17 ms·

How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

219 points by kevbam 9y ago

seqastian 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide American dream? better say in Europe.
- deleted 9y ago
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- specializeded 9y ago
  *Canada, France, Germany, or the Nordic countries, as determined by a single study from ‘06 with race (apparently?) not taken into consideration for any of them
  - seszett 9y ago
    Race? I'm not sure what that would do here, especially since race usually doesn't change a lot between parents and their children.
staunch 9y ago
> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does. This is the most insidious part. The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is. The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery. The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies. But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays. The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.
- untog 9y ago
  > The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. I'm unconvinced. The class system is, at its core, money. And short of eBay allowing people to sell second hand items peer to peer, I really don't think the internet has enabled economic mobility all that much. A select few in Silicon Valley have gotten very rich, certainly, but an effect on the population at large? Maybe it'll happen one day, but even stuff like Bitcoin has somehow transformed from "the new cash" to "the new speculative investment that promises to make people with disposable income even richer".
  - stctgion 9y ago
    The class system in the US might be about money but here in the UK you can be penniless and still look down upon someone by being born into the right family!
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    Social movement encompasses rather more than just an economic movement, it also covers things like political unrest and direct action campaigns.
  - danans 9y ago
    I think they are saying that the movement to confront the class structure will be social, not economic, fueled by shared outrage, not commerce.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    I think you're undervaluing the impact of the internet on small business. Sure, a few guys at the tippy top of Uber-eats are the only ones getting fabulously wealthy, but I've discovered several wonderful mom and pop restaurants through that service. Sure, only a hand full of people at Google are getting fabulously wealthy, but most of the video content I consume these days are regular-ish people on Youtube who now make their living making those videos without having to go through Hollywood gatekeepers. There's been at least a half dozen small businesses I've hired based solely off their Craigslist ads, businesses I likely would've never heard of and might not have ever existed without the internet/Craigslist. I don't understand why people point to the few fabulously wealthy people and exclaim that because everyone else isn't fabulously wealthy that the system is failing us all. We still have a ways to go, but the internet to me has moved several things further down the democratized spectrum than they ever had been before.
neengineering 9y ago
Written about a scumbag who holds the ultimate divisive belief.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  I afraid your post is too brief and vague to connect to anyone?
  - eropple 9y ago
    It's become a common fad on the internet to assert that believing in classism is the real act of division. The other possibility that jumps out is that Arwa Mahdawi is either Muslim or of a culturally Muslim community (I've read her work and so I'm aware of her but not her history), and, well, could just be some racisms up in here. Pick your poison. (Ordinarily I would not amplify that sort of post, but decent folks need to know what they're up against.)
chicagoscott 9y ago
This post has a bit of info about what class migrants report of the attitudes of their original classes toward the more privileged classes: http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html
gorpomon 9y ago
I spent a summer in NYC a few years ago. While living in NYC I did get a flavor of higher class living with some roommates of mine. It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't. However, this is one issue that's hard to put solely on the foot of the rich or a broader system. Passing in many avenues, not just by class, is really deciding you want to be there and what the terms of your presence will be. It felt at times like trying to get into a club, if you look like you want in, you don't get in. If you don't want in, they let you in. You have to learn to look like you don't want it. I think rather than teach young children how to hold spoons, or castigate the rich for yet another divide they were born into, probably we should just teach improv skills, confidence skills and encourage people to engage in open dialogue with others. Some solutions don't require us dismantling a system. If the next time a rich person gives you an askance look and you immediately ask them to explain themselves, guess what, you just equalized yourself with them socially without having to learn which fork to use first.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't Any examples spring to mind?
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    Spending $10,000 on a flatscreen TV: low class. Spending $10,000 on a pair of speakers: high class.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jnordwick 9y ago
      Totally backwards. You'll find more expensive shoes in Harlem than Astoria.
      - 9y ago
jnordwick 9y ago
HN should just change its name to Hate America and Capitalism Knews. Yet another all politics story about how America isn't perfect or capitalists is evil. A daily occurrence on HN.
- ch4s3 9y ago
  Oh please. You can easily criticize something without hating it. I’m American and believe there are plenty of things to both admire and criticize about our nation. Blind nationalism doesn’t do us any favors, and is a lever by which cynical forces may manipulate us. It is therefore instrumental to the health of our republic that we constantly view ourselves with a critical eye.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please just flag stories quietly and don't rave like this in the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
zitterbewegung 9y ago
My Mom was a immigrant who came from the Philippines. My dad was a polish person. I raised my income and made more than them by a few ways. 1. Figuring out how to get a degree in Computer Science. (I chose a state school UIC) 2. Getting a Job in CS (I worked at the school I had classes from and then transitioned to a real job locally). The way I did it was taking my resume and applying to jobs I believe I was qualified in. I taught myself web development in high school and continued to be interested in it. I went to meetups to network with people. All of this wouldn't be possible without my mom having a job at the local grocery store. Or my parents supporting me when I was getting my degree.
- skellera 9y ago
  It’s still a great accomplishment but I think it’s easier for your next generation to jump a class. I think the harder idea is to personally jump a class after being in one. But then again, it might just be that when someone has a child, they set them up to move up instead of themselves. They sacrifice their chance for their children. Otherwise they would have the capital to do it themselves. Obviously I’m just thinking out loud. It just seems that it’s more common for someone’s child to get an education and eventually rise above their parents. If you have children, they might have a chance at an Ivy League school or something like that which they will then have the chance to rise above you.
  - zitterbewegung 9y ago
