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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate the laughing at "lower class" people on here?

354 replies

brasty · 05/10/2017 10:02

I know it gets disguised as laughing at certain children's names, phrases, etc, but there is a lot of threads on MN that is really about laughing at poorer people. Hate it.

OP posts:
tippz · 05/10/2017 12:36

I was talking to someone face-to-face who used to be a prolific MNer. She said she went to a meet up expecting MNers to be very posh and well off, and was surprised to find that nearly all of them were like her - working class with perfectly ordinary looks.

That's coz the vast majority of people on mumsnet ARE like this.

Most of what you read people claiming to be is what they want to be, and what they are in their fantasy world. In reality, very few women on mumsnet are size 8, high-flying career women with a university degree, kids at private grammar school, and a husband on £200K who looks like Tom hardy.. And they don't cook from scratch. They also read take-a-break magazine, whilst polishing off the french fancies, and stay in watching Jeremy Kyle, This Morning, Loose women and Judge Rinder. And then they give the house a quick dust and hoover in the 15 minutes before they have to go get the kids, calling in at Tesco (not Waitrose) on the way home for a couple of frozen pizzas for TEA.

THAT is the reality for many on here.

LoyaltyAndLobster · 05/10/2017 12:36

Yes I agree but those who are laughing are probably “lower class” as well.

Timeywimey8 · 05/10/2017 12:37

It's not really "class" for me it's the fact that a lot of people who are comfortably off genuinely think they are better people because they have more money and will only associate with people who have as much money as they do, or more than. Aspirational middle class p[people are the worst kind of snobs. Those who are genuinely rich don't need to be.

As for the class system being exclusive to the UK, I don't think it is.

The US came up with the term "trailer trash".

When I studied in a European country I never met anyone who came from a hard up background. I probably met more people from "ordinary" backgrounds at my UK (non-English) university.

MuminMama · 05/10/2017 12:38

I know what you mean. Some people are just dicks.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 05/10/2017 12:40

Daisy - what a wonderful post.

I particularly agree with this "What annoys me the most is the so called social justice warriors who if confronted by anyone from the working class would turn on their Jimmy Choo'd heel and run like hell into their gated community home. They laugh at the plebs and stick their stuck up noses in the air yet half of them of in hock up to their eyeballs and all you see is pretence and show"

That has been so true in my personal experience (I don't actually mean on MN - I mean in real life).

PortiaCastis · 05/10/2017 12:41

Credit cards are the master of snobbery

User843022 · 05/10/2017 12:42

'And they don't cook from scratch. They also read take-a-break magazine, whilst polishing off the french fancies, and stay in watching Jeremy Kyle, This Morning, Loose women and Judge Rinder. And then they give the house a quick dust and hoover in the 15 minutes before they have to go get the kids'
It's like you're in my house Grin. Yes I think you've hit the nail on the head it's not posh people taking the piss out of poor people, it's bored people taking the piss out of each other.

Eolian · 05/10/2017 12:44

It's all very well to say that punching up is different to punching down - that might be true if you are talking about simeine with genuine power and influence trampling on someone in genuine need.

But on MN that's not what we're talking about. On MN, I don't see any reason why people sneering at people for their minor, everyday 'middle class' choices (like names or foods) is in any way less offensive than sneering at 'working class' ones. An MNer who happens to like avocados and the name Persephone is no more immune to nastiness than one who prefers Greggs and Jayden.

M4Dad · 05/10/2017 12:46

Has anyone read "CHAVS - The Demonisation of the Working Class" by Owen Jones?

I think Owen is misguided in many ways but his books are excellent.

guilty100 · 05/10/2017 12:48

I often think of that book when I read that word used on here and wonder the same thing M4Dad

Ijustwantaquietlife · 05/10/2017 12:48

Ugh Owen Jones books are just rehashes of what other people have done far far better.

It isn't even supposed to be irronic that Russel brand introduced one of them calling him the new Orwell.

pigeondujour · 05/10/2017 12:49

I do think some of the people that post on threads about income or private school fees etc don't realise how little of the population earn really vast sums of money. Usually if someone posts a thread asking about salaries, a few hours later so many people have posted about their massively high incomes that in order for them all to be telling the truth, they would have to be virtually all of the earners at that level in the country.

