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...

When people BRAG about being "poor" or "on a breadline" when they are certainly not. Or those who constantly whinge about being unable to afford a holiday abroad or a bigger tv because they made a choice to live in a naice area or send children to a private school. Yes, life can be tough, but its certainly not poverty

oooh, must confess I haven't RTFT, but my PIL are masters of inverse snobbery.

Where to start?

I must be posh because I am from London (they are from a small village in Lincolnshire). I am from Thornton Heath which isn't posh at all.
Our house is posh because I have 'London tastes' (whatever they are)
They won't put the telly on in our house because it is 'too fancy' (separate remote controls for the TV/cable and for the speakers)
Managers (their son is a manager) do half the work for twice the money.
Managers mostly spend their time wandering around making a prat of themselves
After a degree in science and a PhD, they think DH should get a job on a farm, because "that's what matters" [he was the first in his family to go to uni and have a professional job. They didn't support his choices.]
Apparently I went out to work because I "wanted fancy clothes" and "couldn't be bothered to look after my children"

Inverted snobbery is basically a form of bigotry.

PIL, it must be said, are perfectly happy to come and stay in our house, eat our food, drink our wine and (God forbid) have cheese and crackers, but Bloody Hell do they complain about it all, especially about the central heating.

I do agree that too many senior people cant deliver, but only talk about delivering, and are often worth nothing without people delivering, and will even convince themselves they add value when they say things like 'we must increase sales and reduce costs', which is just the bloody obvious said again. I've been in delivery roles and its gorgeous fun saying 'ok.. what do you suggest?.' to get blank panic then aggression.

i even had a four page email from a senior person saying how many directorships they'd held (er companies they set up..) how important they were, how much they should be charging (£60,000 for two hours work! ) and how i should 'learn respect' only to send back 'thanks, that's great, but what are ypu proposing, and how can you achieve it?'

He was fired within a month..he sort of unravelled, so there is some truth in 'senior people don't do anything' far too often..'

Plenty of examples. During the war my father was an officer, he had little choice and was in India throughout the duration. He hated it all. My fil was a sergeant and was in combat, he had a pretty traumatic time. My dh often used to say that my dad was an "awficer" and didn't see the real war because he didn't go to public school like my dad.

I was called posh and often asked "why do you speak so posh?" It took an effort of will not to correct people and say "poshly, it's an adverb." My bil called me pretentious for reading a book about the Tudors, I was pretending to enjoy it apparently.

grumpy I must admit I am giggling at the idea that Thornton Heath = posh.

When I went to university in Scotland, I was told on my very first night that I was a horrible person and that everyone would hate me. My crime? Being/sounding 'posh'. I did say to this man that I felt it was unfair to make such an assumption and that if we went to the pub, I would bet we would get on ok - I think I am an ok person. You know, quite pleasant with good friends, a moral compass, a sense of humour and I am quite open - I don't really care about how you sound, if you are nice then I like you! Anyway, he was having none of it...just because of how I sound. What a lovely intro to university life!

If people see where we live before they get to know us as a family, we are seen as "posh", I've had people who were seemed friendly before back off.
A good example of this is a girl that one of the Ds's dated on being brought round to our house exclaimed "Oh my god P you live in a mansion in a field! But your so ordinary!"

I suppose we all make assumptions, and judgments.
I grew up in Tottenham, North London, and when we moved to Hertfordshire and I went to school there I was seen as "common" as I had an accent, and was living on a council estate, the reality was very different.

Making fun of people for some aspect of them that shows that they are better than the posh person. I know people who, in their late twenties, started to take the piss out of privately-educated southerners really loudly because we were in a university town where lots of students were privately educated. Mimicking their accents etc. One of them was privately educated and is from Oxford but despises his background because he doesn't get on with his parents. I cringed so hard I almost broke something.
I think it's the fetishzation of the working/middle class as somehow being more authentic, and worthy of admiration, which in itself is bloody patronising.

I've seen a few examples of this.
My neighbour mocking me for sending my son to the local RC school with its outstanding Ofsted report and fantastic reputation. Why hadn't I sent him to the school her grand children were at?
What, the school that's further away and not as good?
She still thinks I'm mad. My son, however, is happy at his school and doing well.
I think reverse snobbery can be dangerous as it can (though not always) have something of a crab bucket effect on people. Someone sees something as pointless, be it further education, music lessons or something else and basically tries to bully them out of it by belittling it. That kind of attitude is nothing but dangerous.
My grandfather suffered from this. He got into a grammar school and his father was embarrassed. Any homework had to be hidden as it was 'pointless' and would be thrown away. My grandfather was pulled from education at the first opportunity and made to get a job. He spent his life feeling unfulfilled and resentful.
It's an example on the extreme end of the scale I admit.