    Yea, I mean my parents couldn't really afford to be in the house we were in until I started to have a job. I bought my mom a Minivan. Sometimes they couldn't pay for heat to get fixed. Or all the times I ate Ramen. Or the fact that I wanted to be a MCS major but really had to have a CS degree. But, I know many people that I went to school with who were unable to do so and had the same opportunities that I did. Or had more money than me and couldn't get a job after they graduated. Even the people that I had the same high school weren't able to do that. They had more money than me. They were smarter than me. The only thing I can see that I had more than them was grit and determination. My intelligence wasn't even in their league. I chose CS because I knew that an average person in CS could get a average job and the demand would be there when I graduated. My life is a constant hedge against the future.
ikeyany 9y ago
We love to talk about how being born a certain gender or a certain race shouldn't hold you back from achieving anything you want in America. But what if you are unlucky enough to be born into a poor family, or in a backwoods, downtrodden region of the country? My experience aligns with the author's. In movies and feel-good stories shared on social media, we romantically idolize the humble rich person, who came from nothing yet somehow stays "true to their roots". And that is a lovely, inspiring mindset necessary to keep people motivated...in theory. In practice, in order to get ahead in life and to cross class boundaries, you will have to acknowledge that aspects of your upbringing and former way of life are "backwards". You'll have to reconcile that the rich will scorn you and think of your home as a "shithole", and that you "weren't supposed to" make it to the top. You'll have to see things in a new light, and as the author notes, your social life and identity will take a hit (e.g. old friends who won't come to your wedding, or dating prospects who are afraid of being associated with lower classes). There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.
- Helmet 9y ago
  > There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust. It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism. One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves. I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order. edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.
  - balthasar 9y ago
murph-almighty 9y ago
Intergenerational mobility is a really interesting topic- I played around with a transition matrix for a high school project about Markov chains. I can't dig up the table right now but I believe it was based on data from around 2008 and was split into quintiles- i.e. the table tracked the income jump between you and your parents with bucket sizes set at every 20%. What I'd really like to see is a similar table with smaller bucket sizes- namely, I'd like to see the intergenerational migration rates on the higher buckets. If we start seeing higher retention rates on the higher buckets and less entry into them from lower buckets, then we might be headed into a more fixed-class situation.
- floatrock 9y ago
  I've seen nytimes or fivethirtyeight or one of those visualization shops do interactives on the topic. Can't find the exact one I'm thinking of, but the visualization halfway down the page here shows expected income quintile as a function of your parents' income and location: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-incom... This youtube video also shows expected income quintiles based on the income quintile you've been born into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA (about a minute in)
whytheam 9y ago
The number one indicator of your class standing is your parents' class standing. There is no American Dream, and "Rags to Riches" is more luck than skill and effort.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  You think you're rebutting the article, but it says those exact things.
malvosenior 9y ago
As someone who's navigated their way from poor->middle class->upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles... One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many "five dollar words", being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a loser for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don't really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore. Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it's less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can't move up in class when you're living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel. Every step I've made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren't happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there's very real pressure from above to stay where I'm at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It's up to you as a person to decide if you're willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can "hit it big" with a startup or something but there's a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you're best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.
- 20180201 9y ago
  birth limits you to upper middle class. you can be fabulously wealthy, but if you did not have the upbringing, you can not claim it. however, if you are wealthy, you can buy an upper class lifestyle, and your children will be upper class, while you will not be. in other words, their peers that they grew up with will accept them as upper class (meaning they had an upper-class upbringing), while their parents still consider you to be an up-and-comer, because you did not. once you realize this, it's a much healthier situation because you stop trying to make that final jump. and once you stop trying to make that jump, both your upper middle and upper class friends will be more comfortable around you. in other words, once you make it to upper middle, it's not worth worrying over. it's better to just focus on the money to make your family's life comfortable without worrying about social details. money defines everything under upper class; birth and upbringing defines the upper class. by the time your children's children come around, everyone will have forgotten about you, and the new normal will have taken hold. that last jump can only be given by birth -- which, if you stop and think about it, is exactly how it works, right?
dsacco 9y ago
The first step to understanding the class system is to differentiate between class and wealth. Class has very little to do with wealth, and it is mostly determined by your upbringing, mannerisms, profession, lifestyle and network. A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you’re too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example, buying brand name designer clothing is not a traditionally “high class activity”, and would mark you as being, at best, nouveau riche. The modern class structure is very complex, but can more or less be broken down to the following: 1. The “out of sight upper class”, who mostly keep to themselves and stay out of the public eye, especially as a reaction to public perception after the Great Depression. They are typically wealthy but not necessarily billionaires, and they live off of their capital instead of any particular profession. To be in this class, formally speaking, you must have been a part of the upper class for a couple of generations. You accelerate access into this class by elevating your family through e.g. high political achievement. 2. The upper class, who understand that they are not the true upper class. The nouveau riche with the potential to join the out of sight class also fall in here. Their children or grandchildren might be members of the out of sight class if their upbringing is “correct”. They have wealth or status, but have not had it for very long. Depending on their proclivities, they might not ever join the out of sight class because they’re too “visible”, for lack of a better word. These are traditionally doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and these days, software engineers. They have “respectable” careers and diversify themselves from the majority of their professional peers. 