It's time for mumsnetters to finally define "tat"

[Oxforddictionaryunofficialupdate]

Aibu for traffic, title not exaggeration.

In last week the world "tat" took over mumsnet faster than bedbugs did over Paris.

It's time to finally define it. In last week it was plastic items, decorations, some clothes, various home furnishings, kitchem utensils and small gadgets, jewellery (i think), chocolates and sweets...

Anyone using the worls "tat", please give an example items of what "tat" is in your minds. Like exact items examples not "just stuff no one needs".

Because at this point on MN it is simply "any physical item I personally don't like" 🤷 o EVERYTHING is tat...

Yabu - tat is life and everything is tat
Yanbu - it did get ridiculous now with even food being called tat

I’ve missed this entirely. I must actually have a life after all!

I agree OP. "Tat" is right up there with "woke" in terms of being thrown around at "anything I don't personally agree with or want".

Tat, to me, means tacky, and unnecessary items. A singing Santa, made of cheap plastic, and a flammable beard, for example. Rubbish!

I've been on here for decades and I've never noticed this to be a thing

Fake Labubus. Fake Jellycats.
Amazon Hauls. Temu and Shein.

I think the key is that 'tat' is poor quality stuff that no one needs. There are lots of things we buy that we don't need, but if they are well-made, beautiful and functional, they don't fall into the 'tat' category.

To me it is anything that could be described as "cheap and nasty".

Anything decorative even if well made would be defined as tat by me because it’s unnecessary.

‘Tat’ is a purely subjective category. Like ‘clutter’. For instance, a certain subcategory of Mners aspires to completely empty work surfaces, therefore anything on them is ‘clutter’, even if it’s a kettle.

For me ‘tat’ is the kind of thing my well-meaning MIL has bought for DS since his birth — plasticky Halloween decorations (this year he got a shrieking witches’ head, one of those giant fake spiderwebs and a large plastic light-up sign that said Halloween) or Christmas or Easter-related nonsense that will outlive us all in landfill.

It's anything MN is snobby about.

Yep, it's like racist, far right or Nazi - on here that just means anyone I disagree with. And tat is anything the commenter doesn't like.

Tat for me is modern day life detritus. Stuff being stuff for no reason at all. No purpose, no thought, no soul. Think stuff in Christmas gift sets, just there for the sake of being a gift with no purpose other than to fulfil a duty.

Ye olde advent calendars from the 70's/early 80's with pointless plastic figures inside = prototype tat

It is MN snobbery. People who think they have impeccable taste and anything else is tat.

It is also rampant around this time of year, when everyone is dismissing perfectly acceptable gifts in advance because they are not from the "right" brand, even though they were probably made in the same Chinese factory.

Tat on MN means - things that I secretly love, and buy, but act snobby about online to give the illusion that I'm superior to everyone else.

The word tat is almost exclusively used at Christmas and valentines day on here.

I always know the season has truly kicked in when I see my first 'tat' on MN.

I don't remember advent calendars from that era having anything but pictures - chocolate ones weren't around in those days, nor any of the myriad of adult 'beauty' advent calendars.

It's sad that the idea of an advent calendar has changed so much. I used to get genuinely excited opening the windows and seeing the festive pictures, and always the double window on the 24th with a nativity scene behind it.

I live in a tourist destination and we have lots of ‘tat shops’. These are were you go to buy your fridge magnets. I was just in Madrid and they have them there too for all your flamenco dolls made in China needs. This would be my definition of tat. Dd also had a bedroom full of plastic tat she got free in comics or later on stuff she got with her pocket money from Primark.

Excess material items of poor quality. Also tacky. I remember as a teenager me and my sister having a riot looking for the most tat Christmas decorations in Wilko.

We don’t need to define it - William Morris did that back in 1880.

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,"

https://www.facebook.com/groups/170129694940788/posts/936479551639128/

This guy...

It's always been rife here.

Back in the day the term 'twiggy shit' was frequently used for 'tat'.

Ok for me tat is:

• low quality materials and/or badly made
• low in value (even if expensive)
• Little to no practical usefulness - either because it’s just decorative, or because it’s badly made
• Ugly

Tat includes things like cheap wine glasses badly painted with Christmas designs, synthetic jumpers that feel nasty and go bobbly and matted after one wash, mass-produced plastic toys or objects from cheap crackers, cheapo chemical filled bath bombs.

Tat is not inherently linked to Christmas but it does make more of an appearance at Christmas. I try to avoid tat for environmental reasons and because I’ve learned that buying less but better quality stuff is more cost-effective. And tat can be so ugly/naff that it’s funny and I don’t think it’s wrong or snobby to have a laugh at funny tat. (Though I actually haven’t been on many threads about tat myself, but not because I disapprove)

Anything from Shein or Temu.

Yes and this! But this quote is about your personal appraisal of what is useful or beautiful (which is fair enough). However I think it’s possible to also objectively define tat for the purposes of identifying stuff that is bad for the environment and unnecessary.

It looks flat rather than anything that would contain toys and there seems to be debate in the comments about whether it did or didn't 😃

In any event, advent calendars with anything but pictures were rare until the late 80s.