
How does ‘class-passing’ actually work? - kevbam
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/01/poor-americans-poverty-rich-class
======
staunch
> _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
> 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".

~~~
Consultant32452
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.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Just because you’ve thrown a few crumbs of business or exposure at these
people doesn’t mean they’ve become any richer than their equivalents would
have been in the pre-Internet days.

The fact that the technological requirements for small new businesses and
cottage content industries have changed shouldn’t be confused with an
improvement in the opportunity landscape as a whole.

If anything, these “businesses” - especially the content creators - are more
like digital feudalisms, as (mostly) low-status low-value workers try to
scratch out an existence on territory owned by a single entity they have no
democratic influence on.

The reality is that wealth concentration among the hyper-rich is accelerating
as they capture an ever-increasing share of global productivity.

If the Internet were likely to fix this, we’d have seen some evidence of this
happening by now.

But there is exactly zero evidence for this, and even less reason to believe
that it _can_ happen, given where we are today.

The only thing that might change this is total disintermediation - open,
distributed, publicly owned, non-corporate hardware and software
infrastructure, including search, security, content distribution, storage, and
applications.

You only have to think about that for a few moments to see how far we are from
that kind of Internet, and just how locked down, siloed, chokepointed, gated,
and obsessively monetised the Internet we have today is.

~~~
Consultant32452
>The fact that the technological requirements for small new businesses and
cottage content industries have changed shouldn’t be confused with an
improvement in the opportunity landscape as a whole.

Except cottage content and product industries can now sell to virtually the
entire planet. That simply wasn't available before.

>as (mostly) low-status low-value workers

Here you're projecting your own bias against them. I'm not suggesting "the
system" is without flaws, but the average joe seems to be doing alright in
general, especially if you consider average joe historically and globally.

>The reality is that wealth concentration among the hyper-rich is accelerating
as they capture an ever-increasing share of global productivity.

Wealth concentration among the hyper-rich doesn't concern me in the least.
Generally speaking wealth is created by providing value, not taking it.

>If the Internet were likely to fix this, we’d have seen some evidence of this
happening by now.

The internet is in the process of unseating media monopolies and democratizing
information. The poorest of the poor across the world have access to
information that was previously only available to the wealthiest who could
attend universities in rich countries. The internet has allowed small
businesses with basically no infrastructure to reach the entire global market.
It's allowed families to keep in touch instantaneously across oceans.

>You only have to think about that for a few moments to see how far we are
from that kind of Internet, and just how locked down, siloed, chokepointed,
gated, and obsessively monetised the Internet we have today is.

You're comparing the internet to some fantasy you have. I'm comparing the
internet to the world before the internet.

------
gorpomon
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
> _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?

~~~
trowawee
Not the author of the parent comment, but my family shifted from solidly
middle-class to members of the 1% over the course of a few years in the early
2000s (my teenage years) as our family business became significantly more
successful. Here are some of the things I've experienced that strike me as
examples of that:

\- Talking specifically about money (how much high-ticket items specifically
cost, how much anyone specifically makes) is gauche.

\- Depending on the group and the location, there are functionally dress codes
- you show up to brunch in sweats and sneakers and everyone else is in polos
and boat shoes, you "dress up" in a shirt and khakis, everyone else is wearing
a blazer and slacks, you put on a Macy's suit for a formal event and everyone
else is wearing Tom Ford or Armani.

\- What you do for leisure can be a fraught discussion - we eventually started
traveling more, but I've met people who talked casually about summering in
Ibiza or the Hamptons (and who used "summer" as a verb), or who have seasonal
homes. "I stayed home and played X-Box" as an explanation for what you did on
vacation earns a side-eye.

\- What and how you eat, although that one has relaxed a little bit over the
last few years as street food has been gentrified and made trendier.

~~~
cryptoz
That all sounds so miserable. I think I'd rather stay middle class than deal
with that stuff.

~~~
dizzystar
To my mind, watering and feeding your lawn so that it is nice and green and
exactly 1 1/2" tall all year round is a solid middle-class indicator. I find
it kind of strange to spend that time and money on doing something that has
little to no productive value.

Not throwing daggers or anything, but every strata has things that are a bit
strange about them.

Yes, I know that upper class does that too, unless you are in the hills where
there really isn't any lawn to take care of, etc.

~~~
ryandrake
I suppose it varies regionally. To me, merely owning a lawn is something
reserved for the upper crust, let alone having the time to maintain one. The
middle class lives in small apartments and rents houses (with roommates or
extended family).

~~~
closeparen
Everyone in the Bay Area was was forced to step down a class so that the tech
boom and neighborhood character could coexist. Owning a (modest) suburban home
for your nuclear family is baseline middle class everywhere else. Renting (and
_especially_ renting with roommates) is for students and the poor.

------
ikeyany
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
> 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.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
>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.

Now now relax. You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class
distinctions are good because they glue our society together. You don't think
those people who have experienced the bottom are going to have a reaction to
that?

>It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense
of pity or moral absolutism.

Sure but the veneration is usually weak, it's akin to the 'noble savage' \-
the 'hardworking blue-collar.' It's veneration at a distance, contact between
the wealthy and the poor is frequently uncomfortable for both.

>One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a
lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves.

You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community
frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no
mentors and rare role models.

>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.

Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?

