What makes a person 'common'?

[Karlwho]

In your opinion. Just interested.

Most of these things don't affect anyone else, but many of them are social indicators

And they exist in every country, even the most egalitarian. Americans have 'white trash', Australians have bogans.

I agree finding.
It does depend on the tattoo.

I really don't like the 'mam/dad/gran/partner's name' tattoos and part of me always wonders if the Chinese tattoos say 'prawn lollies' and not strength/peace (childish I know).

I also think some tattoos may be popular at the time, but date easily. For example, the large Celtic style upper arm tattoos are of an era, I know lots of people now with lovely small back of the neck tattoos. Maybe highly 'on trend' tattoos come to be viewed worse as time goes on.

Or maybe they just like the fucking tatoo and they don't give a shit about whether it will date or be common or any other bollocks.

My grandmother used to say a common person, provincial, boor or peasant would be anybody who smokes, has tattoos, throws litter, spits in street, eats or drink in the street, lets their children out to play on the street and swears loudly. Now I am older might I agree with her but I don't say it out loud.

TopiaryTractorTart
Calm down.
MN is weird when discussing how trends date is enough to get effing and blinding.

I've got some great photos of me in trends that dated. It's a good job my response isn't to think 'but maybe I fucking liked it' if anyone jokes about how we used to dress.

I'll make a mental note that saying trends and fashions date and tastes change over time is another fairly obvious view that gets some quarters of MN irrationally annoyed.

What makes a person common

Those who try to categorise people by class

I wonder why, on a site that seems to be full of middle class people, you rarely (if ever) see threads about what makes a person middle class.

It’s almost as though the working class threads are here to make middle class posters feel superior because they don’t have tattoos and the posh threads are there to inspire the Hyacinth Buckets amongst us.

Sn0tnose
I think you have a point.
Then again, I very rarely see people (on or offline) who are openly working class get frothy about class threads or the word chav, and yet what appears to be the pearl clutchy middle classes bend over backwards to claim they couldn't possibly ever make social observations.

Some people accept that we all make observations, mini judgements and are aware of class markers because we are human and that's part of being part of society, others like to pretend online that they would never possibly do such a horrendous thing (whilst inwardly rolling their eyes at a 14 year old in a knock off tracksuit spitting in the street, something they'd deny doing on MN).

LolaSmiles I’m about as working class as it’s possible to be and I’m getting a little bit frothy.

Sn0tnose
Whereas I'm working class but in exile in nice suburbia so probably too posh now for my roots (as my grandparents remind me) but nowhere close to being at ease in the boden/Waitrose clans, and the main thing that gets me frothy are disingenuous claims of faux outrage: 'what do you mean you thought the teens in fake juicy courture trackies, smoking by the shops, blasting music from their phones and being antisocial were a bit chavvy? You're so mean to working class people^.

Such huge fucking misconceptions about ‘class’ on here. People say they don’t care about it, or it shouldn’t exist etc.
Social class is very different now to what it was pre industrial revolution. Back then, feudalism meant that it was pretty easy to determine your class and that you would most like stay that class for your whole life.
The waters are muddied now. This is an actual real area of study by sociologists.
There are 5 classes based on today’s society. And social mobility is very common.
However, sitting on MN banging on about how the class system is bollocks is completely unfair to those at the bottom of it. We have to be aware of such inequality to even try and fix it. How is it that we have a society with such a huge population living in poverty? Referred to as the Precariat - They will almost never get the same opportunities as those born in to traditional working class families or middle class families.
The class system DOES NOT exist so that those who are middle class can sit around boasting about it. It exists so we can measure inequality and hopefully, one day, measure the success of trying to abolish inequality.

And this thread was surely supposed to be light hearted?
And the other thread I started on being ‘posh’ definitely was lighthearted and had nothing to do with class. That is something entirely different.

That should have been 'naice'. At least I think it counts as 'naice'.

There's no private school near by and there's an Aldi close by so maybe it doesn't.

Referred to as the Precariat - They will almost never get the same opportunities as those born in to traditional working class families or middle class families.
It's very true.
Anecdotally, the students I've worked with that would fall into that category learn habits and attitudes that actively hinder their life chances too.
But of course according to some on MN I should tell them their out of school choices that limit their prospects are just as valid as getting a good education because anything other than affirmation or ignoring those choices is damaging and judgemental (when those feeling superior are busy ferrying their DC to enrichment activities and promoting the value of education).

