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

Im repeating what I’ve heard other people say. I do not believe only middle class people can eat salmon obviously. Just saying I’ve seen people hating the middle class for eating certain things and yes for clearly explaining things to their kids.

And the people saying these things include the words “middle class”.

How peculiar Not something in come across

You're absolutely right OP. It's tiresome. Funnily enough I watched JAWS (again) the other day, and the line said by Hooper (Dreyfuss) ' I don't need this working class hero crap!' really struck a chord this time.

Everything the pp's have said ref reverse snobbery being ok apparently ..oh Tarquin and Jemima must love their gap yar.. but god forbid anyone says anything like Reece and Lucy-Mae are off to Greggs again, in a derogatory way. Or it's ok to slate private school kids and parents but perish the thought anyone criticises the feckless parenting of a state school kid.

A lot of the time it comes down to envy, some people have more money than others. And some people cannot stand that fact and make victimhood and chips on their shoulder their way of life.

During the private school VAT shambles, and the associated vitriol from some people, I decided to start ignoring them all. I couldn't care less about them now. they need to grow up.. Perhaps make a better life for themselves rather than blaming others for their perceived life status.

If you don't want to be lectured on your privilege you can always point out that you are in fact as WC as they are. You're a WC person who is educated and eats healthily. Like millions of others. Like me in fact. WC, degree, professional job, vegan, go to NT properties and even (shock!) the theatre!
Because you're coming at this the wrong way. You're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist for MC people, who typically wouldn't give two hoots if someone sneered at their sourdough bread on FB. They wouldnt even see those peoples posts, would they?
You care because as an educated WC person you are setting yourself apart from other WC people, when really you'd do better forgetting about class altogether. Eat your avocado and your sourdough and crack on with your life. Far fewer people care what's in your sandwich than you think.

Yes - that kind of opinion isn't worth considering seriously.

I was once sitting (in my own little world) as a student, reading a book in a Manchester station waiting room. I gradually became aware of laughter and sneering and realised that some unpleasant people (middle aged - ought to have known better) were having a go at me for reading and being 'stuck up' and 'up myself' and 'thinking I'm better than other people'. Huh??? I was just reading my book!!

Not a nice experience, but who cares about the opinions of idiots like that?

I have. Was explicitly told off at work for casually using the world ' wield' in conversation. Makes me a mc snob apparently

The fact you used the word 'wield' is flabbergasting.

Why? I use lots of words.

Flabbergasting is pretty rare, you have to admit?

I like both words. I was alluding to a recent Traitors episode, where someone was laughed at for using the word 'flabbergasted'. Don't worry - you're obviously not as sad as me and so don't watch Traitors :)

It's horrible that people wish to impoverish the language - why would anyone want to do that? It can only be a chippiness that someone's used a word they don't know. Some people are unbelievably insecure!! When I hear or read a word I don't know, I look it up.

I’m middle class and proud and don’t see why I should have to lie about it.

I still don’t want to hear lectures on my privilege from train drivers earning more than twice what I do, and the wives of builders who go on holiday abroad three times a year. The idea working class people are poorer than middle class is really outdated even twenty years ago when I was a kid you had kids whose parents had working class jobs that had way more money than us middle class kids. And now we even have affirmative action for some apprenticeship type things for older teens raised in working class households 🙄

What criteria are you using to self define as MC out of interest? Because its not your background or income or your 'privilege'. So what in your mind sets you apart from the train driver or the builders wife? Because the tone and language in your posts, your self expression and preoccupation with class signifies means to me you're coming across as a WC person who is trying to false team with MC people against other WC people.

Same criteria most people who discuss this use my childhood and my current occupation (behind a desk as opposed to manual labour). Not my income my job is poorly paid middle class. Most people who talk about this agree income is irrelevant (which makes it all the more jarring when they’re calling people who earn less than them privileged) Which is why this class thing reminded me of a discussion I had back in 2021 when BLM was going on and someone was insisting a poor white person had more privilege than the child of a black millionaire (Kanye wests kids we were talking about)

Im not preoccupied with it I’ve just noticed other people are and I’m discussing it.

How do you define it if it’s not your background, income or privilege?