3. The middle class, who traditionally experience anxiety about their place in the class system, and who are encouraged to raise their status through their professional achievements. They associate high class with high class “things”, like brand name furniture, but don’t fully internalize the nuances of what makes for a high status individual. By definition, they can’t really perceive the true lifestyle of the upper class, which is why they associate it with things that are only externalities of its members. 4. The lower class, who are mostly incapable of differentiating between wealth and class, even if specifically told about it. They typically lack education and are very nearly always impoverished. But importantly, even a wealthy person can be a member of the lower class if they share its lifestyle and understanding of the class system. Many nouveau riche who earned their wealth through the entertainment industry and who are exceptionally visible are essentially barred from being part of the upper class. The modern suit is very illustrative of the nuances in the hierarchy. A middle class individual might “splurge” on a suit from Mens Wearhouse. A low class individual will buy a suit from a highly visible fashion brand, like Armani. An upper class individual will buy a suit and have it tailored to fit, probably from a less “loud” designer in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. The out of sight class will wear bespoke suits from a tailor on Saville Row, or a similarly understated venue of high prestige. If this all sounds exceptionally pretentious, that’s because it is. The class system does not revolve around money, it revolves around prestige. It is mostly associated with money because that’s politically expedient on the national stage. That said, wealth is something of a class multiplier - it is difficult to remain in the middle class once you’re wealthy, and more often than not you’ll end up in either the lower class or the upper class depending on your lifestyle and spending habits.
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dizzystar 9y ago
This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean. A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them. I'm often called brutally blunt, but really, I'm very tame compared to most people I grew up around. As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.
- athenot 9y ago
  > it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog Follow the money. I'm always asking myself "what does this author have to gain from writing this, or holding that position?" It can happen that there is absolutely no financial motive, many times it's pure greed but often it's on a continuum that's a mix of both profit and helping people out. As an example it's common to find articles about technical problem and how {{top-organization}} solved it with {{state-of-the-art}} solution. The last paragraph is "oh by the way, we're hiring". While there's a profit motive in this form of content marketing, there's also genuine help being passed along. Business recommendations tend to be a bit more skewed towards the profit side, and financial recommendations… well those are a class of their own. A health dose of suspicion goes a long way to sort out the BS.
  - hiuaql 9y ago
    You don't have to look to greed or malice, but simply the fact that people carry their unexamined biases with them when they speak their opinions. > > > it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog They aren't aware of the fog, they have the same subconscious biased perspective that makes the fog look like normal to them.
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rb808 9y ago
I disagree its a simple as class & money, there is no such thing as "the rich" or "the workers". Old money vs New Money, West Coast vs East Coast, South Vs North, Coastal vs Midwest, Lawyers vs Tech, USA vs Europe there are a million sub-classes of "Rich" and even more subclasses of working class esp in NYC. Yes I completely agree its very difficult to change your behavior/job/class like the guys in the article. Its also difficult for a middle class Alaskan to make friends in NY or female nerd to enjoy working in tech or a fat lazy MidWesterner to make friends in Malibu. The more class/religious/language/wealth/cultural/racial/geographic barriers your cross the more difficult it is to change, but the Guardian often reduces this to a class war which is overly simplified.
- confounded 9y ago
  It’s simplified, but aside from the subclasses which will exist within any group, isn’t it broadly accurate?
  - rb808 9y ago
    Yes its true that rich people behave different to poor, but its misleading because its not the whole story. Good example is the second guy who turned up in the bay area from a prestigious East Coast school wearing a suit, and didn't fit in. Edit - I dont want to trivialize it, Money & Class is a big barrier to overcome if you want to move into high paying jobs. Maybe class matters in some jobs more than others.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
I suppose it's passe to report like this, but the irony of making this statement, "Nevertheless, the country remains enamored of these rags-to-riches tales which perpetuate the myth that, in the US, anything is possible if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.", in a story where they are talking to someone who did exactly that means it isn't a myth is it? Myths by definition are 'not real', 'imaginary', or 'allegorical'. So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. And yet the author throws out there this narrative that implies it is. Frustrating. It also focuses on the east coast experience. Anyone who has lived in the US for any length of time knows that "social societies" in the US have a variety of roots, whether it is the bloodlines of the deep south, the money makers of wall street, the entertainment moguls of LA, or the tech whizzes of the North west. I don't have visibility into other areas but I know that with just Apple, Facebook, and Google they have moved thousands of people from having a negative net worth, to having a net worth in excess of a $1M. You meet them when they go to seminars about diversifying one's wealth, or at events that have been expressly targeted to HNWI[1] types. And "Class Passing", a reference perhaps to a practice where light skinned blacks would present themselves as white to avoid discrimination? If that is what they were going for its a bit provocative is it not? Especially for what is essentially a story that says "Some of the people we need/want to hang out with for social reasons are really annoying/irritating/offensive." That has nothing to do with 'wealth' or 'class' and everything to do with groups that self identify with offensive traits or values. An interesting story is one where you are suddenly much wealthier or much less wealthy than people in your current social group that you like. How do you keep those relationship vital and alive in the presence of this disparate wealth. I have watched many people struggle with that and some master it effortlessly. I'd love to collect those stories and pull out the essence of how to make that work in an accessible way. [1] "High Net Worth Individual." You know that this is what the market thinks you are when you get a box of artisan chocolate with a brochure describing a service for providing private air transportation on demand for you and your friends.
- confounded 9y ago
  > So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. The myth is that of social mobility (upwards and downwards) based on merit, being the primary way that society stratifies itself. I have seen an inverse relationship between hard work and wealth within people I know, and even periods of my own life.
ErikVandeWater 9y ago
