Snobbery

[ShrikeAttack]

So much, and all pointless.

I've just come from a thread about garden furniture. Do people really care about other's garden furniture?

Is it not just a manifestation of your own insecurity? There are many, many things I wouldn't choose, because I don't like them, for whatever reason. But to not choose them because you consider them beneath you?

How utterly dreadful. How utterly small of you to judge somebody because of their choice of garden furniture, or their sofa or plates.

Why do you care so much?

Because you use micro-signifiers to reassure yourself that you're better. That you've come far.

There's a huge amount of bollox on MN about class, it's almost an obsession.

Many of you have been sold a pup. It's not really about class, it's about confidence. There are plenty of 'working class' people who have done well for themselves, and feel very happy and confident about it.

I think after WW1, and WW2, followed by huge death taxes on estates there became a huge mass of UC folks who became the mental custodians of a life that no longer existed. And thus the 'genteel poverty' idea came to be something to aspire to.

The majority of these people actually came from 'new money" though. There are very few true 'old money' families still extant today.

Look at the National Trust houses that the 'Middle Class' like to visit. Full of guilding, marble, gold, plunder and excess.

The wannabe Middle-class seem to want to be the disenfranchised upper-class.

The new upper-class are actually the tech lords.

I guess my AIBU is, why do people think they are better just because they cling on to a mad idea of what is good, or classy, or right?

@scentedgeranium I don’t even know where my fruit bowl is supposed to go (and don’t care enough to check) 😂
I agree a lot of it is insecurity. We didn’t know any lawyers or doctors growing up, but if we did I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been allowed to play with their kids, cos my parents felt threatened by people richer/ more educated than themselves.
A lot of people would prob say that we dress like slobs but the only person who would have a real problem with this is my mum. She would dress up in her best to go to the doctors otherwise ‘what would the doctor think’. My parents were obsessed with what other people might think about things and assumed that those better off were judging them in the same way that they judge everyone. I doubt the doctor cared or even noticed what she was wearing. Our childhood was governed by ‘what will the neighbours/ doctor/ teacher/ random stranger think’. As soon as I left home I stopped giving a fig what these people thought and rarely think about what other people do with their lives either.

Let’s face it, Mn is overwhelmingly aspirational lower-middle class in its general world-view, hence there are about ten acceptable baby names that don’t tip into either — the horror!— ‘chavvy’, or — possibly worse — ‘try-hard’.

@Ginfordinner

The Lidl thread is full of Waitress shoppers looking down their noses.

Aren't automatic spelling-correctors wonderful? This is inspired

People come on here and talk total bollocks and make shit up. Why on Earth would anyone take it seriously?

I’ve worked for a few old money billionaires and you’d never know it by looking at them on the street. Old jackets patched hundreds of times, battered old cars - older than most employees and would talk to absolutely anybody. At work functions one of them would have to be reminded by his PA to talk to everyone and not just the building department. He’d have never turned his nose up at anybody because of their garden furniture!

@Wearywithteens

If garden furniture brings you out in the vapours never, ever read the Oxbridge threads. Bloody hell, the level of desperation for people to avoid the lower orders and the angst that their child might have to go to a lowly RG uni and rub along with the riff raff is insane. It borders on the language of eugenics.

As one of the lower orders, I can confirm Oxford is not, as is popularly believed on certain threads, a lower orders-free zone. Those threads are mad.

OK, I'm late to this thread but have really enjoyed it! I started reading a blog on minimalism a year or two back and that really made me rethink how I approach materialism. I realised I was earning more money than ever but still felt like I had none. At one point I'd switched to buying a different, more expensive hand soap for my bathroom because I'd seen it in a friend's house who I always thought "had it together". So embarrassing...

I'm not a minimalist but I do buy less and have learnt that it doesn't matter if I buy my glassware from the home section in Sainsbury's instead of John Lewis ;)

Why can you not like plastic fake rattan grey or brown garden furniture just because you don't like it?

Why is it snobbery?

I don't like fast food like McDonald's, KFC. I also don't like oysters. But the attitude from some very hard to fathom people is that if I don't like McDonald's I'm a snob.

I'm not a snob, I really don't think. Some things I just don't like.

When I see people posting on Mumsnet about things they dislike, which I do happen to like (carpet is one I've noticed, self catering holidays another) I don't feel bad about myself or my choices. Even something as personal as baby names! Am I just unusually secure in myself and happy with my own choices? I hardly think so.

Honestly, such a fuss over things that don't matter!

@PrawnCorset

Let’s face it, Mn is overwhelmingly aspirational lower-middle class in its general world-view, hence there are about ten acceptable baby names that don’t tip into either — the horror!— ‘chavvy’, or — possibly worse — ‘try-hard’.

I know. It's awful. "Reverse snobbery" at its best.

Essex: "...I saw more Everest snobbery ..."
......
Is that about double glazing ? Oh, surely not PVC double glazing, perish the thought :-).

