why is DCUM so obsessed with social class/status?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many threads on strivers, is this trashy/low class, how to fit in with the upper crust. And it transcends all topics....parenting, real estate (duh), schools, travel, food, clothes, careers. Is this food trashy? OMG I can't believe you take your family XYZ on vacation, it's so poor/trashy/middle class. The intense preoccupation with picking THE right school, neighborhood. The anxiety of having average kids (no AAP, average colleges, just ok in sports). Is DCUM just a microcosm of upper middle class people's intense anxiety over class and falling out of said class? Is it because DMV is a place of strivers and DCUM is a classist cesspool? Or if we dig deeper, are people just panicking that their kids will not have the same opportunities?

A little of this and a little of that. This area is filled with people right in that top 3-8% of US HHI that are treading water and working hard not to go under. And the reality is that a lot of the kids will have to work harder for fewer opportunities.

How can you be on the top 3-8% of threading water? Living beyond your means?

Because if you are in the top 3-8% but deeply, deeply insecure, your choices are going to stretch you thin. The “right” zip code, schools, clothes, and travel are all VERY, VERY expensive. Where can you cut corners and get away with not seeming “poor?” How can you expose your children to the right influences so that they become insecure strivers instead of “poors?” It’s all terribly stressful.

The pandemic seems to have made things worse. I am nowhere near as addicted to DCUM as I was previously because it is so much more boring and people are as catty as ever.

Income stagnation against rising cost of living and inflation means that wages have effectively been falling for several decades for households in the US below the 92nd/93rd percentile. I forget the exact number off the top of my head. Wages are effectively flat for the top 3-8ish percentile and growing for those above it. There have been some interesting changes in conspicuous consumption as class markers over the last several years such as in educational spending for children (tutoring, summer camp, test prep, etc).

As much as you denigrate people who want to live in the "right" zip code, you're ignoring that this is largely an educational expense to ensure the kids don't fail and you're doing exactly the same thing, though maybe under a different spend category.

If it was just about the “right” zip code, that would be one thing. But there’s so much more than that- the right clothes, cars, vacations, decor, etc.

Part of raising children is teaching them to adapt to less than ideal circumstances. So yes, you can be concerned about education, that’s reasonable. You can equip your children with the knowledge that they may have to work harder or enter more difficult fields for the same quality of life.

But are you really doing your children a favor if you obsess over your HHI and whether Ocean City is too tacky and middle class? I’d say no.

[Anonymous]

Lol. There are not many truly 3-8% ers on here. If you have to worry, post, and ask about, you are not in it. You are a striver. We have better things to do than sit on here reading lame threads from class neurotic people. Multiple streams of income make it so that working us optional, leaving lots of time for leisure and less stress. These strivers seem very stressed and maybe that is why all the relationship threads are pretty sad. It is OK not to be perfect, check off all your goals, not drive a luxury car, pay for private school or fancy vacations. Just be happy in the shoes that you are in. Most of us drive beaters or standard family car's anyway. We do not care what we wear, drive, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol. There are not many truly 3-8% ers on here. If you have to worry, post, and ask about, you are not in it. You are a striver. We have better things to do than sit on here reading lame threads from class neurotic people. Multiple streams of income make it so that working us optional, leaving lots of time for leisure and less stress. These strivers seem very stressed and maybe that is why all the relationship threads are pretty sad. It is OK not to be perfect, check off all your goals, not drive a luxury car, pay for private school or fancy vacations. Just be happy in the shoes that you are in. Most of us drive beaters or standard family car's anyway. We do not care what we wear, drive, etc.

Apparently… you don’t! 😂

[Anonymous]

Because so many people move to the DMV from small towns in Ohio, where they were the big fish and they want to make sure they don't come across as hicks. They're wildly insecure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because so many people move to the DMV from small towns in Ohio, where they were the big fish and they want to make sure they don't come across as hicks. They're wildly insecure.

Ohio. Why Ohio???

[Anonymous]

Not my experience at all. Most people around us in NW live in condos or rentals. We moved here for work, schools, and suburban feel. Kids go to public schools and will not miss out on anything. Nobody is super rich or have a very fancy job or a title. I don't even know what most parents do since they are from other countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because so many people move to the DMV from small towns in Ohio, where they were the big fish and they want to make sure they don't come across as hicks. They're wildly insecure.

Yup. Read that thread from the other day asking about posters’ subcultures. Lots of people from really simple, unsophisticated backgrounds who wanted to “get out” of wherever they grew up and moved to DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because so many people move to the DMV from small towns in Ohio, where they were the big fish and they want to make sure they don't come across as hicks. They're wildly insecure.

Ohio. Why Ohio???

There are a few pockets of Ohio that are nice but for the most part it is an unredeemable shithole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because so many people move to the DMV from small towns in Ohio, where they were the big fish and they want to make sure they don't come across as hicks. They're wildly insecure.

Yup. Read that thread from the other day asking about posters’ subcultures. Lots of people from really simple, unsophisticated backgrounds who wanted to “get out” of wherever they grew up and moved to DC.

I think it's this too. I don't think a lot of native Manhattanites and Parisians living here are just crippled by anxiety over what their manicure colors say about their SES.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's coming from the large percentage of DC are professionals who are from top colleges and law schools. It has to be others with high salaries who want to not look like rubes with cash. They tend to be the ones with large boats, flashy cars, younger wives and all that. Tech bros and doctors I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's coming from the large percentage of DC are professionals who are from top colleges and law schools. It has to be others with high salaries who want to not look like rubes with cash. They tend to be the ones with large boats, flashy cars, younger wives and all that. Tech bros and doctors I guess.

But dcum says you don't have to be especially intelligent to be a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's coming from the large percentage of DC are professionals who are from top colleges and law schools. It has to be others with high salaries who want to not look like rubes with cash. They tend to be the ones with large boats, flashy cars, younger wives and all that. Tech bros and doctors I guess.

Tech bro bezos got himself a spicy Latina in her 50s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's coming from the large percentage of DC are professionals who are from top colleges and law schools. It has to be others with high salaries who want to not look like rubes with cash. They tend to be the ones with large boats, flashy cars, younger wives and all that. Tech bros and doctors I guess.

Tech bro bezos got himself a spicy Latina in her 50s

But is she classy?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s just dcum, or even just Americans. I had a British friend tell me he loved living in America because in England everything is so defined by class, and people know immediately what your class is because there are so many tells. It’s so much more fluid in America and doesn’t matter to many people. But I think most human societies have some obsession with class, on some level. I had a Jewish friend from NY that used to refer to the German Jews as “the fancy Jews”—as opposed to those of Eastern European heritage. And look at the class divides highlighted in something like crazy rich Asians.
Humans love to categorize things and class is one way we do it. It makes our world feel more organized and less overwhelming, I think. At least it’s a less pernicious form of categorization than race, although I think there’s often a lot of overlap and implicit or explicit racism in the class commentary.

[Anonymous]

Some interesting articles just from googling upper middle class anxiety:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/pressure-affluent-parents/417045/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/coronavirus-middle-class-guilt-depression-anxiety

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/intensive-helicopter-parenting-inequality/580528/