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?

I guess I’d say anything that people buy or have that lacks real taste, or that is for flaunting money with, or that is ubiquitous for a group of people of a lower social class, or that is to ‘keep up with the Joneses’.

So things that I find tacky/ common for each of those categories:
Art from those high-street art dealer shops with names like ‘Artique’
Matt-effect car paint
Dazzlingly white teeth (footballers) or baby hair bands
Having the latest tech immediately and not when you need it.

I’m off to my Anderson shelter now.

[quote CanICelebrate]@Rebelwithallthecause
Lloyd loom furniture is gorgeous but most people can’t afford it. Calling cheaper rattan furniture tacky is basically saying if you want garden sofas then unless you’re rich you are doomed to be classless and tacky.

A lot of this thread is about money not taste. If you’re poor then you don’t stand a chance as everything you may be able to afford or aspire to have is looked down upon.[/quote]
Plastic rattan furniture isn’t cheap though

@whattodo2019

Ponytails are tacky? Why?

So if I chuck away my yanky candlles and throw water over my dogs and let them dry and stink I will become classier?

Yankee candles just make a room smell nice. End of.

mrsmayo - the madness is as you have disclosed you are (would be) doing it in a purposeful fashion you would no doubt be thought to be ‘trying too hard’ = common and tacky.
It really is a load of old nonsense ! Stuff and nonsense !

MrsMayo - is having a clean dog tacky now?

My late mother ( norm late 1920’s) regarded everything she personally didn’t like as “ common”. Anything which didn’t conform to her views ie white, Protestant, home owner, middle class, no strong recognisable accents, perfectly behaved children, no coarse language, no extremes of fashion etc were deemed “ common”
I wonder how on earth me and my sister grew up to be reasonably normal!
However I was told when I had my first child in the early 80’s that I was guilty of some things being “ common” eg dummies, hanging washing out and leaving it out all day, not ironing babygros, etc
Apperently not putting a tablecloth on for every meal was common too.
This was from a woman however who washed up the washing up bowl three times a day, dried it and put it away in the designated washing up bowl cupboard. Too common to leave any washing up equipment out for anyone to see and possibly criticise.

I’ve just remembered the tackiest thing I ever saw.

A huge bright blue Bentley parked over two child and parent spaces at sainsburys. Don’t get me wrong it probably cost more than my house but only one word came to mind:

VULGAR

@RJnomore1

I’ve just remembered the tackiest thing I ever saw.

A huge bright blue Bentley parked over two child and parent spaces at sainsburys. Don’t get me wrong it probably cost more than my house but only one word came to mind:

VULGAR

I would 100% agree with you on that.

People of any class or wealth can go to the supermarket in their pj's, but its a pretty common thing to do no matter who you are.

Earlier in the thread, we had a poster being slightly sneering about the wives of officers who had worked their way up to a commission 'trying too hard' by being fully dressed with brushed hair at the bus stop in the morning, and not in pyjamas with unbrushed hair (which is what the wives of the officers who got their commission straight away were wearing). Some of them even had (shock horror) make-up on!

So which is 'common'? Wearing pyjamas or being fully dressed? In what scenario does wearing smart day clothes go from being 'try hard' to 'appropriate'?

If you buy a Yankee candle because they have your favourite smell and aesthetic then fine, but if you buy them because you think people will see them and think you're posh or high class or to keep up with the Jones, then it's pretty tacky and sad.

If this is the logic behind it, then no-one would be sneering about Yankee candles (or any other 'tacky' item), surely? Because it's completely impossible to know what the motivation of the owner was, and the owner may well really like them?

If this thread has demonstrated anything it's that the snobbery has its roots firmly in the perceived social status of the owner, not anything else.

I went to a very old university which completely dominates the city, and which is attended by a lot of very wealthy UMC students. It was very much the done thing to spend the whole day in sportswear branded with your college crest, however scruffy. A friend of mine was from a working class background and could not believe how scruffy everyone was, pointing out that in her hometown if you dressed like that in the shops a security guard would follow you around. She told me that she tested this once by going shopping at home in her sports kit and sure enough she was fairly closely shadowed.

It is a very specific form of entitled privilege to feel perfectly confident in incredibly scruffy clothes, safe in the knowledge that the moment you open either your mouth or your wallet the person in front of you will be in no doubt of your social class.

This is quite sad... "What's classy if you're rich & trashy if you're poor?"

https://www.boredpanda.com/classy-if-rich-trashy-if-poor-answers/?utmsource=facebook&utmmedium=social&utmcampaign=BPFacebook&fbclid=IwAR1fcEAgmqdHu8jCaEf1vQSJG_akuLQd0UBHgGzFyM5Tclhv8vOsltJfjw

@RJnomore1

I’ve just remembered the tackiest thing I ever saw.

A huge bright blue Bentley parked over two child and parent spaces at sainsburys. Don’t get me wrong it probably cost more than my house but only one word came to mind:

VULGAR

That sounds quite nice. Though I have enough confidence to buy what I like not what is deemed in good taste.

@ncnumber2

Name changed because I sound like a judgemental bitch, but you did ask.

Too much foundation

See-through leggings

Crushed velvet furniture

Mirrored furniture

Endless grey rooms in houses

Inspirational quotes on walls

Inspirational quotes posted to Facebook

Oversharing on Facebook and treating the comments like personal text conversations

The words hun, hubby, babes

Checking into hospital on Facebook with a cryptic accompanying status

Brand names which are ostentatiously plastered everywhere

All of these, plus

black underwear under pale clothes

brushing your hair in public

notanithertakeaway brushing hair in public !
There’s a venue (v smart about as smart as you get) I walk to often and meet people at. When my hair is unruly there’s a small alley I walk down to do a quick hairbrush but only if no one else is walking along. Only just realised this ! And the ramifications !
Does private commonness count or only that which you allow to be witnessed ?!

@ZaraW I think it gets the award for being vulgar due to it's oversize, taking up 2 parent and child spaces and completely out of place in a supermarket car park. If a van driver did the same the middle classes would be sneering.

@HeronLanyon If no one sees you, I'm sure that's OK!

I do remember many years ago my mum nearly fainting when we were meeting my sister in town and she strolled towards us eating a sausage roll with a fag in her other hand. It was a sight I'll never forget. My sister and I were almost crying with laughter. 🤣

notanithertakeaway brushing hair in public !
There’s a venue (v smart about as smart as you get) I walk to often and meet people at. When my hair is unruly there’s a small alley I walk down to do a quick hairbrush but only if no one else is walking along. Only just realised this ! And the ramifications !
Does private commonness count or only that which you allow to be witnessed ?!

I think the point is you nip down the alley and don't brush your hair bang on the street isn't it?

( not that i'd care )

notanother

Oh mac that did make me laugh.
My old late ma - a smoker - has been brought up to think that eating or smoking whilst walking was not ladylike. She would stand resolutely stock still if ever she had a cigarette outside. All children felt the opposite if anything and it led to interesting jokes/arguments/stand offs literally.

How is leaving washing out all day "common"? How else is it meant to dry (unless it's a very warm and windy day in which case it might dry within an hour or so).

brushing hair in public I don't know if anyone remembers but there was a thread on here about someone who apparently got abused in a cafe for brushing her hair. It was deleted by MNHQ, so I assume it was a made up story by a troll but it excited quite a bit of comment :)

That thread 'classy if rich, trashy if poor', is interesting. So true re having a lawyer's business card in your pocket and raising your own children.