Snobbery

[Kat]

With regard to the original article, am I the only one who read it and enjoyed it? Like the author, I grew up in an extremely class-conscious environment. Not my immediate family, but the people I went to school with who were primarily from aspirational upper-middle-class and lower-upper-class families, and it showed. I have to say, I get the feeling that San Francisco is more like the US East Coast in terms of class consciousness, maybe it's not quite as apparent, but there's enough money and history and tradition floating around for things to sort themselves out.

From some of my more bitter posts on the board, it's pretty apparent which parts of the culture/class assumptions I revolted against. Somewhere around age 13 I decided I didn't want anything to do with these people anymore. The general assumption was that, once you were in private school, if you could get into a private high school, do that, because, well, you know. It's obviously better. I applied to and got into several private schools and decided not to go, partially out of guilt at seeing how much they cost, and partially because I wanted to avoid my former classmates as much as possible. Around 1/3 of high school students in my city attend private schools, and that number is heavily weighted toward white students, but the public schools aren't actually bad, and the one I went to was very good, generally considered one of the top 2 in the state. Some of my middle school classmates flat-out asked me, "Why are you going there if you got into private school?" and the reaction that I had, which I managed to stifle, was that I wanted to get away from people who thought like that. It wasn't just that, though. There was also this general attitude that we should all aspire to move to the East Coast, because....I don't know. All the best stuff is there. Europe is a step above that on the list of places to aspire to. We should go to school for a good liberal-arts education, and then go to law school, business school, or work for a nonprofit, particularly one in the arts, or go overseas for a job. And then get married and send them to a school just like the one we went to. If you read the alumnae magazine, when people write in with updates on their life, and 90% of them fall into that pattern, or at least pretend to for the sake of the newsletter.Oh, and for one last mildly hilarious snobby thing, in middle school, we had a choice of foreign languages to take, French or Spanish. I understand they are now offering Mandarin as well but that didn't used to be an option. Of the 40 kids in my class, all but 8 took French. In California. Thousands of miles away from the nearest place where you can actually find a collection of native speakers.

I suspect that unless I find someone to marry who makes significantly more money than I do, I will end up in a lower class than I came from, but I don't particularly care. There's a wide segment of educated, upper-middle-class society parodied in "Stuff White People Like" that is all too familiar to me and I'm just not at all interested in being part of, so, well, meh.

ETA: I should probably mention that I've gotten over my bitterness and reverse-snobbery and can actually tolerate some of these things more than I used to be able to. On the other hand, I still want to laugh at my sister, who has moved to Massachusetts and is dating someone from the sort of family that is so stereotypically upper/middle class that I have to pinch myself. LL Bean. Sailing off Cape Cod. Boarding school. She's a very nice person despite all that, but I still have to laugh.

[sologdin]

an extra bit tagged on to the price simply because of the company's reputation.

likely quantifiable as the surplus value extracted from the labor provided by white collar proletarians like blaine. even though it is in itself a substantial product, and an art, when performed with skill, advertising is more fundamentally the medium through which the real product, consciousness, is produced.

blaine--

you have any idea what the ratio of production costs to advertising and marketing costs is for any particular product?

[Hereward]

Convenience? Price? How passé. All of my material goods are bespoke. Hand-made on my vast estate, by my ever diligent and very hardworking peasantry. Why, I cannot ever imagine it elsewise! What an outrageous tragedy that would be!

I like you. Let's do luncheon.

[aimlessgun]

I still hear people talk like class snobbery exists (trailer trash, etc), but I don't think I've really seen people act like snobs to people of a 'lower' class. Maybe it's too subtle.

When consumers don't know which to pick (ie - no advice or prior experience), they ALWAYS choose the same one.

It's so true :frown5:

[Lyanna Stark]

I still hear people talk like class snobbery exists (trailer trash, etc), but I don't think I've really seen people act like snobs to people of a 'lower' class. Maybe it's too subtle.

It can be. In my experience it's more of an exclusion; as when you find yourself with a group of people who are of a completely different class than yourself, you feel like there are codes or small comments you just don't know.

When I was at Uni, I ended up in a dormitory with both old blue blood aristocracy and some people who were definitely from what I would call "upper echelons of the middle class". I'm country side middle class with working class extended family, which is basically a bit better than being a total hick, but not much. You can just tell. It's mannerism, speech, what you eat, drink, lots and lots of little details, like name dropping where you went on holiday, etc etc.

[Guest Raids]

With regard to the original article, am I the only one who read it and enjoyed it? Like the author, I grew up in an extremely class-conscious environment.

For me, it was interesting for the opposite reason. It is totally alien to me. And to the author, who seems to have gone way out of his way to acquire a snobby class-conscious aesthetic (although he also describes his neighborhood as an early Jersey Shore, so I guess I can see how that would happen...).

