To ask how do you know which things are 'tacky/common'?

[TheHydrangeas]

On here I sometimes see certain items, behaviours, homeware, fashion, makeup, etc classed as "tacky" or "common". Sometimes I can understand it, but other times it is things that seem pretty innocuous. Despite this you see this kind of unanimous belief that those things are "common". However I can't really find an underlying pattern to what is deemed to be tacky/common and what is not. Is there any kind of theme or pattern to this? One example is I remember reading a thread where a pretty popular brand of scented candles were classed as tacky.

I also want to say that I am not trying to portray other users negatively as judgemental or anything, we are all entitled to our opinions. I am just interested from a broader point of view - how do certain things become tacky or common?

Lip fillers look and are - tacky, ugly and common. Bizarre how women think they look beautiful with the. Makes your lips baggy over the years 🙄
Swearing f*k and c*t in public out loud in every day parlance is extremely tacky and common.... Very limited vocabulary. Quietly in private is another matter!!

Same with Range Rovers. They were fine for the MC set. Then nouveaux riches started to delight in them, putting personalized plates on them, you know just having fun with it. So Range Rovers are tacky

Oh my god I was litrially just about to post that using range rovers as my example.

Range rovers (especially white) are the opitamy of chavy, tacky and common, but people drive them thinking they're the bees knees.

I think common also comes from people buying the product that gives them the best image/status, rather than what is actually the best performing, best suited. Range rover again being a perfect example. They are one of the most unreliable cars and are out performed by many other less showy suv's.

Inability to use cutlery in the right and proper manner, lack of table manners.

Unless someone has mentioned this in the last 25 pages, in which case me for lack of thoroughness...

I've lived in the US and the UK. Some things that are everyday run of the mill items in the US are launched as high end when they first arrive in the UK. Ralph Lauren in the 90s or Yankee Candle in the 00's is a good example.

It works the other way too where regular high street shops like Topshop (I'm assuming MN would say that's common) open up in trendy NY streets.

Inability to use cutlery in the right and proper manner, lack of table manners.

Ottolenghi holds a fork in his right hand. Is eating at his restaurants or cooking from his books tacky now?

@PoppySeedSaid

Inability to use cutlery in the right and proper manner, lack of table manners.

Ottolenghi holds a fork in his right hand. Is eating at his restaurants or cooking from his books tacky now?

Yes. And am adding TV cooking programmes

Range rovers (especially white) are the epitome of chavy, tacky and common, but people drive them thinking they're the bees knees.

And yet again, good old Queen Liz is blazing the way in the 'tacky' / 'common as muck' stakes with her RR.... That and her gold piano.

The definitions of "tacky" and "common" are just pathetic quite honestly!

Apparently having an overly clean and tidy house is very low class. Same with everything being matchy matchy.

It's interesting that, of all the small minded, snobbish, nasty posts on this thread, the one above (which wasn't sneering at others, as the pejorative was directed only at themselves, as far as I could see) is the only one I've seen deleted.

So calling other people "chy" is fine, but calling yourself "py" isn't? I think they're both awful words, but it's good to know where MN stands.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class

@Grottyfeet totally agree with this.

@Standard

Inability to use cutlery in the right and proper manner, lack of table manners.

Unless someone has mentioned this in the last 25 pages, in which case me for lack of thoroughness...

I do that because my left hand and arm doesn't work properly.

Is having a disability tacky now?

And yet again, good old Queen Liz is blazing the way in the 'tacky' / 'common as muck' stakes with her RR.... grin That and her gold piano.

I think you might have missed the point. Queenie drives a farmer type RR in the country because that's what they're intended for.

The Boycey's of this world picked RR's as "classy" because Queenie drives one. Only they drive theirs round Essex, in dazzelling bright white with all the mod cons - thinking they're now just as classy as the Queen, and that they must have really good taste to get the same car as the upper class.

"How do you know which things are "tacky/common"?"

Your mother will tell you, when you do them.

Obviously not-that would label Nelson and the Kaiser as common..

I think you might have missed the point. Queenie drives a farmer type RR in the country because that's what they're intended for.

I didn't miss any point. You made a blanket statement about a brand of car, saying it was unreliable and therefore only driven as a status symbol. Why isn't the queen driving a 'less showy' SUV if those outperform the RR?

You can't defend your own statement, that's the problem.

I would also put it to you that you spectacularly missed the point of the poster you quoted earlier though. They were commenting on how ridiculous it was to brand a car 'tacky' simply because it's now being driven by lower class types.

It's like I said earlier:

Her Maj uses brand [X] - Fine

Someone from TOWIE uses brand [X] - this uppity lower class oik has ideas above his station How tacky!

It doesn't have to be a RR - it could be anything. The fact is that these judgements are reserved for the working classes (including those who have made money for themselves).

Wish I could afford a Range Rover so I have the choice whether to be tacky or not instead of the very dull Ford Focus I drive.

They're like class codes, mainly acquired by hanging around with the tribe. Grayson Perry had it down pat.

In some ways I think I like to float over it, and pick and choose what I like, delighting in tackiness where appropriate.

But then if I'm being honest - do I? Or is that just a fallacy that I'm perpetuating to make myself feel more unique, whilst subconsciously choosing and aligning my class markers with where I see myself? Am I really keeping up with the proverbial Joneses?

I honestly don't know.

Nothing better than a bit of tack I say. I own many Yankee candles and probably most of the other stuff on here. I was given this for my birthday to hang in my loo.... I love it!

In my opinion what are tacky are ostentatious things bought just to show off that one can afford them. That cuts across every social class, from designer handbags right up to (as mentioned in a previous comment) the Palace of Versailles.