To find people who drone on about how working class they are annoying?

[Bunnyfluffo]

And insulting people for being middle class.

Before you start calling me a snob I come from nothing lived in a homeless shelter with my first child when I was 16. But apparently Ive got interests and hobbies that apparently make me insufferably middle class 🙄 normal stuff like reading books and eating healthy.

Sometimes these people are working jobs where they earn far more than middle class people but because 50 years ago it was considered “working class” they make it their whole personality.

It seems like identity politics around ethnicity and sexuality got boring and they’ve moved on to this. Don’t even get me started on the ones who are actually well off but grandpa worked scrubbing sewers so they call themselves working class.

Not to mention the hatred of so called “middle class” people for having innocuous hobbies and interests like bird watching

I agree and I’m from a working class background.

A few people I’ve come across have had such a massive WC chip on their shoulder it may as well be a fucking potato!

I only ever witness class being discussed on this forum. In rl it not something many of us think about. The reality is that there are different people-types but so many grey areas it’s a very clunky way to group people.

Yeah I first noticed it on mumsnet, then x/twitter, now I sometimes see it mentioned on the news. Agree I’m yet to see it mentioned irl but is it a spreading trend?

YABU to say that hobbies and interests such as reading, bird watching and eating healthily are middle class.

That's what annoys me. Middle class people who say you can't be working class if you're educated, earn decent money or have these sorts of hobbies. Because their idea of a working class person involves offensive stereotypes such as being loud, uneducated, living on fast food and valuing conspicuous consumption.

I agree. No one I know in real life discusses it. It's only on here I see people being obsessed with class.

I’m just repeating what I’ve heard others saying. I do agree with you, god forbid someone has a damn hobby lol

I think it was fairly clear that OP didn’t have these views, she called them “normal” things and said they “apparently” made her middle class. She’s talking about other people saying that those things make her middle class, not that she personally believes working class people can’t do them.

If you're not hearing it in real life why does it matter?

I don’t experience people announcing it but it is frequently referred to in brands, holiday destinations and so on.

You probably know a handful of people like this and you find them irritating. I don’t think it’s a significant section of society. These few people who you know have perhaps given you impression that it’s more widespread.
I had one aunt like this many years ago. She annoyed me with her PITA comments and inverted snobbery. But I haven’t known anyone like her since. Thankfully, 😅

I actually haven’t talked about the Iran war irl either so what I hear irl is irrelevant plus I’m seeing it mentioned more and more online and in the news so seems to be a spreading trend. It seems people are less obsessed with what gender they are and have moved onto what class they are

Perhaps it depends on one's online feed. I only ever see it on here. Mumsnet seems to be obsessed with it.

I have a friend who never misses an opportunity to make a barbed comment about (me) being middle class. Our GP surgery is great. “Well it would have to be in your middle-class area.” The river flooded last year and the environment agency have worked wonders shoring up the bank, ensuring it doesn’t happen again. “As long as the middle class families of X town don’t get wet, I suppose”. If any of my other friends retire, she makes a nasty comment about the fat pension they must be on (most of my friends are academics or worked in the NHS). I have never said anything because I can’t trust myself to say it nicely.
The infuriating thing is she works in education, owns 3 properties and her partner is a bloody artist who hasn’t worked for decades. I mean how much more middle class could she be!

Except that is in no way what OP said. They said they are perceived as such by chippy " I'm working class, me" types (who are often in white collar jobs but hang on desperately to the label). Which is true. And tbh you sound like one. I don't know a single mc person snobby about hobbies.

Admitting to liking difficult novels or reading non fiction can get you the same reaction and it's beyond tedious. 'Like what you like' is the beginning and end of it to me.

“how middle class” seems to be used as an insult kind of how “that’s privileged white people stuff” was used in 2021 to describe someone eating a salad or reading a book etc.
It seems to be the latest identity politics thing, especially tedious when these people are usually a lot better off than you

I had to say it but there is something to the contention that British society HATE anyone who does well or who (in their view) gets out of their lane. And by “does well” I mean such wildly aspirational activities as going to the theatre, having a drink in a bar that isn’t Wetherspoons, having a meal in a restaurant where they didn’t microwave it, reading books, and having the temerity to move away from the shitty small town they born in.

I agree and I was from a very poor family, poor even by the standards on our council estate. Thanks to a grammar school, I got interested in reading and doing nice things and am now solidly MC. But how it annoys me when my MC in-laws and friends say things like how they can’t understand the working classes voting Tory (had to bite my tongue at that one from SIL) or that they are idiots for voting reform or they dare to hold views that aren’t pro refugees or pro benefits.

I have definitely seen class talked about in real life but would say I’d seen the opposite to what OP observed. I think maybe it’s around social mobility? Those who move up feel guilty and almost reject the label and those who were up to start worry their kids might move down? Mostly those mentioning it (from my experience as a private nanny) middle class who used to be working class want to avoid being seen as working class so talk about it at home (instructions to nanny regarding appearance of the family) the odd . Or one upper middle class mum with a strong northern accent thinking she wasn’t part of the school clique because they assumed she was working class (I think she was probably correct there).

my dad was very working class and married my well off mother. He acted like it was offensive that he’s not working class anymore. He was very pub social so had to remain working class or loose his friends/identity I think. And my mother was embarrassed by this- she had married down and came from a family when you never talk about class but you exert extreme energy maintaining your higher position. She’s not proud of my working class career choices either.

Predictably turned into a 'those awful snobby MC types' thread, neatly proving OP's point.

Inverted snobbery is rife. Just admit it.

Yes I see this often OP. When anyone is decribed as 'Middle class' there's normally a negative undertone.

Plus - these labels are completely meaningless anyway, as you point out.

I remember, growing up, my family would have been be seen as middle class, but we were the Radio 4 and eurocamp kind of middlle class family, not the Skiiing holidays and Disneyworld kind of middle class.

The kids whose dads were builders and plumbers were richer than us.

I don't see too much of it on MN generally. I'm wondering if you've read a specific recent thread, though.

What I find odd is when people say they’re ‘proud’ to be working class. It’s not as if they were asked before birth what class they’d like to be born into - ‘Ooh, working class please!’

You can be proud of something you’ve done/achieved, but I don’t see where pride comes into it. Imagine the scorn on here if anyone said they were proud to be middle or upper class!’

Incessant rage and fury if someone said they were proud to be middle class, definitely a big double standard

I’ve seen it mentioned on a few threads and loads on twitter now and on tv as well. Middle class is always used as an insult for someone with hobbies and interests like bird watching or baking plus anyone who takes pride in their children.
And working classers apparently being oppressed by evil middle classers (even though many working class jobs earn way more money)
I see a lot less gender stuff than I did a couple years ago and wonder have people moved on to this bullshit instead

A couple of things - first, I was amused that you needed to state your WC opinions before you started.

Secondly, you've never actually heard anyone IRL "droning on".

So on both of those points YABU