Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People live in the Capitol?

The poors?

There’s no such word as poors.

And yet OP used it. Hence my question.

I think the issue with "the poors" is that it has a sneering tone. And it replaces a perfectly good term" "the poor," as in "the poor you will always have with you." The addition of the s on the end makes it somehow nasty. You wouldn't write "Jesus told us to feed the poors," but you would write "I don't want my children to go to school with the poors."

Have none of you ever been on DCUM before. People have used it on DCUM for years to indicate that kind of sneering at the poor. OP is using it to indicate the sneering by the hyperconsuming families she/he is annoyed by.

Anonymous wrote:This stuff is either on the wane or I just don’t hang out with or live near this type of person.
I noticed it a lot more when my kids were in elementary school but don’t see it as much now. And I live outside the beltway. Some houses in our neighborhood decorate for Halloween and I don’t. I am not bothered by it. I do love putting up Christmas lights though.

+1

I knew some moms like this when my kids were still little and everyone posting their yearly Disney trips on Facebook was still a thing. This was in a smaller city in District 9 though; the Capitol doesn't have a complete lock on consumerism.

Anonymous wrote:I am a millennial with young kids and I’m not aware of almost any of the trends you describe through the magic of not using Facebook or Instagram.

You don’t have to be on social media to be aware of gross consumerism in our culture. I mean, c’mon.

I am a millennial with young kids and I’m not aware of almost any of the trends you describe through the magic of not using Facebook or Instagram.

I'm not remotely consumerist -- more anti than anything. When I buy anything, I try to buy vintage, pre-owned, open-box, all the stuff minimizes impact.

But I've grown to have real empathy for many of the kinds of people OP describes. I've observed that they often seem to be trying to give to children (theirs, but also often others, sometimes including mine) something that they themselves didn't get as a child. As soon as I realized this — that this is just another way of trying to do the right thing, and to heal what ails -- I softened quite a bit.

This stuff is either on the wane or I just don’t hang out with or live near this type of person.
I noticed it a lot more when my kids were in elementary school but don’t see it as much now. And I live outside the beltway. Some houses in our neighborhood decorate for Halloween and I don’t. I am not bothered by it. I do love putting up Christmas lights though.

I flat out love decorating for the holidays. I won’t apologize for it. I love lights on the house. In my neighborhood kids don’t really come to your door for Halloween unless there are decorations so why not have fun with it?

Personally, I just like to dress in sackcloth and sit in my basement for the next couple months. If I need to eat, I just nibble on some unsalted saltines and sip tepid water.

Ah, the yearly "I got booed" complaint thread.

Anonymous wrote:I love going all out for the holidays. The world can be such a dark and depressing place. It gives me joy to see my kids so excited about setting up our decorations and they love driving by other houses and seeing their decorations. We do use all the same stuff every year and lately anything "new" I buy comes from the thrift stores. Idk... I get your point but I think it should be more so directed at people who change up their holiday "themes" every year or own 15 different colorways of the Stanley cup etc.

Just the fact that you said “colorways”

You have to get off that part of social media. It’s vapid and silly, and I think at least 25% if not more of the “over-consumption” content is rage bait. They don’t care if you praise their decorations, Disney trips, Stanley water bottle collection, whatever. Or if you write a big screed in the comments decrying it. All that matters is your eyeballs were on their video or pictures and you interacted with something they made. It’s $$$ and attention all the same and that’s all they care about.

But most regular people aren’t like this, regardless of income level. You need to block, thumbs down, not interested all this type of content and re-tune your social media to more positive content. If it’s someone you know who is spending and posting like crazy, mute them on whatever network. It’s not an easy/instant fix because the algorithms are designed to keep you in a loop of content that you interact with, for good or for bad. But you can get there eventually. Also the economy is going down the tubes, Gen Z has a lot less buying power and isn’t having as many children, and I’ve already seen less “buy all this random nonsense from Amazon and Temu” content than I did maybe 2 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:I love going all out for the holidays. The world can be such a dark and depressing place. It gives me joy to see my kids so excited about setting up our decorations and they love driving by other houses and seeing their decorations. We do use all the same stuff every year and lately anything "new" I buy comes from the thrift stores. Idk... I get your point but I think it should be more so directed at people who change up their holiday "themes" every year or own 15 different colorways of the Stanley cup etc.

My spouse and I are very frugal but enjoy decorating for the holidays. People hating on it does not stop us. Op would be surprised at how we live. We aren't wasteful and don't buy and throw away things.

I agree OP.

Anonymous wrote:OP sounds real fun at parties.

Honestly I'd rather hang out with OP than with someone who measures their happiness and success on their material overconsumption. But I get that you probably don't want to hang out with either of us, and I'm good with that!

Anonymous wrote:OP sounds real fun at parties.

This “gotcha” is so overplayed.