I grew up in a small town of less than 40,000 people about 3 hours north of Detroit. In high school, I was in debate and moot court and we'd always run up against the blatant east-coast wannabe snobs from the Detroit (suburban Detroit) private schools. They wore bespoke suits to debate competitions and the back bench was basically assigned to be their personal valets during the meets (FYI, "bespoke" was not a word I had ever even heard when I was in high school). Seriously, these people (the JV?) carried the competitors luggage around for them.

I ended up spending a lot of time in Chicago when I was 18 and 19, and I remember feeling utterly - just utterly - out of place downtown, like I was some bumpkin let loose in the big city. I've probably only stopped feeling that way all the time recently.

I suspect that a lot of conservative populism has come about in backlash to these people. Having spent (too much) time in Houston, the wealthy people there just don't act this way. As much.

[Balefont]

People want certain cars because they believe it says something about them. People want certain clothes for the same reason. They choose certain appliances, as they imagine what guests will say when they see them.

Gods I'm glad I'm not one of "those" people. To be so caught up in other people's possessions. Ick. Talk about being a willing slave to consumerism.

Looner, that is your best av yet. :thumbsup:

[Guest Raids]

Somehow I doubt anyone is going to come into this thread and post "I love totally defining myself by my possessions! It's great - you should try it!!!!"

I don't think that's how it works.

In William Gibson's recent book about branding and such - the title is slipping my mind - the main character goes out of her way to purchase clothing and other essential items that convey no message about her whatsoever, but I didn't buy this as the reader because even clothes are are all black and chosen for functionality still communicates a minimalist aesthetic. It's unavoidable.

On the lower-brow end (by this Board's standards, anyway) Maryl Streep's character makes the same point to Anne Hathaway's character in The Devil Wears Prada:

'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.

[Balefont]

Somehow I doubt anyone is going to come into this thread and post "I love totally defining myself by my possessions! It's great - you should try it!!!!"

I don't think that's how it works.

I was responding to Blaine's post about people's thought processes when purchasing things as he is in advertising and I found it distasteful that people do this whether or not is a conscious thought process or not.

In William Gibson's recent book about branding and such - the title is slipping my mind - the main character goes out of her way to purchase clothing and other essential items that convey no message about her whatsoever, but I didn't buy this as the reader because even clothes are are all black and chosen for functionality still communicates a minimalist aesthetic. It's unavoidable.

Me personally, I don't go out of my way to do anything when it comes to buying shit except to maybe get the best deal so I have more money to do the shit I like to do. :dunno:

[Guest Raids]

I was responding to Blaine's post about people's thought processes when purchasing things as he is in advertising and I found it distasteful that people do this whether or not is a conscious thought process or not.

Oh, I know. I think we all think it's distasteful. It's just that we all also do it.

There is a really funny This American Life bit about this also called, I believe, That Guy, where the performer is talking about choosing a deoderant for the first time, and decides to go with Mitchum because of its unobstrusive packaging, and is then put off by their Mitchum Man ad campaign, probably because, you know, he's the kind of guy who's doing a bit on This American Life and the Mitchum Man campaign has been portrayed as - at the inncocuous end - similar to Axe body spray or - at the worst end - like this. And he decides he can no longer be That Guy, and stops buying it. But he's ashamed of himself for not buying it because of a stupid ad. He doesn't want to be That Guy either.

(And check this out - apparently This American Life itself has a pretty strong brand message, or I wouldn't even think about saying "the kind of guy who's doing a bit on This American Life.")

How do you choose what deoderant to buy? When I think about it, I have no brand loyalty. I buy a different kind every time. If someone could get a perfectly clear and also effective one that's not goopy, I'd go with that, but until that day, how to choose one over any other?

Do you just buy the cheapest one on the shelf? Or the first major brand that you see that's on sale?

[Guest Raids]

:lol: Does that really exist? My choices are somewhat limited by the Soviet-era product selection we have at District drugstores.

[Tinydigit]

Ive always felt I was caught between two worlds similar to Leonardo DiCaprios character in The Departed. My parents divorced when I was six months old (I lived with my mom but saw my dad on weekends here and there and holidays) and took some drastically different paths that had me in an economic and cultural tug-of-war as a kid that still is with me today.

The grandfathers worked together at the same place, delivering industrial drums of paint. They were as working class as it gets and not coincidentally, it made both of my mom and my dads family the two poorest in their high school. The only reason my dads family had a little more money is because my grandmother worked as a cashier for 30 years once all three of her kids were in school at least half a day. So my mom and dad both came from the same economic and cultural background, but despite their socioeconomic differences throughout most my lifetime, still have their piss-poor roots on full display if you can look under the mask.