It is noticeable the resentment in this thread of the arbitrary BS you have to go through when you change classes to not seem awkward. But we should remind ourselves there is a whole bunch of arbitrary BS we common folk are just used to. It isn't that the higher classes have more BS, it is just that it is not ingrained to your experience, so it is frustrating that your habits for interaction do not work. I would prefer we get rid of lots of arbitrary BS at every level, but unfortunately you can't fight the system.
- balthasar 9y ago
  > "you cant fight the system" but we can die trying : ).
matte_black 9y ago
If you want a quick hack to be seen as high class and authoritative (and you probably do since this is hackernews) in any situation just follow this one simple rule: Don’t move your head around so much, keep it straight forward and still. If you must look at things, do so only by moving your eyes, not rotating your whole head. If you need to turn your gaze more, turn your whole body. Look at things with intent, and on your own terms. Try it today.
snvzz 9y ago
Why bother? The so-called high-class are born rich. They never had to work hard for what they have. You can be pretty sure they couldn't. Most poor people do stay poor, after all. If you made your own fortune, then you're objectively better than most of them. In fact, they do not deserve your time.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well, because to be successful in their world you have to, if not pass for one of them, at least not make them so uncomfortable they don't want to work with you.
  - snvzz 9y ago
    Yes, that's the one and only reason I can think of.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      OK, but that's a pretty huge one.
      - snvzz 9y ago
        Fair enough.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
This article is not really about "class passing." It is about "upper class passing." The fact that it uses the term class passing solely to mean you went up in status and need to fit in there is part of the problem. In this framing, lower classes are negated as legitimate social classes. My maternal grandmother's maiden name begins with von. She came from a low level German noble family. They sold the title when the family fell on hard times. I was homeless for about a year before I recognized how upper class my mother's expectations were. I didn't think we were upper class. My mother worked as a maid. My father had been a soldier and failed to establish a second career after he left the army. I also didn't think we had money. We weren't millionaires, but when they bought a house when I was 3, my dad had 3/4 of the cost of the house in the bank. They put down such a large down payment that their mortgage payment was about 40 percent of what the neighbors were paying. I sometimes met people on the street with upper class manners. These were bitter people, failing to adapt to current reality. I grew up learning to power dress. Being homeless taught me something I had not ever been able to figure out before: how to stop intimidating people and stop trying to win the damn pecking order game, a game I loathe but couldn't stop playing. I learned to wear t shirts with cartoons on them and to see that as a good thing, not something I should be ashamed of or embarrassed by or apologize for. I learned to be approachable, a skill I never had before. That enormous confidence and ego this article talks about? It is obnoxious behavior that sticks out like a sore thumb in a group of not rich folks. It intimidates ordinary people. It signals you have power they lack. You feel untouchable. You are confident that even if you fuck up, everything will work out okay. Ordinary people don't feel that way. When it is clear you do, they know they are dealing with an asshole who will not hesitate to fuck up their life, whether due to obliviousness or casual malice. Learning to class pass runs both ways. The fact that we don't talk or think like it does tells you how much contempt we fundamentally have for the little people.
marnett 9y ago
I highly recommend checking out the book 'White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America' from your local library! A fantastic read about the historical realities of class in America. It reads quite academically, so I think some here would enjoy that style.
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awaythrow937 9y ago
Marriage is commonly a class conferring activity, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned by any of the people profiled in the article. It's something I'm confronting as a mid 20s middle class guy dating a girl from the upper, upper middle class...older folks have a lot of strange expectations for marriage, what it means, and how to make it successful.
johngalt 9y ago
There is a difference between those who actually have money and class vs people desperately trying to project the image of money and class. Anyone concerned about 'class-passing' should be aware that it's not the top that is behaviorally constraining, it is the middle. The people most obsessed with putting up the act of their high class are those whom aren't there yet. The mid level professional who is working 80hrs a week and making $90k/yr will absolutely put on the whole 1% act. They will buy the luxury car, fancy clothes/watch/jewelry etc... and be in debt up to their eyeballs. They will also be the first to notice/comment on anyone who isn't up to their 'standards' while standing on cliquish etiquette rules. Conversely working with true high net worth individuals is rarely an exercise in gate keeping. In many cases their standards for behavior are much lower than you would expect because the competitive pressure is off. You'll find that people with millions in the bank are more humble/genuine than those whom are trying to act the part.
- angarg12 9y ago
  Read "The millionaire next door" for a book-length explanation of this.
FiatLuxDave 9y ago
Like most articles of this type, this article focuses exclusively on the upwardly mobile. And why not? They are usually interesting productive members of society. But downward mobility is a thing too, and you almost never see an article about class mobility talk about that side of it. I guess the idea is that the downwardly mobile aren't interesting, or deserve their fate. The downwardly mobile have children too. Learning to lose the manners of the ghetto when living among the upper class is quite useful , but learning to hide the manners of the upper class when living in the ghetto is often a matter of survival.
- bkcreate 9y ago
  There might be an aspect of shame where those people are less likely to talk about adjusting to moving down the ladder.
dominotw 9y ago
i thought this was about class-pass gym thing.
- protoplant 9y ago
  I thought it was about passing variables into a class instead of an object, or some other Object Oriented technique I was unaware of...
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jxub 9y ago
At first I thought it was an article about dependency injection or something. Talk about programmer bubble...
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
It seems to me that much of the "class" issue is really about pride. I'm higher class than you, so I look down on you. Or, I'm more down-to-earth than you, so I look down on you. "I'm OK with who I am, and I don't need to look down on anybody to feel OK about myself" sets you free from a lot of the games that are played in the name of "class". (It doesn't make it easier to feel like you fit with other people, but it makes it so that you don't have to try to move to (or stay in) some particular class.)
nitwit005 9y ago
> “But if you go to Silicon Valley dressed like that,” he explains, “they’ll be like, this guy is a suit, he doesn’t dress like a tech person. That matters. The meeting is over.” Odd how people in suits keep seeming to meet with our CEO then. I guess they all get kicked out? Poor guys.