I think there is no consensus on the definition. Some people say you remain the class you were born and that any change due to the life you create only takes effect for the next generation. Other people think you can change class through education, job or wealth.
Some people its defined by whether you have a profession.
Basically the definition gets flexed by people to whom its important to belong to a particular class to ensure the criteria includes them.
I'm a miners daughter raised in a pit cottage, with a degree and a professional job. I eat healthily, read, play piano, enjoy theatre, museums and galleries. I have a strong regional accent. My partner left school at 16, and is trade and drives a white van. This year I've been to Florence and Tallin on short breaks and we've an all inclusive booked in Teneriffe. We are comfortable financially.
What class are we do you think? And if we had children what class are they?

Educated working class for you.

Agree. That's how I'd define myself.

Exactly, this talk about classes is outdated! Why does it even matter? Or are you bothered that some working class people are now out earning and can afford more than you?

Why are middle class people so hung up on class?

I'm more interested why so many people think MC is a thing to aspire to. Just why?

I'm very interested in sociology and social class.

But it's so hard to have a sensible discussion about class in this country! I don't know if it's a simpler matter elsewhere (and please - no-one try to claim that other countries don't have classes...).

Any discussion is just doomed to failure for so many reasons:

• people can't agree on what defines class
• people have bizarre ideas and prejudices about class
• people can be chippy and this warps their views

Is it your birth and upbringing? Or your achievements and current profession? Is it wealth? (Er...definitely not that).

I once heard a ragged tramp in Manchester (Kendal Milne's store, late 1970s) shouting at a cashier 'City of the North? Third-rate piss-arsing village!' in Old Etonian accents. What was he? I think he was still upper middle class, despite his current situation.

If the boot was on the other foot and we took Melvyn Bragg (say) as an example, I'd say he too was defnitely mc even though his origins were working class. Oxford educated (in the days when grammar schools made this possible for so many wc youngsters) and part of the intelligentsia. But perhaps intellectuals and academics are a class in themselves.

Basically, it's just doomed to failure - any attempt we make to discuss social class, here or anywhere else!

I can only speak from personal experience, but I've very, very rarely come across snobbery from MC or UMC people. I have experienced a lot of chippiness and resentment from people who perceive themselves NOT to be MC, though. Some people are just insecure, chippy and resentful by nature and it's not an attractive trait.

Not quite the same thing, but I once went out for dinner to a local Italian restaurant with members of my team (some of whom fall into this category). The staff there were always lovely. I was shocked when one of them (who until then I'd thought of as a nice woman) was really rude to the poor Italian waitress who tried to help her pronounce tagliatelle. The waitress did this so nicely, and when I've been helped in this way myself, I've always been grateful. But OMG! This woman flew at her and spent the rest of the evening saying what a snooty bitch she was, correcting her pronunciation.

I saw this colleague in a difrerent light after that!

Yes, that BBC Great British Class Calculator from a few years back put me as 'elite', presumably on the grounds of household income, socialising with everyone from lorry drivers to CEOs and liking opera -- but that's completely off.

I'm a binman's daughter married to a binman's son. My parents left school at 13. I grew up dirt poor nextdoor to a halting site, without much food, space or attention. I got out via education, as did DH, but there's no point in anyone pretending that our childhoods and our families don't still define us to an extent, and that large parts of our ways of being in the world are going to be very different to those of someone else who is equally comfortably off now and likes opera and theatre, but grew up in Hampstead, the child of an architect and a classical musician, or a Tory MP and a QC, and attended a prep and then a public school and went on as a matter of course to Oxbridge.

I'm educated working-class, and have no aspiration to be otherwise. DS is probably middle-class, but he still has the fact of having grandparents who were binmen and cleaners, and having uncles and aunts on both sides who work in ill-paid jobs in care homes and in retail. He's not ever going to think that anonymous 'lesser' people empty the bins, mop the floors and wipe the bottoms, because those people are his family.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec5093/index.stm

I think many would say you’re working class. What class your kids are would depend on whether you or your husband are the main earners while they’re young (assuming it’s your husband because in most families it is which makes the kids working class too)

I wasnt hung up on it until I noticed a lot of working class people are hung up on it and hate middle class people for having hobbies.

I’ve always earnt less than most working class people even when I was a kid twenty years ago the working class kids with tradesmen dads had a lot more money than us middle class kids. Which is fine good for them but I resent that some of them want to paint the middle class as all rich snobs when in 2026 and even back in 2006 plenty of working class families are a lot better off than the middle class

Oh, right. Fair enough: no, I haven't seen it.

That's a weird theory. Why would a child's social class be dependent on the job of whichever of their parents is the main breadwinner?