Does being rude come with Nouveau Riche territory?

[Slinky1460]

Just had a few days out and about, one day at a car event where we treated ourselves to first time ever hospitality, and a couple of days in a nice hotel by the beach.

Both venues were amazing but I couldn't help but notice both seemed to be dominated by 30-something couples or groups of very entitled people being unnecessarily demanding or rude to the staff.

Now, if your thing is swigging magnums of Whispering Angel, regaling stories of your time flipping between the UK and Dubai, asking your little darlings to act out for your insta then reading their school reports out during breakfast - great, you do you. But being rude to the waiting staff, never saying please and thank you, and actually believing you're the most important person in the room was embarrassing.

AIBI to think this isn't acceptable behaviour and flashing the cash is just plain vulgar?

😂

I agree with @SinisterPeaches that we like to believe in the myth of the gracious aristocrat. There probably are some like that, but not as many as people think.

It's like we say somebody is 'a prince amongst men' and expect lovely gracious behaviour. But a lot of the time is the reality more like (former) Prince Andrew berating the domestic staff because his teddies weren't put back in the right order? And screaming at them to run upstairs to close the curtains for him.

In reality probably most of the aristocracy treated those they had power over badly. In the recent past it was common for them to not pay tradesmen's bills and regard it as cheeky if they kept asking. Apparently my great grandfather (a blacksmith) used to have a lot of trouble with that from the local 'gentry: Stately homes were not run like 'Downton Abbey', they had no interest in their domestic staff as people, and the servants were often required to turn and face the wall when the family passed by.

Those on top have a tendency to treat those below them badly. A depressing side of human nature.

You are being unreasonable to suggest that new money is rude and vulgar old money is polite. It’s nonsense but you’ll find evidence to reaffirm your prejudice, because that will be what you are looking for.

By far the rudest people I ever had to deal with when I worked in hospitality weren't 'nouveau riche'. They were usually either more 'vieux riche' or upper-middle class, rather than the kind of people who would go to Dubai.

I think in general, wealth - whether recently acquired or otherwise - for some people brings with it a colossal sense of entitlement and superiority. But the key word is 'some'.

I think anyone who grows up in an abusive household with a violent alcoholic father will be a damaged individual - money or no money, the scars will be apparent.

I think he was doing his job, which was to pass on U speech shibboleths to his charges in preparation for public school, and not letting the non-U speech of the museum staff infect them! Lots of period novels depict upper-class parents despairing at the lower-middle-class table manners and speech (saying 'pardon' etc) their young children have been taught by their governesses, and how they need to be sent to school ASAP to break them of these non-U habits.

I mean, like it or not, that's class in action, replicating itself, making sure only the right type are allowed inside the fold.

Lots of top public schools now are obviously full of oligarch children and their international equivalents, who need to be taught the correct ways, otherwise the most famous public schools lose all their cachet, which relies on ideas of tradition and elitism, and would rather have Prince George toddling about in the tailcoat than Wayne Rooney's sons.

Having worked in finance ranging from debt collection to generation wealth planning, I don't believe money fundamentally changes inner personality.

If someone is an asshole poor, they are an asshole rich - just a bigger one.
If someone is a decent person, that remains consistent imho.

Financial stresses may cause temporary behaviour changes but the decent people always apologise, the assholes don't.

The only rude people I’ve encountered this year were pre- nouveau riche, pre- mounjaro women in Lidl, dressed in tight black clothing, who were unable to move out of peoples way, reply, smile, or register other people’s existence. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. À strongly disapproving air toward everyone, whilst looking like unmissably visible XX-Large wannabe ninjas.
Id much prefer some Instagram crazed loadsamoney types instead. Society has dumbed down to such a degree that I’m becoming grateful if people can string a sentence together, move their facial muscles, and step aside when required.

It’s this 100%. Mumsnet has a lot of people who enjoy being very performatively middle class for some reason and part of that is a nudge nudge wink wink routine about the nouveau riche vs the real PLTs so we can all be clear they know the social code and which side of the divide they’re on.

If anything, the desperate class signalling is the new LOADSAMONEY behaviour 😉

Yes it is the nouveau riche. The point is they didn’t always have this money so now think they’re better than those who still don’t. Usually they’re not actually that well off - lots of cars etc on tick. You can smell them a mile off, they may have come up a bit but you can’t buy class or taste and generally their behaviour shows it.

Yes - as another pp said upthread, there are nice people and assholes in all walks of life. But the combination of sudden wealth with a horrible personality is a disastrous one because it gives nasty people a lot of power to play with.