My dad put himself through college (ITT Tech) as a TV repair man and earned a degree in electrical engineering. He started working for an automotive manufacturer and has been in the industry his entire adult life. He is now a senior executive with the trophy wife who grew up so affluent and sheltered she thought a cow was a deer when she saw one for the first time, as a grown woman (he swears by this story and wouldnt ever dare to embarrass her by lying). Outside of the elite group of billionaires in western Michigan (the Amway founders), his home is one of the nicest ones and is regularly featured in the Christmas Parade of Homes tour, magazine, etc. He has the yacht club membership and one of the larger boats on the lake. You get the idea.

But while he has all these nice things that he owns and provides for his wife and daughters, he is working class to his roots. My wife could not believe when she met him for the first time that he was wearing his lucky Michigan sweatpants and sweatshirt that is older than me. He only wears cheap off-the-rack suits and you rarely catch him in anything fancier than a Cabellas sweatshirt at a family gathering. The first cars he bought my sisters both cost almost twice as much as his Dodge truck, the only vehicle he drives for himself, which he loves because it has enough room to haul his hunting decoys and dead shit in. While he does hire someone to maintain his landscaping, the people in his neighborhood think hes nuts because he likes to get up at 4 AM and plow the snow off of the drive leading from the road to the house on his ATV with a plow on the front. It amazed my wife, when we were attending my cousin's wedding in VA, who had at that point known him for years, when he talked about the father of the groom (while they were golfing at a private professional course in Northern Virginia) as a millionaire, with genuine awe in his voice. When she mentioned he is even more of a millionaire, he just shrugged and went on excitedly telling his story about how they gave him a free collared shirt because he wore a t-shirt and you cant golf without a collared shirt.

In comparison, my mom worked as a secretary at a manufacturing plant and my stepdad was an assembly line supervisor. They went into copious amounts of debt to buy nice shiny toys like snowmobiles, a boat, cars, etc. To the point where they had three mortgages on their house when they divorced while I was 13. For the next four years, I lived with my mom and sister in a trailer park where whites were the minority. She never graduated college and only recently, within the last seven years, came into money after marrying her husband, a former executive for a phone company in Chicago. Even though their income took a huge blow when he lost his job, they had to keep up with this Jones in their own socioeconomic group. They have a McMansion in one of the snootiest communities in the Chicagoland area a lake house in Michigan (they bought the only vacant lot left on the lake, a popular resort destination, for a ridiculous amount of money just to not have neighbors on one side and to have it incase). She has to wear the best clothes and even though she is currently remodeling the kitchen in their Chicago home, she called me the other day to tell me that she isnt getting me anything for my birthday because the renovations are just so expensive and that she is already spending so much on flying to see her grandson after he is born.

I may have rambled a little above, but I wanted to paint an accurate picture because I was always caught between those two worlds as a kid and an adult. My friends now give me strange looks and wave the bullshit flag because one minute I make a comment at a private wine tasting about the microbrewery my dad was a partner in and our annual vacations, but the next I am telling a funny anecdote about living in a trailer park to my peers who think going to see a movie at a theater is crass (one should only attend the opera or ballet for entertainment and culture).

I feel like I dont have a class to call my own… for better or worse. I can be very snobbish about some things and feel right at home with the riff raff on others.

[Alexia]

We should go to school for a good liberal-arts education, and then go to law school, business school, or work for a nonprofit, particularly one in the arts, or go overseas for a job.

Working for an arts-based nonprofit is desirable for the upper classes? :uhoh:

[Lyanna Stark]

tinydigit,

Can I just say that I thought your class/life story was amazing. :)

I felt I had some weird class discontinuity at Uni when I'd hang out with proper old nobility and privately educated upper middle class people, attending proper University balls with old fashioned speeches and ballroom dancing, and then come home and help my parents' neighbours (farmers and proper, lovely country side hicks :) ) with the hay harvest. My mum always thought it was really crazy how I'd speak so differently when I was on the phone to my Uni friends, while I could understand, and take part in, the worst type of gruelly local fisherman slang as well.

Oh and my old friends would complain about guys in the local hotel/bar/pub/club (we only had one, ok? :P) still smelt of cow when they tried to hit on her. :o

(For all the Swedes around: Morupikanska is an aquired taste indeed :) )

Still, I feel you have me beat on all accounts. :lol:

[Blaine]

The internet must change this up, no? People look for what level of quality they want first and then go shop for the lowest price?

You'd think, but not as much as you probably guess. It makes people more bargain conscious, but it doesn't change their core belief that BRAND X (more expensive) is vastly superior to BRAND Y (cheaper), even when presented with empirical evidence that they are the same product in different packaging.

I've been shopping for a new toaster for, like, over a year now. All the available options are terrible.

