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

Back when 90% of people toiled in factories though.

It seems talking about your sexuality and ethnicity has sort of fallen off in the past couple of years and the new thing is to talk about how working class you are (even if you’re a lot wealthier than the average person)

It sounds like it’s turned into one of those polarised, binary things that exist mainly on social media. The best way to avoid that is spend less time on sm.

“Inverted snobbery” is a load of bollocks. Middle class people taking offence to certain stereotypes (which are usually not even bad in themselves) or characterised in a way they don’t like is NOTHING compared to the discrimination that people from disadvantaged backgrounds can face. People assuming you’re not intelligent or properly educated, that you must be unemployed or a criminal, making loads of negative assumptions based on your accent is all much, much worse than someone assuming you play tennis or something. The worst is difference in the way some medical professionals treat you, assuming you’re on drugs, looking for painkillers, barbiturates etc, assuming you’re a bad parent, generally speaking to you in a horrible, judgmental way then perfectly pleasant to the next person because they consider them respectable.
It is shit growing up and living in a poorer section of society. You are literally disadvantaged in so many ways and looked down on.
“Middle class” (I don’t think that term describes it very well in modern society but for want of another) people are privileged and have so many advantages. The things people assume about them are generally positive. You cannot seriously draw a parallel between actual discrimination and people feeling (often justifiably) hard done by and some silly stereotyping.

I agree OP. These “I’m working class me” people who are quite clearly wealthy and educated really annoy me. I don’t think these categories work anymore. Where do the unemployed class fit? Where do the contract workers fit?

I went to see a comedy show recently with about 8 different comedians. At least 80% of them talked about class, how they were working class with middle class children…. It was a bit 🙄

Some folk make having lived in a Council house as a child a badge of honour. Pathetic.

I saw Jason Manford do such a sketch in this vein, I found it cringe

If they think they’re getting judged, assumed to be a bad parent etc just because their daddy scrubbed sewers they should try being 16 with a child. Then you really are getting judged ESPECIALLY if you grew up and act middle class. Then it’s all “how did this privileged bitch fuck up”
anyway I’m sure 99% of these working class people claiming they got judged for being working class are paranoid I mean how does anyone know for one unless you tell them.

Yeah I’ve seen this, some of them seem to resent their own kids for having nicer things than what they had as a kid… even though they brought the kid said things.

Not too different to the parents who buy their kids phones/computers then moan about the youth of today always using their phones/computers

Yes it is annoying as are the class indicators people drop in to conversation/post on social media to let others know they are (more often than not) middle class

I was aware having lived abroad that it is not such a part of other cultures plus going to a school where there were very upper middle class children (who went off to boarding school after middle school). It was even more apparent how class divides our society and how almost obsessive, of course in a non verbal way, it is for many when ds went to private school

OP, you literally started your post by telling us you were working class. Yawn

I didn’t, I said I’ve been broke before, before everyone would start accusing me of being “privileged” I grew up middle class and married middle class. Apparently it’s a “vibe” you can’t escape from so even when I had nothing I was middle class.
As anyone who’s heard these people talking knows they say they can become millionaires and still be working class and a duke can lose all his money tomorrow and still be upper class

Are you still a teenager by any chance? Because you sound like one.

And you don’t with this snarky comment?

I noticed this too, I mean I get it if it was some tower block in the worst part of some city.

But a house in a town? Like millions of other people? Lol

I find it really boring when someone always feels they have to explain their humble origins. I had a colleague who went to private school and if it ever came up he’d make a big deal of how he went on a scholarship and his parents were poor. He could never just say “oh I went to X school”.

And a friend who lives on the nice side of town and can’t stop telling everyone that she grew up on a council estate and never thought she’d live somewhere posh like that when she was young but her DH’s business took off when they were in their thirties and then they had money blah blah blah. Nobody asks or cares but she seems to feel the need to say it anyway.

You literally ( correct usage this time) misread the post.

Yawn.

I tend to agree inverted snobs are very bit as insufferable as straight up snobs.

To be fair, it is sometimes pushback against the patronising attitudes of middle class and wannabe middle class posters who dominate mumsnet.

So no one is in fact ‘droning on’ about being working-class?

They are, as many posters have agreed

Class has become too caught up in aspects of people's identity and the social and cultural significance of their hobbies, holidays and lifestyle. Far more 'middle class' people are actually 'workers' whether they want to identify as such or not. I'm an academic and teach at a university which you would think would make me middle class. When you actually break down my role, I'm a worker. I can be sacked, made redundant, have to go on strike to protect my terms and conditions, and have little control over my employment status. I sell my intellectual skills rather than my physical labour but I'm still selling myself for a price for 40 hours a week. In fact I was happier in minimum wage jobs (cleaner, factory worker) because at least they didn't expect me to take work home and do an extra 15 hours a week for no pay.

Actually I’m proud to be middle class because I came from a really poor background where education wasn’t respected and where you did well if you became a secretary. I worked hard to leave that world amd go to university where I was the only one who was sending money home rather than having money sent to me. I’ve got a great career which I managed to progress in despite being a single mother for years and am now pretty comfortable. So yes, I’m proud to call myself middle class because I’ve earned it!

But online, not in RL, where people also, under the cloak of anonymity, discuss their toilet brushes, liking for pimple popping videos, marital troubles etc. And where you can choose to scroll past. ‘Droning on’ implies you’re locked in conversation from which you can’t escape.

But, while you’ve admirably got yourself out of poverty, I wouldn’t say you’ve changed social class, although your children may be MC. DH and I did similar, and though our DS is certainly middle class, I’d class us both as ‘educated working class’. Our early lives are still too constitutive of our experience.

My current social circle is exclusively people who don’t play into identity politics type stuff, you could say I live in an irl echo chamber.
When I was in college there were a fair few people obsessed with making their sexuality their personality and victimhood and of course the mixed race people who would talk about their non white side for hours but were deeply ashamed of their white parent.

I no longer interact with anyone like that but am in doubt they still exist I’ve just noticed that that type of person has moved on from talking about gender/ethnicity and moved onto their class. Judging by teitter/x and celebrities in the media not just mumsnet

*no doubt