219 points by kevbam 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide American dream? better say in Europe.

deleted 9y ago
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specializeded 9y ago
*Canada, France, Germany, or the Nordic countries, as determined by a single study from ‘06 with race (apparently?) not taken into consideration for any of them
- seszett 9y ago
  Race? I'm not sure what that would do here, especially since race usually doesn't change a lot between parents and their children.

staunch 9y ago

> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does. This is the most insidious part. The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is. The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery. The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies. But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays. The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.

untog 9y ago
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. I'm unconvinced. The class system is, at its core, money. And short of eBay allowing people to sell second hand items peer to peer, I really don't think the internet has enabled economic mobility all that much. A select few in Silicon Valley have gotten very rich, certainly, but an effect on the population at large? Maybe it'll happen one day, but even stuff like Bitcoin has somehow transformed from "the new cash" to "the new speculative investment that promises to make people with disposable income even richer".
- stctgion 9y ago
  The class system in the US might be about money but here in the UK you can be penniless and still look down upon someone by being born into the right family!
- noir_lord 9y ago
  Social movement encompasses rather more than just an economic movement, it also covers things like political unrest and direct action campaigns.
- danans 9y ago
  I think they are saying that the movement to confront the class structure will be social, not economic, fueled by shared outrage, not commerce.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  I think you're undervaluing the impact of the internet on small business. Sure, a few guys at the tippy top of Uber-eats are the only ones getting fabulously wealthy, but I've discovered several wonderful mom and pop restaurants through that service. Sure, only a hand full of people at Google are getting fabulously wealthy, but most of the video content I consume these days are regular-ish people on Youtube who now make their living making those videos without having to go through Hollywood gatekeepers. There's been at least a half dozen small businesses I've hired based solely off their Craigslist ads, businesses I likely would've never heard of and might not have ever existed without the internet/Craigslist. I don't understand why people point to the few fabulously wealthy people and exclaim that because everyone else isn't fabulously wealthy that the system is failing us all. We still have a ways to go, but the internet to me has moved several things further down the democratized spectrum than they ever had been before.

neengineering 9y ago

Written about a scumbag who holds the ultimate divisive belief.

wavefunction 9y ago
I afraid your post is too brief and vague to connect to anyone?
- eropple 9y ago
  It's become a common fad on the internet to assert that believing in classism is the real act of division. The other possibility that jumps out is that Arwa Mahdawi is either Muslim or of a culturally Muslim community (I've read her work and so I'm aware of her but not her history), and, well, could just be some racisms up in here. Pick your poison. (Ordinarily I would not amplify that sort of post, but decent folks need to know what they're up against.)

chicagoscott 9y ago

This post has a bit of info about what class migrants report of the attitudes of their original classes toward the more privileged classes: http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html

gorpomon 9y ago

I spent a summer in NYC a few years ago. While living in NYC I did get a flavor of higher class living with some roommates of mine. It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't. However, this is one issue that's hard to put solely on the foot of the rich or a broader system. Passing in many avenues, not just by class, is really deciding you want to be there and what the terms of your presence will be. It felt at times like trying to get into a club, if you look like you want in, you don't get in. If you don't want in, they let you in. You have to learn to look like you don't want it. I think rather than teach young children how to hold spoons, or castigate the rich for yet another divide they were born into, probably we should just teach improv skills, confidence skills and encourage people to engage in open dialogue with others. Some solutions don't require us dismantling a system. If the next time a rich person gives you an askance look and you immediately ask them to explain themselves, guess what, you just equalized yourself with them socially without having to learn which fork to use first.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't Any examples spring to mind?
- ggg9990 9y ago
  Spending $10,000 on a flatscreen TV: low class. Spending $10,000 on a pair of speakers: high class.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jnordwick 9y ago
    Totally backwards. You'll find more expensive shoes in Harlem than Astoria.
    - 9y ago

jnordwick 9y ago

HN should just change its name to Hate America and Capitalism Knews. Yet another all politics story about how America isn't perfect or capitalists is evil. A daily occurrence on HN.

ch4s3 9y ago
Oh please. You can easily criticize something without hating it. I’m American and believe there are plenty of things to both admire and criticize about our nation. Blind nationalism doesn’t do us any favors, and is a lever by which cynical forces may manipulate us. It is therefore instrumental to the health of our republic that we constantly view ourselves with a critical eye.
sctb 9y ago
Please just flag stories quietly and don't rave like this in the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zitterbewegung 9y ago

My Mom was a immigrant who came from the Philippines. My dad was a polish person. I raised my income and made more than them by a few ways. 1. Figuring out how to get a degree in Computer Science. (I chose a state school UIC) 2. Getting a Job in CS (I worked at the school I had classes from and then transitioned to a real job locally). The way I did it was taking my resume and applying to jobs I believe I was qualified in. I taught myself web development in high school and continued to be interested in it. I went to meetups to network with people. All of this wouldn't be possible without my mom having a job at the local grocery store. Or my parents supporting me when I was getting my degree.