Lola
Many on MN don’t seem to realise - if you’re living in poverty, you’ll most likely live on an estate with others living in poverty. Thanks to school catchment areas, your closest school will have many/majority of children also living in poverty. Education will more than likely not be valued by your family and, if it is, you’ll be hindered by all of your peers anyway. You won’t necessarily grow up to grow a support network - let alone even go to Uni or college etc and this will be your norm.
Whereas children born in to middle class families will have the opposite. Imagine it being normal to head off to Uni and to have friends and relatives that become doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs- that will seem like your normal. Plus, you’ll have a great support network to rely on.

I just wish people would stop thinking that a measurable class system only exists to make middle class people feel superior. Heads up arses springs to mind.

Lola but the difference is between you objecting or not, to dated photos, is that for some people, who ID with a certain criteria of 'class' whatever the criteria we would care to attribute to them/us that MAY be perceived as shaming!

Oh God, who knew?!!

Dh grew up in poverty, one of eight children, all by different dads. every member of his family have been on/are on heavy drugs, plastered in tattoos, alcohol problems, criminal records etc, etc. Dh is the only pers on to have finished uni and get a very decent job.
I had almost the polar opposite in upbringing; private schools, never wanting for any material possession, no 'anti-social' behaviour in family etc. D h and I have the same opinion on what makes a person 'common', and it's definitely more of a behaviour/attitude rather than relating to wealth.

ethelfleda
I agree with you. And then there's differences between the traditional working classes and current precariat.

There are light hearted observations of social markers (e.g. eating a greggs pasty when you walk round tow. and having signs in your bathroom saying 'bath', the former being something my working class mother declared common but also something I do to this day) and the very real issues linked to class.

I don't think the previous poster meant the class system only exists to make middle class people feel superior, I read their reply to mean that these sorts of class threads are mainly middle class people patting themselves on the back, in that it suits middle class people to turn up on a thread like this, virtue signal a bit and then feel satisfied that they've saved the working classes a little bit.

LolaSmiles There’s no faux outrage from me at all if people want to complain about people being anti social. I’d be quite happy to speak up if any of them were doing something that interfered with me and my day (including spitting, which is pretty disgusting). But that’s because I think they’re being anti social arseholes, not because I’d consider them to be ‘chavs’ (which seems to be rapidly becoming a snide little way of describing anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into that middle class bracket).

What gets me genuinely frothy is the scorn poured on them for not dressing the same, or talking the same, or living in social housing, or going to a school that’s considered rough, or having one of the names that some posters on here take the piss out of on a regular basis. Calling a teenager ‘chavvy’ because they want to wear the same clothes as all their friends and the only way their parents can manage it is to buy the knock off version, is a shitty thing to do. And all done to make someone feel that they’re ‘better’ than someone else.

Yes, snotnose!!

Agree. Fair enough if you don't like something but why need to share you're disgust online and label people as common?

Common also sounds really cringe, like you think you're above other people. Ugh.

I just wish people would stop thinking that a measurable class system only exists to make middle class people feel superior. Heads up arses springs to mind. ethelfleda are you referring to my post?

I didn't mean you Sn0tnose.
When I grew up the difference between being poor / working class and common was quite clear so I don't see them as synonymous.

People like different things. Some things are class markers. It doesn't mean you're going to dislike people for it.

I can't stand the silly crossover 4x4s in suburbanville that are immaculate because the roughest terrain they experience is the occasional speed bump on the school run. I'd consider that to be a marker of 'look I am middle class really', whereas a 4x4 in a rural area wouldn't raise an eyebrow. It's not to my taste and I find it needlessly flashy but I wouldn't dislike someone for it.

Lola next time you’re up my neck of the woods I’ll buy you a Greggs pasty and we can sit and judge all the land rover drivers in my town

No snotnose not your post, sorry. I’ve been following this thread for a while and many people have posted huge misconceptions about the class system.

ethelfleda
You've got yourself a deal. Only the spotless ones though. I love a good pasty and my mother still discourages and rolls her eyes when I eat one in town.

Big TVs. No books