyone give a monkeys? It's never occured to me to fake a life... Right I'm off to become a playboy squillionaire.

OP posts:

kawliga · 06/03/2016 21:03

Am I just a scruffy, boring slob with rubbish clothes who's out of step with the Twenty-first century? Do I need to get with the program and stop shopping at the army surplus?

This comes across to me as a stealth boast. You have started a thread about how you are too principled and too well brought up to worry about vacuous things like designer labels on clothes, which implies superiority to those shallow people who post about their new purchases on youtube.

Describing yourself as 'old fashioned' is actually quite snobbish. The Queen is very old fashioned, right? Saying 'I'm so old fashioned' is often a way of signalling social privilege while pretending to be very modest.

It's like those posh toffs who go about with scruffy clothes, leather patches on their elbows (real actual patches to fix a hole, not a designer fashion stick-on thing) and the same pair of scruffy leather shoes they have worn for the past 35 years. That just screams 'I'm from old money and landed estates, and my family pedigree goes back to Henry VIII so I'm above being bothered with ghastly new clothes'. As for going on youtube to display the purchases...vulgar and common like reality tv. See? There are many ways to be sneery about other people. At some school gates the scruffier the clothes and the older the family car, the posher the family.

Just live your life and let other people display their shiny new clothes if they want.

Mooshbag · 06/03/2016 21:04

I live in London too and I don't think it's a London thing either...

ProfessorBranestawm · 06/03/2016 21:04

I can only think of a couple of people on my FB who do this

Original poster

Prole · 06/03/2016 21:06

Firstwetake - No of course I don't want to join the consumers. It just seems so rampant and inexplicable to me. To genuinely derive happiness and comfort from a bag or a coat seems bonkers. So I come on here to see if it really is bonkers or a cosy reassuring reality of modern life.

I've never kept up with Jones's or anyone else. Never occured to me to have a need to demonstrate my spending power or that anyone would even care.

Jassy - I see this place as a forum with a fantastic spectrum of people. It's obvious there's every income bracket and political opinion from all over the country and world. That's what draws me here. I'm not a parent so AIBU is the only bit I look at. It's fascinating to see what gets people going and how other see that. It's more akin to a newspaper letters page than FB.

OP posts:

Spandexpants007 · 06/03/2016 21:08

I like the huge push back against shallow mass commercial materialism. Marie kondo, minimalism, frugal living websites, recycling are a breath of freshair

multivac · 06/03/2016 21:10

Theycallmemello - how have I sneered? They were perfectly happy with their holiday pics.

Yup. Your posts are perfectly neutral.

I can't bear all this disingenuity.

"Oh, gosh, maybe I'm just a big old fuddy duddy; but I don't understand all this selfiefacebookgram stuff! I'm just a simple wee soul, who doesn't need to be validated by 'posting snapchats' of my supper, or whatever it is the young people do! Am I just loopy... or am I, in fact, more deeply connected to my environment than most of those around me, and indeed, having a more meaningful existence than them, really?"

MorrisZapp · 06/03/2016 21:12

Sorry but these threads piss me off. They're always started with faux naivety and faux 'is it just me' - ism.

Nope, sorry, it's not just you who thinks modern social media /celeb culture/the Kardashians/the word 'hubster' is annoying.

Most MNers think selfies, Kardasians and hubster merchants are generally grating.

You're not an oddball, you're the norm, as I suspect you know.

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