skellera 9y ago
It’s still a great accomplishment but I think it’s easier for your next generation to jump a class. I think the harder idea is to personally jump a class after being in one. But then again, it might just be that when someone has a child, they set them up to move up instead of themselves. They sacrifice their chance for their children. Otherwise they would have the capital to do it themselves. Obviously I’m just thinking out loud. It just seems that it’s more common for someone’s child to get an education and eventually rise above their parents. If you have children, they might have a chance at an Ivy League school or something like that which they will then have the chance to rise above you.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Yea, I mean my parents couldn't really afford to be in the house we were in until I started to have a job. I bought my mom a Minivan. Sometimes they couldn't pay for heat to get fixed. Or all the times I ate Ramen. Or the fact that I wanted to be a MCS major but really had to have a CS degree. But, I know many people that I went to school with who were unable to do so and had the same opportunities that I did. Or had more money than me and couldn't get a job after they graduated. Even the people that I had the same high school weren't able to do that. They had more money than me. They were smarter than me. The only thing I can see that I had more than them was grit and determination. My intelligence wasn't even in their league. I chose CS because I knew that an average person in CS could get a average job and the demand would be there when I graduated. My life is a constant hedge against the future.

ikeyany 9y ago

We love to talk about how being born a certain gender or a certain race shouldn't hold you back from achieving anything you want in America. But what if you are unlucky enough to be born into a poor family, or in a backwoods, downtrodden region of the country? My experience aligns with the author's. In movies and feel-good stories shared on social media, we romantically idolize the humble rich person, who came from nothing yet somehow stays "true to their roots". And that is a lovely, inspiring mindset necessary to keep people motivated...in theory. In practice, in order to get ahead in life and to cross class boundaries, you will have to acknowledge that aspects of your upbringing and former way of life are "backwards". You'll have to reconcile that the rich will scorn you and think of your home as a "shithole", and that you "weren't supposed to" make it to the top. You'll have to see things in a new light, and as the author notes, your social life and identity will take a hit (e.g. old friends who won't come to your wedding, or dating prospects who are afraid of being associated with lower classes). There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.

Helmet 9y ago
> There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust. It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism. One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves. I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order. edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.
- balthasar 9y ago

murph-almighty 9y ago

Intergenerational mobility is a really interesting topic- I played around with a transition matrix for a high school project about Markov chains. I can't dig up the table right now but I believe it was based on data from around 2008 and was split into quintiles- i.e. the table tracked the income jump between you and your parents with bucket sizes set at every 20%. What I'd really like to see is a similar table with smaller bucket sizes- namely, I'd like to see the intergenerational migration rates on the higher buckets. If we start seeing higher retention rates on the higher buckets and less entry into them from lower buckets, then we might be headed into a more fixed-class situation.

floatrock 9y ago
I've seen nytimes or fivethirtyeight or one of those visualization shops do interactives on the topic. Can't find the exact one I'm thinking of, but the visualization halfway down the page here shows expected income quintile as a function of your parents' income and location: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-incom... This youtube video also shows expected income quintiles based on the income quintile you've been born into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA (about a minute in)

whytheam 9y ago

The number one indicator of your class standing is your parents' class standing. There is no American Dream, and "Rags to Riches" is more luck than skill and effort.

emodendroket 9y ago
You think you're rebutting the article, but it says those exact things.

malvosenior 9y ago

As someone who's navigated their way from poor->middle class->upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles... One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many "five dollar words", being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a loser for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don't really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore. Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it's less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can't move up in class when you're living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel. Every step I've made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren't happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there's very real pressure from above to stay where I'm at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It's up to you as a person to decide if you're willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can "hit it big" with a startup or something but there's a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you're best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.

20180201 9y ago
birth limits you to upper middle class. you can be fabulously wealthy, but if you did not have the upbringing, you can not claim it. however, if you are wealthy, you can buy an upper class lifestyle, and your children will be upper class, while you will not be. in other words, their peers that they grew up with will accept them as upper class (meaning they had an upper-class upbringing), while their parents still consider you to be an up-and-comer, because you did not. once you realize this, it's a much healthier situation because you stop trying to make that final jump. and once you stop trying to make that jump, both your upper middle and upper class friends will be more comfortable around you. in other words, once you make it to upper middle, it's not worth worrying over. it's better to just focus on the money to make your family's life comfortable without worrying about social details. money defines everything under upper class; birth and upbringing defines the upper class. by the time your children's children come around, everyone will have forgotten about you, and the new normal will have taken hold. that last jump can only be given by birth -- which, if you stop and think about it, is exactly how it works, right?

dsacco 9y ago

The first step to understanding the class system is to differentiate between class and wealth. Class has very little to do with wealth, and it is mostly determined by your upbringing, mannerisms, profession, lifestyle and network. A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you’re too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example, buying brand name designer clothing is not a traditionally “high class activity”, and would mark you as being, at best, nouveau riche. The modern class structure is very complex, but can more or less be broken down to the following: 1. The “out of sight upper class”, who mostly keep to themselves and stay out of the public eye, especially as a reaction to public perception after the Great Depression. They are typically wealthy but not necessarily billionaires, and they live off of their capital instead of any particular profession. To be in this class, formally speaking, you must have been a part of the upper class for a couple of generations. You accelerate access into this class by elevating your family through e.g. high political achievement. 2. The upper class, who understand that they are not the true upper class. The nouveau riche with the potential to join the out of sight class also fall in here. Their children or grandchildren might be members of the out of sight class if their upbringing is “correct”. They have wealth or status, but have not had it for very long. Depending on their proclivities, they might not ever join the out of sight class because they’re too “visible”, for lack of a better word. These are traditionally doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and these days, software engineers. They have “respectable” careers and diversify themselves from the majority of their professional peers. 3. The middle class, who traditionally experience anxiety about their place in the class system, and who are encouraged to raise their status through their professional achievements. They associate high class with high class “things”, like brand name furniture, but don’t fully internalize the nuances of what makes for a high status individual. By definition, they can’t really perceive the true lifestyle of the upper class, which is why they associate it with things that are only externalities of its members. 4. The lower class, who are mostly incapable of differentiating between wealth and class, even if specifically told about it. They typically lack education and are very nearly always impoverished. But importantly, even a wealthy person can be a member of the lower class if they share its lifestyle and understanding of the class system. Many nouveau riche who earned their wealth through the entertainment industry and who are exceptionally visible are essentially barred from being part of the upper class. The modern suit is very illustrative of the nuances in the hierarchy. A middle class individual might “splurge” on a suit from Mens Wearhouse. A low class individual will buy a suit from a highly visible fashion brand, like Armani. An upper class individual will buy a suit and have it tailored to fit, probably from a less “loud” designer in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. The out of sight class will wear bespoke suits from a tailor on Saville Row, or a similarly understated venue of high prestige. If this all sounds exceptionally pretentious, that’s because it is. The class system does not revolve around money, it revolves around prestige. It is mostly associated with money because that’s politically expedient on the national stage. That said, wealth is something of a class multiplier - it is difficult to remain in the middle class once you’re wealthy, and more often than not you’ll end up in either the lower class or the upper class depending on your lifestyle and spending habits.