ETA: It's funny that it's the same product Blaine mentioned. Blaine what is the European toaster you speak of?

Honestly I don't know. Maybe DeLongi? It's something my wife bought at Williams Sonoma, whereas I would've been fine getting my bread toasted in the Sunbeam toaster from Target I used as a bachelor.

Also note, I don't know shit about toasters and their marketing, it was just an example that came to mind. Because, you know. I write flowery shit about all kinds of product features, but fucking toast is toast.

Blaine, I find this fascinating and wonder if it was intentional or not.

The "most expensive" and "the best" are not synonymous so why the switch?

The switch indicates what "we" the marketers and manufacturers and retailers know. The product is set at a more expensive price point. In the mind of the consumer, it perceived by them as "good - better - best" or some variation thereof, but it's all planned out. Each price break, each level of purchase indicates higher value.

I probably go back and forth more than most, because my job is to translate marketing goals into words that the consumer will associate with quality.

you have any idea what the ratio of production costs to advertising and marketing costs is for any particular product?

It varies. Wildly. Depends on the size of audience, mainly. If it's national or international, chances are the production is cheap and high volume and the ad/marketing is many times higher - mostly for media buys on that scale.

Like anything, the more units created, the lower the costs. But just as likely, higher marketing costs to move them.

The only ones I can speak of on that level are some former tobacco clients, who charge several dollars for what costs under a dime to package and produce. But they're also taxed out the ass on either end and their advertising ability is crippled by legislation, but they still make shitloads.

Another prominent client makes tiny medical implants. Sells maybe a hundred a year. And production is insanely expensive. And their ad budget is tiny and focused on one audience, physicians.

So, it's all over the place. I'm sure someone's done studies, but from where I sit, it's entirely random.

Gods I'm glad I'm not one of "those" people. To be so caught up in other people's possessions. Ick. Talk about being a willing slave to consumerism.

Everyone says that. Not saying you're not the rarest of exceptions, but aside from actual recluses living in mountain caves and growing their own food, we are influenced by marketing.

(And check this out - apparently This American Life itself has a pretty strong brand message, or I wouldn't even think about saying "the kind of guy who's doing a bit on This American Life.")

Exactly. I'm not saying it rules all decisions, but it influences all decisions, whether we want it to or not. Everything, from the background music in the ad, the voiceover guy's tone, the pantone color on the label to the font selected for the logo tells us something that will influence us to buy or not buy.

[Guest Raids]

Working for an arts-based nonprofit is desirable for the upper classes? :uhoh:

Yes. A hundred times, yes. So much so, that it is what all of Patty's worthless, east coast upper class, overly educated, narcissistic siblings do in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom.

It's not a trend, or a statistical fact, or anything - it's progressed well beyond that into a full-blown stereotype.

Don't you ever ask yourself how anyone can afford to do the work at the salary that's paid? Trust funds.

[Alexia]

Yes. A hundred times, yes. So much so, that it is what all of Patty's worthless, east coast upper class, overly educated, narcissistic siblings do in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom.

It's not a trend, or a statistical fact, or anything - it's progressed well beyond that into a full-blown stereotype.

Ha! I guess maybe I'll have to read Freedom then.

Don't you ever ask yourself how anyone can afford to do the work at the salary that's paid? Trust funds.

No, because I do it without a trust fund as do 99.99% of the people I work with. Then again, I've never been employed by the Kennedy Center, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, or the Washington Ballet so maybe the stereotypes hold true there.

[Guest Raids]

Just curious - do you really know for sure that you don't work with anyone like that? I know people who have parents that paid for their law school and their down payment on their mortgage, etc., but don't let the people that they work with know anything about it.

[Fez]

Dunno about that. I worked at a non-profit theatre company for a several summers during college and there weren't really any trust fund babies there, it was all the struggling actor type. And it was the various creative people who doubled as most of the various administrative positions, except the CFO who was an actual businessman brought in to keep an eye on things. There were some well-off college kids like me there to get some job experience and a little pocket money but that was about it. And we were closely involved with all the other artistic groups in the area (and there are a lot in that part of Mass.) and it seemed to pretty much be the same everywhere else.

It always seemed that all those really rich folks just wanted to be board members at all the various org.s and get invites to all the parties; not actually DO anything.

[Alexia]

Just curious - do you really know for sure that you don't work with anyone like that? I know people who have parents that paid for their law school and their down payment on their mortgage, etc., but don't let the people that they work with know anything about it.

I suppose that's certainly possible but in general I tend to know a bit about the lifestyles of my co-workers. Nobody lives particularly lavishly - in fact, only the bosses have owned their own homes.

+1 to Fez - that was pretty much my experience. At the theater I worked beside musicians, actors, and dancers. My brush with rich people was through the board and special events.