*status cars
expensive flat-screen TVs that fill the whole wall
people who buy a pedigree dog rather than rehome a rescue
loads of presents for the kids at Christmas
all-inclusive holidays

so in short, all the 'aspirational' things that people buy/do, that could be interpreted as trying to emulate the middle/upper classes, but which in fact, the upper classes would never do/buy*

That's not inverted snobbery, because the people doing the smirking are making a judgement based on taste. Lots of professional/old money types regard those things as vulgar or common.

My ex BIL was an inverted snob,always going on about peoplw in large houses were snobs etc and poor people were the salt of the earth
. He did have a big chip on his shoulder. Ironically he ended up working for the Royal estates and happily hired out royal estate properties for holidays.

Of course any form of mockery has an effect on the individual on the receiving end. I said that, many times, and it is not ok. My post was talking about on a societal level.

Last February DS and I were at the airport far far too early in the morning, having been misinformed as to what time we need to be there for check in. There was a also a school group from Fettes going away on a ski holiday and one other lone man. We were chatting away to the lone man who seemed quite nice and friendly until he wondered out loud which school the children were from.

I said they were from Fettes to which he responded, "May as well shoot them now." My jaw just dropped. I think that was the first time DS, who goes to one of the Edinburgh day schools, had heard such blatent inverted snobbery. I bet this man wouldn't have been speaking to us at all had he known where DS goes to school.

witsend it really doesn't bother me or many of my peers to be made fun of for being well off, the mockery really doesn't bother me but I can appreciate that it does bother you.

my DC know why it happens and don't take it to heart but then it has only happened occasionally as we are rarely in the company of folks who are very different from us (as is true of most folks and probably the reason they mock those who are different from them)

Perhaps the difference is that we aren't in any situation where we can't get away from any mockery and being mocked feels a bit like when Gabourey Sidibie had people making mean comments about her appearance- her retort was "To people making mean comments about my Golden Globe pics, I mos def cried about it on that private jet on my way to my dream job last night."

It has never happened to me...being of the MC/private school/plum in mouth variety myself, but was just empathising with those posters who took umbrage at my point that whilst it is unpleasant for the individual it is less dangerous societally.

Is it still IS when you genuinely think that something is a waste of money? I could well afford Boden for example, but don't think it is worth it (and I do feel a bit about someone paying £20 for a plain child's t-shirt)
Equally I drive an old car as it does the same job as a brand new one. I am not trying to make any point of this, I really don't see why I should "aspire" to things that I don't want.

You couldn't have inverse snobbery without snobbery first.

What can people do when faced with unearned privilege that they can never have than take the piss? Individually it's not nice but on a wider level it only negatively impacts on the people with less anyway. Kids from comps not applying to Oxbridge because it's not for the likes of them frees up spaces for the kids from grammar school and private.

I experienced it for years at school because I was quiet and shy, didn't have a local accent and got good grades. So much sneering at me for being supposedly 'posh' and a 'snob' that led to so much nastiness and bullying.

My grandmother always talks about how she was bright and a good student at school but her parents showed no interest, derided 'book learning' and didn't see the point of it (great grandfather was an agricultural worker). I think she feels a lot of resentment about it tbh; very much an attitude of 'not for the likes of us'. That's inverted snobbery.

Forgot to add, the 'posh' thing even carried on when I was in sixth form and had a Saturday job in a shop. The older women who worked in the shop were really standoffish with me and eventually my manager told me that they were saying stuff like 'She's so up herself, thinks she's better than us'. I was really upset as there was no truth in it at all - so much grief for being quiet and not having a local accent.

MiL: "We don't read in this family". She perceives this to be a good thing.
"FE/Uni is a total waste of time and I have no time for anyone who has been educated beyond 16 and even less time for privately educated people".

My aunt would not let my cousin go round to play with a girl from school because her family lived in 'one of those big houses up X Road'.

Today 08:47 witsender

Of course any form of mockery has an effect on the individual on the receiving end. I said that, many times, and it is not ok. My post was talking about on a societal level.

It also has an effect on a societal level because it stifles creativity and creates division.

People are embarrassed to admit that their life is shit.

Happens to me around food things. So if I like a certain kind of coffee, people will puff up their chests and declare "McDonald's coffee is good enough for me". Or as I'm vegetarian and a bunch of pizzas arrive for a work do and someone catches me taking a slice from the veggie box they'll say "I prefer real food myself".

It's the same thing as punishing someone for their accent or postal code, imo. It's saying "I'm a salt of the earth real person & you would be too if you weren't putting on airs and graces. Real people talk like x and eat like x and watch x on telly."

Inverted snobbery can be really pernicious and is the reason a lot of bright kids in certain areas don't reach their full potential because they are made to feel ashamed.
Spent my whole teenage years laughed at for having "swallowed a dictionary" aNd being "posh" because i talked intelligently and parents both had a car.
When I started doing ALevels a school friend told me I was getting above myself because only toffs and nerds went to University.
When I got a place at Cambridge a woman I knew stopped talking to me and spread it around that I thought I was better than everyone else.
But I was totally bemused by it all as I never did feel better than anyone.