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dizzystar 9y ago

This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean. A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them. I'm often called brutally blunt, but really, I'm very tame compared to most people I grew up around. As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.

athenot 9y ago
> it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog Follow the money. I'm always asking myself "what does this author have to gain from writing this, or holding that position?" It can happen that there is absolutely no financial motive, many times it's pure greed but often it's on a continuum that's a mix of both profit and helping people out. As an example it's common to find articles about technical problem and how {{top-organization}} solved it with {{state-of-the-art}} solution. The last paragraph is "oh by the way, we're hiring". While there's a profit motive in this form of content marketing, there's also genuine help being passed along. Business recommendations tend to be a bit more skewed towards the profit side, and financial recommendations… well those are a class of their own. A health dose of suspicion goes a long way to sort out the BS.
- hiuaql 9y ago
  You don't have to look to greed or malice, but simply the fact that people carry their unexamined biases with them when they speak their opinions. > > > it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog They aren't aware of the fog, they have the same subconscious biased perspective that makes the fog look like normal to them.

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rb808 9y ago

I disagree its a simple as class & money, there is no such thing as "the rich" or "the workers". Old money vs New Money, West Coast vs East Coast, South Vs North, Coastal vs Midwest, Lawyers vs Tech, USA vs Europe there are a million sub-classes of "Rich" and even more subclasses of working class esp in NYC. Yes I completely agree its very difficult to change your behavior/job/class like the guys in the article. Its also difficult for a middle class Alaskan to make friends in NY or female nerd to enjoy working in tech or a fat lazy MidWesterner to make friends in Malibu. The more class/religious/language/wealth/cultural/racial/geographic barriers your cross the more difficult it is to change, but the Guardian often reduces this to a class war which is overly simplified.

confounded 9y ago
It’s simplified, but aside from the subclasses which will exist within any group, isn’t it broadly accurate?
- rb808 9y ago
  Yes its true that rich people behave different to poor, but its misleading because its not the whole story. Good example is the second guy who turned up in the bay area from a prestigious East Coast school wearing a suit, and didn't fit in. Edit - I dont want to trivialize it, Money & Class is a big barrier to overcome if you want to move into high paying jobs. Maybe class matters in some jobs more than others.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I suppose it's passe to report like this, but the irony of making this statement, "Nevertheless, the country remains enamored of these rags-to-riches tales which perpetuate the myth that, in the US, anything is possible if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.", in a story where they are talking to someone who did exactly that means it isn't a myth is it? Myths by definition are 'not real', 'imaginary', or 'allegorical'. So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. And yet the author throws out there this narrative that implies it is. Frustrating. It also focuses on the east coast experience. Anyone who has lived in the US for any length of time knows that "social societies" in the US have a variety of roots, whether it is the bloodlines of the deep south, the money makers of wall street, the entertainment moguls of LA, or the tech whizzes of the North west. I don't have visibility into other areas but I know that with just Apple, Facebook, and Google they have moved thousands of people from having a negative net worth, to having a net worth in excess of a $1M. You meet them when they go to seminars about diversifying one's wealth, or at events that have been expressly targeted to HNWI[1] types. And "Class Passing", a reference perhaps to a practice where light skinned blacks would present themselves as white to avoid discrimination? If that is what they were going for its a bit provocative is it not? Especially for what is essentially a story that says "Some of the people we need/want to hang out with for social reasons are really annoying/irritating/offensive." That has nothing to do with 'wealth' or 'class' and everything to do with groups that self identify with offensive traits or values. An interesting story is one where you are suddenly much wealthier or much less wealthy than people in your current social group that you like. How do you keep those relationship vital and alive in the presence of this disparate wealth. I have watched many people struggle with that and some master it effortlessly. I'd love to collect those stories and pull out the essence of how to make that work in an accessible way. [1] "High Net Worth Individual." You know that this is what the market thinks you are when you get a box of artisan chocolate with a brochure describing a service for providing private air transportation on demand for you and your friends.

confounded 9y ago
> So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. The myth is that of social mobility (upwards and downwards) based on merit, being the primary way that society stratifies itself. I have seen an inverse relationship between hard work and wealth within people I know, and even periods of my own life.