DaisyDrip · 05/10/2017 12:53

Eolian

I like Greggs and Avocado, what does that make me then? A posh chav perhaps.

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest · 05/10/2017 12:54

I love the thought that someone on £40k isn't middle class - in my world that is "rich" money! Mind you I'm equally astounded when people can say that they're not well off on incomes over £100k...

M4Dad · 05/10/2017 12:55

It isn't even supposed to be irronic that Russel brand introduced one of them calling him the new Orwell

Search on Youtube for "Russell Brand being pushed into a fountain" it never, ever fails to cheer me up

CoolCarrie · 05/10/2017 12:56

The Queen got her hands dirty fixing engines in WW2 so yes, she has a job, being Queen, and has done a mainly bloody good job of it for all those years. Class is a very English thing.

PortiaCastis · 05/10/2017 12:56

We can all post salaries doesn't mean to say they're factual amounts though

HandbagKrabby · 05/10/2017 12:56

Who gives a shit though? If you're judging other people negatively because of where they shop or what they call their kids you're an arse. I can shop at Primark or Harrods and call my child Oliver or Oger or Onassis and it doesn't effect mine or their value as human beings.

And there's nothing wrong with being working class! So what if Wayne Rooney would never be perceived as middle class regardless of his income, it wouldn't make him a better person. If he tried there'd just be people sneering at him for thinking he could be mistaken for middle class anyway.

IfYouGoDownToTheWoodsToday · 05/10/2017 12:57

YANBU

I do think some posters are deliberately very goody about this and go out of their way to say nasty, hurtful things but when they aren't directed at an individual poster, MNHQ let the posts stand. and I agree that racism is sometimes involved.

CoolCarrie · 05/10/2017 12:57

I think I might change my name to Posh Chav on here, thanks Daisy !

DaisyDrip · 05/10/2017 12:59

I think I might change my name to Posh Chav on here, thanks Daisy !

You're welcome Carrie, It was a name born of pure frustrated annoyance. Grin

TheFirstMrsDV · 05/10/2017 13:00

Its very true that nastiness is nastiness and people of all classes get hurt by it.
But its very different being laughed at for your angst over which modern language your 2 year old should be immersed in and being laughed at because you decorate your house with stuff from the pound shop.

If you are affluent and educated you are far, far, far more likely to have a buffer around you. If you are poor you are more vulnerable. There can be no denying that.

Its pretty shit to see professionals on MN claiming they KNOW for FACT that Kayden is going to be a wrong'un just from his name and that Chantelle is going to be pregnant before she is 15.

If you raise objections you get told 'then don't give your kids names like that!'. A refusal to admit that the prejudice belongs to them and it is their problem to solve, not the parents of Kayden.

How the hell do you think the sneering by MC professionals on MN makes those with few choices feel? The ones who can't pick and chose their child's school or decline involvement from SS and other agencies?
They know they are being laughed at and despised by the same sort of person who make decisions about their lives.
As horrible as it is to be called a stuck up cow by someone who works in Tesco its not really going to have as much impact is it?

ShowMePotatoSalad · 05/10/2017 13:00

CoolCarrie lol I wasn't suggesting the Queen doesn't work hard. How bizarre.

I'm merely making the point that the Queen works yet is quite obviously isn't working class...Hmm

M4Dad · 05/10/2017 13:00

What we have to remember that is that most of us on here are just some bad luck away from being poor

YetAnotherSpartacus · 05/10/2017 13:01

I love the thought that someone on £40k isn't middle class - in my world that is "rich" money

I earn more than that ... but come from working class origins and many of my ideas are working class. Many are not. I loathe most TV (BBC comedies and documentaries excepted) and I don't do sport or popular culture - but then I never did. There was a thread a while ago about crushed velvet and how base it was and I blinked because much of my eclectically furnished house is velvet and so are some of my hippie, baggy clothes. I shop where I please (local high street rather than supermarket) but usually have classical music playing away when I have music, or something 'Indie' or 70s classics... so it's all rather relative and not just about money.