Could you please give me some examples of inverted snobbery? (British context)

[btfly2]

What exactly does it mean?? I think I have an idea but still don't get the meaning or purpose for that...

[littleprincesssara]

Inverted snobbery is looking down on anything perceived to be of a class higher than your own. It doesn't have to be the person. So looking down on a working class person for wanting to go to university or enjoying classical music can be an example of inverted snobbery (if the person judging is also working class) or regular snobbery (if the person is middle or upper class).

[BowieFan]

Well I know myself that I'm guilty of it. I've been guilty of looking down a bit on private education. It's only because nearly everyone I've met who was privately educated was lovely but a bit isolated if you see what I mean. It's why Lily Allen has no right to tell me how I should feel about the refugee crisis. She has never done an honest day's work in her life and was educated privately in her lovely little bubble. I have been on the breadline myself when I was a kid during the miners' strike, I've gone without meals, stayed at the library longer because they had heating and we didn't and have actually experienced poverty. She hasn't, so she has no right to tell me how to feel or to apologise on my behalf. I support bringing the refugees here, but I don't want a privileged git like her apologising for me.

Maybe that makes me an inverse snob, but I generally see growing up with wealth a very bad thing.

[walchesterweasel]

I overheard a little boy at playgroup tell a leader he had just moved home and had sink in his new bedroom , she gave a sneer and said 'We used to have that, we had them taken out' . It was a real put down

[splendide]

Not wanting an electric carving knife is normal snobbery if it's anything. It would only be inverted snobbery if electric carving knives were posh - they aren't.

[splendide]

Walchester's example is also snobbery not inverted snobbery. If it was meant as put down that's because the speaker thought the sinks in bedrooms are common.

[Owllady]

It's putting down someone you feel inferior to.
Like my mum making out my degree course being a vanity project 'why do you need to do that, you have a perfectly good job at so and so has a degree they don't half think we'll of themself
Etc
Not that this thread is about my mum :o

[ConvincingLiar]

DH's mum is prone to IS. She was embarrassed that he was still at university in his mid 20s rather than working in a shop/factory. He told her he had a research job rather than mentioning the PhD he was doing.

[origamiwarrior]

Not wanting an electric carving knife is normal snobbery if it's anything. It would only be inverted snobbery if electric carving knives were posh - they aren't.

But when electric carving knives first came out they were considered posh. It's only inverted snobbery that means they are now considered naff.

We've had people say to us "Ooh! Look at you with your electric carving knife! Poor old Miles here has to make do with a normal knife. He goes out to the shed and sharpens it each week with a leather strop"

I think inverted snobbery is so ingrained in middle class life that it is sometimes hard to see where it begins, and snobbery ends!

[whoopsagain]

But when electric carving knives first came out they were considered posh.

Only by people who were not posh.

[origamiwarrior]

Only by people who were not posh.

Well, that puts me in my place.

You snob

[BoinkAlongQuietly]

BowieFan post is the perfect example of inverse snobbery.

[BoinkAlongQuietly]

And I second what Witsender says.

[T0ddlerSlave]

I avoid telling people we have a cleaner as I've had some strange comments. I think that's IV.

[RiverTam]

A lot of these examples are snobbery.

My working class ex in laws used to mock my RP accent. That's inverted snobbery. If I'd mocked their cockney accents (which I never did and never would have) that would be snobbery.

Inverted snobbery seems more acceptable than snobbery. It probably doesn't harm in the way that snobbery can, but it certainly hurts and it isn't kind.

[BoinkAlongQuietly]

I don't feel hurt when I've experienced inverted snobbery.

I'm sorry to hear that it's caused you hurt.

[Scribblegirl]

I was in the launderette last week - I'm not a regular user but we don't have a washing machine at the moment. I asked for some help with one of the machines and I have a bit of an RP accent. Person I asked said 'haha, yeah you sound like you're not used to being in here' and wouldn't help me. I felt embarassed and wound up leaving

[cantstopeatingtoday]

Funny how this has popped up at the same time as The Duke of York wants Princesses to have a Job thread.

[BoinkAlongQuietly]

Jesus, really, scribblegirl?

If somebody mocks me with inverted snobbery I just laugh to myself "yeah, won't somebody think of the poor moneyed white girls?"

honestly, it's not hard being the one with the privilege.

[BoinkAlongQuietly]

Yep, cantstop I thought the same thing.

[Scribblegirl]

Boink, er, yes. Sorry, I'm not trying to pretend my life is particularly difficult or any more difficult than anyone else's, but it was a horrible experience and I genuinely could t work the machine. I went elsewhere, I'm not a complete wet blanket, but can't you see how being embarassed in public could be really humiliating?

[60sname]

I don't think looking down on someone for having things you regard as flash (esp big TV) is necessarily IV, if anything it's more likely to be straight up snobbery as some people perceive WC people to be more hung up on material possessions than MC/UC.

[ginorwine]

I think my mil is inverted snob
.
I come from a upper working class background where you worked hard , saved money , deferred gratification , no credit etc .
My df owned his home since I was young and had nice cars etc .
When I met my mil the first thing she said was ooh I bet you don't come from a council estate do you ( my dh comes from a family who lived on an estate , in debt - no food for dc - had to hide from milkman etc when they came to collect the money ) ? To which I honestly replied that I didn't - she then proceeded to question me about my clothes , my df s car - then got all cross and ridiculed me when I told her .

[CruCru]

A friend is quite snobbish about private schools. She says that state schools are better because they don't spoonfeed the kids - I think that counts as inverted snobbery.

[ginorwine]

Toddler
Yes re cleaner - round here people feel really uncomfortable admitting they have a cleaner . It seems to embarrass folk .

[helpimitchy]

Ds2 doesn't have an accent and we live in an area which very much does. The local children take the piss out of him constantly and he gets called "posh" and "gay" at school. It means he avoids any interaction and can't get out into the fresh air to play - unless we take him somewhere in the car. He has poor self esteem, so it does affect people.

I was called posh at school because I did music, wore glasses and wanted to learn. I lived in an area where poverty of aspiration was rife and anyone from a middle class background (I was poor though) was fair game. It really affected my self confidence.

I don't think anyone should be criticised for things about themselves that they can't change. It wouldn't be acceptable if a person was Chinese or gay, so why is it acceptable to attack a person's identity just because of their background?

What are people supposed to do to fit in? Take reverse elocution lessons and hide their identity?