ErikVandeWater 9y ago

It is noticeable the resentment in this thread of the arbitrary BS you have to go through when you change classes to not seem awkward. But we should remind ourselves there is a whole bunch of arbitrary BS we common folk are just used to. It isn't that the higher classes have more BS, it is just that it is not ingrained to your experience, so it is frustrating that your habits for interaction do not work. I would prefer we get rid of lots of arbitrary BS at every level, but unfortunately you can't fight the system.

balthasar 9y ago
> "you cant fight the system" but we can die trying : ).

matte_black 9y ago

If you want a quick hack to be seen as high class and authoritative (and you probably do since this is hackernews) in any situation just follow this one simple rule: Don’t move your head around so much, keep it straight forward and still. If you must look at things, do so only by moving your eyes, not rotating your whole head. If you need to turn your gaze more, turn your whole body. Look at things with intent, and on your own terms. Try it today.

snvzz 9y ago

Why bother? The so-called high-class are born rich. They never had to work hard for what they have. You can be pretty sure they couldn't. Most poor people do stay poor, after all. If you made your own fortune, then you're objectively better than most of them. In fact, they do not deserve your time.

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, because to be successful in their world you have to, if not pass for one of them, at least not make them so uncomfortable they don't want to work with you.
- snvzz 9y ago
  Yes, that's the one and only reason I can think of.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    OK, but that's a pretty huge one.
    - snvzz 9y ago
      Fair enough.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

This article is not really about "class passing." It is about "upper class passing." The fact that it uses the term class passing solely to mean you went up in status and need to fit in there is part of the problem. In this framing, lower classes are negated as legitimate social classes. My maternal grandmother's maiden name begins with von. She came from a low level German noble family. They sold the title when the family fell on hard times. I was homeless for about a year before I recognized how upper class my mother's expectations were. I didn't think we were upper class. My mother worked as a maid. My father had been a soldier and failed to establish a second career after he left the army. I also didn't think we had money. We weren't millionaires, but when they bought a house when I was 3, my dad had 3/4 of the cost of the house in the bank. They put down such a large down payment that their mortgage payment was about 40 percent of what the neighbors were paying. I sometimes met people on the street with upper class manners. These were bitter people, failing to adapt to current reality. I grew up learning to power dress. Being homeless taught me something I had not ever been able to figure out before: how to stop intimidating people and stop trying to win the damn pecking order game, a game I loathe but couldn't stop playing. I learned to wear t shirts with cartoons on them and to see that as a good thing, not something I should be ashamed of or embarrassed by or apologize for. I learned to be approachable, a skill I never had before. That enormous confidence and ego this article talks about? It is obnoxious behavior that sticks out like a sore thumb in a group of not rich folks. It intimidates ordinary people. It signals you have power they lack. You feel untouchable. You are confident that even if you fuck up, everything will work out okay. Ordinary people don't feel that way. When it is clear you do, they know they are dealing with an asshole who will not hesitate to fuck up their life, whether due to obliviousness or casual malice. Learning to class pass runs both ways. The fact that we don't talk or think like it does tells you how much contempt we fundamentally have for the little people.

marnett 9y ago

I highly recommend checking out the book 'White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America' from your local library! A fantastic read about the historical realities of class in America. It reads quite academically, so I think some here would enjoy that style.

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awaythrow937 9y ago

Marriage is commonly a class conferring activity, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned by any of the people profiled in the article. It's something I'm confronting as a mid 20s middle class guy dating a girl from the upper, upper middle class...older folks have a lot of strange expectations for marriage, what it means, and how to make it successful.

johngalt 9y ago

There is a difference between those who actually have money and class vs people desperately trying to project the image of money and class. Anyone concerned about 'class-passing' should be aware that it's not the top that is behaviorally constraining, it is the middle. The people most obsessed with putting up the act of their high class are those whom aren't there yet. The mid level professional who is working 80hrs a week and making $90k/yr will absolutely put on the whole 1% act. They will buy the luxury car, fancy clothes/watch/jewelry etc... and be in debt up to their eyeballs. They will also be the first to notice/comment on anyone who isn't up to their 'standards' while standing on cliquish etiquette rules. Conversely working with true high net worth individuals is rarely an exercise in gate keeping. In many cases their standards for behavior are much lower than you would expect because the competitive pressure is off. You'll find that people with millions in the bank are more humble/genuine than those whom are trying to act the part.

angarg12 9y ago
Read "The millionaire next door" for a book-length explanation of this.

FiatLuxDave 9y ago

Like most articles of this type, this article focuses exclusively on the upwardly mobile. And why not? They are usually interesting productive members of society. But downward mobility is a thing too, and you almost never see an article about class mobility talk about that side of it. I guess the idea is that the downwardly mobile aren't interesting, or deserve their fate. The downwardly mobile have children too. Learning to lose the manners of the ghetto when living among the upper class is quite useful , but learning to hide the manners of the upper class when living in the ghetto is often a matter of survival.

bkcreate 9y ago
There might be an aspect of shame where those people are less likely to talk about adjusting to moving down the ladder.

dominotw 9y ago

i thought this was about class-pass gym thing.

protoplant 9y ago
I thought it was about passing variables into a class instead of an object, or some other Object Oriented technique I was unaware of...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jxub 9y ago

At first I thought it was an article about dependency injection or something. Talk about programmer bubble...

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

It seems to me that much of the "class" issue is really about pride. I'm higher class than you, so I look down on you. Or, I'm more down-to-earth than you, so I look down on you. "I'm OK with who I am, and I don't need to look down on anybody to feel OK about myself" sets you free from a lot of the games that are played in the name of "class". (It doesn't make it easier to feel like you fit with other people, but it makes it so that you don't have to try to move to (or stay in) some particular class.)

nitwit005 9y ago

> “But if you go to Silicon Valley dressed like that,” he explains, “they’ll be like, this guy is a suit, he doesn’t dress like a tech person. That matters. The meeting is over.” Odd how people in suits keep seeming to meet with our CEO then. I guess they all get kicked out? Poor guys.