Are you common?

[Swarley]

8 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Which one is posh and which one is for the peasants?

Where do you get your nails done honey?

[BFTD]

7 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Never had you down as a french tips guy. 

French tips, is it? I'd have assumed that was something sexual, were it not for the context.

Admittedly that's my default position on any unfamiliar subject, but still.

[milton75]

On 17/10/2024 at 09:49, The Moonster said:

The faux middle class snobbery absolutely reeking out this thread. Sad to see the common man dragged through the dirt like this. If you weren't born into a position of social rank you are a commoner and no amount of looking down your nose at others will change that. Funny number of people saying "this guy's a p***k" then going through the list desperately trying to prove they aren't common. 

See you all in the street for a kebab and a gin!

 

On 17/10/2024 at 10:20, ManBearPig said:

A lot of Tory types outing themselves in this thread by instantly agreeing that common = bad. I bet you all look like the marzipan faced c**t that came up with this shite.

This is true, although I'll out myself as a potential Tory by being appalled by fake grass and I'm happy that it's been called out.
Having said that, my disgust stems first from the fact that it's environmentally awful, and it doesn't matter to me if it's some manic in a mansion surrounded by 5 acres of the stuff (I've seen this madness on the Shit Planning twitter account), or someone using it to cover their 6x6 foot front yard.
I don't know how I square my vague support for the Green Party's environmental policies with the fact that supporting many of them apparently aligns me with Tories looking down on the working man. In the case of fake grass my main gripe is that I think it's selfish to be needlessly environmentally damaging. I equate selfishness with Toryness, so there's a circle not being squared here.

I also note that any time fake grass is mentioned on Musk's hellsite there are umpteen replies from folk claiming that their poor granny can no longer do the gardening and that therefore fake grass is simply the only option and that it's mean to say otherwise. 
I would have more time for this if a) it was the only option and b) it wasn't the case that most of the time I see it used it's by able-bodied young people in gardens with hotel-style outside furniture, patio heaters, and those f**king chiminea things. Lazy oiks imo.

 

 

[milton75]

On the subject of snobbery, something I find truly depressing is mankind's propensity for inverse snobbery, and the way people who are often from deprived backgrounds can be persuaded or feel pressured to act against their own self interests by a cynical or simply uncaring society. This isn't always conscious, although as Brexit showed there are always snake-oil salesmen happy to encourage the poor to stay poor.
Sometimes these thing happen organically; fashions can certainly be manipulated, but there wasn't a cabal of tailors looking to exploit Harlem residents by selling them zoot suits, and nor was there a secretive gang of jewellers planning to sell gold chains to 80s rappers, but nonetheless it's a shame that people feel pressured to wear any wealth they accumulate literally on their sleeves. I guess a million essays have been written before on overpriced fashion and peer pressure though.

Closer to home there's been lots of discussions here on healthy eating. It's a national disgrace that many people are now 4 generations (possibly starting with wartime rationing, although there are debates on this) for whom fresh nutritious food is seen as less desirable that home-cooked and relatively healthy. You can understand children being wooed by shiny adverts and happy meals, but here are millions of adults who have never had the opportunity to enjoy decent grub and are passing on the bad habits they've inherited to their kids. Inverse snobbery plays a part in this for some - I've seen first hand folk from poor backgrounds who turn their noses up at stews and suchlike made with cheap cuts of meat and so on. Then waste money on takeaway shite. Some of it is the endorphin hit from sugar and salt, but not all. 

For me the most depressing of all these is breastfeeding and if I hadn't heard first-hand examples of this I wouldn't have believed it. There are women and girls here in 21st century Britain who have been conditioned to believe that it's "the done thing" to buy baby food as opposed to breastfeeding their children. It's a horribly tricky topic to navigate, because there trauma for those that can't breastfeed for whatever reason, the risk of making people feel pressured from the other direction, and sometimes the need to get back to work within a certain timescale, that can all affect the choice. But all that aside it's completely unacceptable that anyone should ever be encouraged to believe that breastfeeding is in any way beneath them, and as for the girl I knew in my 20s who told her pal she shouldn't breastfeed as she'd "get her figure back faster" without it, she can get in the bin too.