"Where I was people were always judged to be snobs or stuck up because they dared to buy something nice, or go on a modest holiday that wasn’t to the local caravan park. I was constantly criticised for wanting an education or trying to talk ‘proper’. People didn’t like you ‘getting above your station’ in life."

That is snobbery! It's also very unkind, people are made to feel embarrassed because they might have things, do something a bit special or are pleased about an achievement - never mind speaking well! It's resentment, pure and simple - and what does it achieve?
Anyone who has been on the receiving end of that will know what I mean.

My mother was from a working class background and was a terrible snob - she always felt as though she was somehow superior to others, even some of her own family - but when she was with anyone who was better educated or financially well off, she would be defensive and accuse them (behind their backs of course), of 'putting it on'. In their company she would put on a funny voice with stretched out vowels. It was excruciating.

She did, however, improve as she aged - well she had me who couldn't do with any of that nonsense so she had to!

We're all humans at the end of the day. We try our best, make mistakes, have problems, become ill sometimes and will eventually die.

I'm quite content with where I am in life and have never envied those who have more. I'm pretty sure nobody has ever envied me!
Sociologists would probably categorise me as 'lower middle class' but blow that. I hated sociology at school!

Why do you all care so much?
I think a bit of self examination is required.
Maybe it's the age demographic of MN. Maybe many are furnishing their first or second homes and aspiring for them to be like magazines - why shouldn't they.
Maybe many have young children whom they want 'the best' for - so schools/ unis are very important .

@LizFlowers lol, I hadn’t even noticed that typo! 😂 I have nothing against double glazing, honest!

@BadLad. Our fruit bowl is kept in the room that the mice don’t currently bother with.
I live next to fields though.

@Jakarta

Also I can’t help but feel a lot of the class obsessed snobby MNers, also seem to raise the bar for working class people and are adamant you can’t change, become mc so easily

For example a previous thread saying Doctors can’t be middle class if their parents were wc. I understand class is more than just money e.g., cultural capital etc... but just because someone grew up poor/WC doesn’t mean they can’t go on to develop “refined” tastes

Also funny how when rich/posh people copy working class trends (e.g., rising popularity of sports streetwear) - that’s okay, no longer seen as tacky, they’re still middle class.
Whereas I’m sure some may have criticised such trends before enough middle class people did the same

Yes, what the hell is going on with all the MN women wearing trackie bottoms now? I remember the derision that used to occur in here if someone dared to wear sports wear while not playing sports.

Now hush/the white company sell them, it’s all good apparently 😂

I think you might have missed the point of that particular thread and have possibly taken it a bit too seriously and possibly the wrong way.

But I agree with some of the things you’ve said in a wider context.

[quote EssexLioness]@LizFlowers lol, I hadn’t even noticed that typo! 😂 I have nothing against double glazing, honest![/quote]
It was delightful though, Essex :-). Mine are Anglian btw.

I earn an average salary, but I'm not sure why so many people on here have problems believing when people on here say they earn 100k or more.

I know that three of the managers in my company are on six figure salaries, they are all male though. Their jobs are 9-5, sometimes they stay a bit longer, but then other people on lower salaries also have to stay longer sometimes.
I think it's a bit of a myth that people on higher salaries all have to work longer hours. Maybe in some jobs, but not in all.

There’s an awful lot of unpleasant judging on here for a thread ostensibly criticising others for judging. Or is it ok to judge and ridicule others for being middle class?

Because some of us live in parts of the country where 6 figure salaries are very much the exception. I'm sure my CEO is on a 6 figure salary, DD's old head teacher and DH's hospital consultant but I don't count them as being within my circle of friends.

I don't get why people don't believe me. Most of our friends are retired now anyway.

Well I was told on the garden furniture thread that our bog standard sun loungers makes it look as if we can’t afford a proper sofa and coffee table set. And yet I am, I suspect, one of the “hyacinths” .

My mum grew up poor, in a large family in a small town where every fucker knew their place in the social hierarchy and damn well wasn't allowed to forget it. Passed the 11+, went to the grammar, got some A Levels, moved away and went to teacher training, never went back. Achieved something like middle classness (in terms of income, lifestyle etc). Has become a dreadful, dreadful snob who judges everyone and everything. It comes from insecurity. She lives in fear of being 'found out'. It's very sad.

@Ginandplatonic

There’s an awful lot of unpleasant judging on here for a thread ostensibly criticising others for judging. Or is it ok to judge and ridicule others for being middle class?

Have you heard of the difference between punching down and punching up?

I'm as lower class as they come and even I look down on people who fill their garden with artificial grass.

But that’s not a class thing, is it? I don’t like artificial grass due to environmental/wildlife factors, not because I’m an incredible snob who thinks artificial grass is a “common” thing to have.

@Ginfordinner

I don't count my managers as my friends either ( far from it) and I don't think I have a single friend who is on a six figure salary, even though some of them are skilled professionals.

I have no problem however believing that some people that earn 100 k or over are on mumsnet (or have husbands on a high salary)