I totally agree. That's why, though I love a costume drama, I've never been able to stomach Downton Abbey. The UCs didn't treat their staff like that! If Lady Mary or whoever treated her maid as a friend and an equal...wouldn't the maid soon start to wonder why Lady M was a Lady, and she was just a maid?? It was important to keep the lower classes at arm's length and the subliminal message was 'they are not like us'. If people hadn't believed this (the servants as well as the masters) the system could not function.

Of course aristocrats can be caring, responsible and genuinely wish for the happiness of their staff - and wise ones did - but in the end, they're still staff and they need them to remain in that role.

If you were in and around the Chichester area for this car event then I 100% know the types you mention.
Having worked in and around West Sussex and Surrey with the public the people with ‘new money’ are definitely more obnoxious haha
i always find those from ‘old money’ are generally more well mannered and polite.
Obviously I’m making generalisations but you do notice the difference!

You aren’t correct there. If you do more reading you will see that class roles were embedded in our society and household structures were hierarchical and, importantly, not just patriarchal but also matriarchal. This is pre Social Services. The Lord and lady were responsible for their staff and loyalty was more often huge and deep rather than based on fear or mere obedience.

Some people like to judge and put down others - people from all walks of life.

We had someone come into our house for the first time and say 'Is THAT your main telly?' while nodding towards our small TV. It was! They were stunned and very disdainful.

It's not rocket science - we were from different tribes. Our house is full of books and we don't want an ugly TV dominating the room. His house had a cinema-screen telly and no books. I would have judged him too for his lack of books, but I wouldn't have expressed it to him!!!

We're all snobs of one sort or another.

"Nouveau Riche" 😂😂is it 1976? Ahhh we can't have the oiks getting above their station eh?

There's only so much generalisation one can do @Slinky1460 . I think there is a type of person who matches the type you describe, and they may be 'nouveau riche' or in debt,but the same sort of rudeness is found across society as others have pointed out.

You only have to read any thread here to see it - one after another posters talk down to and insult one another one another. It gives people a sense of superiority & power.

I think some people can be rude because they're insecure - the late queen was famously polite & good tempered but she had hundreds of people who believed in her as the monarch and didnt feel the need to assert her position or authority - she didn't get angry with people because she had others who could do that for her.

I can't get past thinking someone buying whispering angel is classed as splashing the cash. I am missing the rest of the post spectacularly I am sure.

Ironically, the disdain for the nouveau riche was largely born from the insecurity of old
money who found themselves in reduced circumstances whilst suddenly being overtaken by the upstarts. It was a way to reaffirm their status and say “you may have more money, but we’re still your social superiors!”.

A salve for the bruised cd ego, basically. Made all the more obvious by the fact that whilst sneering at the nouveau riche, old money families were sending their sons across the Atlantic to trade titles for capital (the dollar princesses).

Weirdly though, the people who seem to dine out on this trope the most are neither old nor new money.

I am always struck by how rude some of the guests are to staff on Below Deck, the reality show. But ofc I am aware that that is probably an extreme example for television and not realistic! And those guests get some kind of discount I think for it being televised. They are rich but not super super rich.

The “ new money” idea came from those that were hired by the middle classes and noticed that were treated High handedly instead of with the easy respect with which old money moves through the world. Basically the upstarts tried to feign poshness and failed, and the only people that suffered from this was the class that provided service.
hyacinth bucket types, originally.

I don't disagree with any of that - and I don't think there's anything in my post which disagrees with it???

Manners cost nothing whoever you are. I’d have just rolled my eyes and ignored them. They sound ill mannered and entitled. Being polite costs nothing.
Money does corrupt people though. It is sad.

You can communicate your dissatisfaction by explaining what the issue is and why it's displeasing you without shouting, ranting, being nasty, snide etc. Generally waiting or bar staff aren't in the position to address the root causes

In MN terminology " use your words". Well off people, especially old money, seem to be able to achieve it (and sometimes brutally I might add) but without being performative about it.

Stood in a queue waiting to board our flight from France and you can’t move for them. Loud, performative conversations, lack of personal space, seeming to try to outdo each other with tales of where they’ve been of how expensive their sunglasses were as they drop them on the floor. DH has relegated me to earbuds and Coldplay because I think my muttering FFS, SSSH let’s hear the fucking announcement, glaring and sighing was escalating to me openly and loudly saying ehat a bunch of dicks. I may just start singing to Coldplay.