~~~
Helmet
> Now now relax.

We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.

> You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are
> good......You don't think those people who have experienced the bottom are
> going to have a reaction to that?

I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be
inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's
rather quite self-evident.

>You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community
frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no
mentors and rare role models.

I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate
high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much
guaranteed to enter the middle-class.

> Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?

What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies
exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for
a social scientist or sociologist. I don't find it to be analogous to what
we're talking about here though, as one cannot change their race, but many are
socially mobile.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
>We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.

Fair.

>I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be
inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's
rather quite self-evident.

Well no. It may be self-evident when you're honest with yourself but when
"we're" honest with "ourselves" it's not at all, hence the downvotes and
disagreement in the replies.

>I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate
high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much
guaranteed to enter the middle-class.

This is the success sequence stuff? Look it's just not very true. Almost the
entirety of various 'success sequence' poverty figures can be explained by one
thing: maintaining full-time work. Everything else is small or zero. Well
maintaining full-time work isn't always easy! There's a variety of
circumstances outside ones control which can affect your ability to maintain
full-time work.

[http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-
extremely...](http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely-
misleading-and-impossible-code)

>What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies
exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for
a social scientist or sociologist.

You didn't need a social scientist or sociologist to declare that class
distinctions are natural and helpful. Why the trepidation on race?

>I don't find it to be analogous to what we're talking about here though, as
one cannot change their race, but many are socially mobile.

Are many mobile in an effortful sense though? Say I have a society where at
birth we roll a bingo machine filled with balls 1-5 and we assign you to a
quintile. This society would demonstrate perfect intergenerational mobility
yet there would be no way to exert effort and change your circumstance - same
as race. Now what if instead of a bingo machine we just had a very large
'luck' component to mobility? It's the same deal. It's not just about how many
went from bottom quintile to third quintile or better, it's about how it
happened.

~~~
Helmet
>This is the success sequence stuff? Look it's just not very true. Almost the
entirety of various 'success sequence' poverty figures can be explained by one
thing: maintaining full-time work

This isn't true, and a random blog post where the author has difficulty
replicating the studies results does not prove it so. There is a mile high
pile of literature that shows marriage and high school graduation to be
vitally important. It would not surprise me in the least that these two are
strongly correlated with full-time employment. The "Success Sequence" has
lifted more people from poverty than any social welfare program has to date.

Here is some compiled literature:

 _[https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-
inequality/report/marri...](https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-
inequality/report/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty*)

_[http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IFS-
Millennial...](http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IFS-
MillennialSuccessSequence-Final.pdf*)

>You didn't need a social scientist or sociologist to declare that class
distinctions are natural and helpful. Why the trepidation on race?

I _genuinely_ still have absolutely no idea what you are asking me to clarify,
and I'm taking offense at your insinuation that I'm being coy about some
matter regarding race. I will gladly answer your question, but what is it that
you are asking or need clarification on? Are you asking me if racial
distinctions are natural? Yes, race is hereditary, is this not self-evident?

> Are many mobile in an effortful sense though?

I don't know what you mean by effortful, so the best I can answer you is to
say that socially mobility is a very real and recognized phenomena in the
United States of America.

>This society would demonstrate perfect intergenerational mobility yet there
would be no way to exert effort and change your circumstance

As far as I understand you, your underlying premise here is that social
mobility is, like a dice roll, pure luck. I think this premise is completely
baseless.

>'luck' component to mobility? It's the same deal

It absolutely isn't the same deal. I don't doubt that race makes it more
difficult for some people to succeed, but this is completely tangential and
I'm finding it difficult to see what, if anything, this has to do with my
original statement.

------
dizzystar
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.

~~~
dionidium
> "The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out
> what "my people" is supposed to mean."

For me, the weirdest part is the way in which the upper-middle class people I
now associate and work with talk about "my people" (i.e. the working-class
folks I grew up with). They mythologize them as the noble, hard-working, salt
of the earth, when in reality, they clearly don't like most of their habits,
their religion, their tastes, their opinions, their language, or much else
about them. Poor and working-class people are described in archetypes,
stereotypes, and as abstract ideas. But very little said matches what I know
about actual poor people. They are always -- always -- praised when spoken of
in the abstract. But when the conversation drifts toward the specific, it's
pretty clear that they're not really big fans.

I find myself simultaneously defending the behaviors of the working class
while also walking upper-class liberals back a few steps on just how _noble_
and _hard-working_ \-- they're _always_ described as _hard-working_ \-- most
actual poor people really are. They're just people.

~~~
Retric
I work with plenty of people that may put in a "hard" 2-3 hours of actual work
a day. Comparing effort and every poor person I grew up with actually worked
really hard.

If anything it's coded language for 'working hard is a great way to end up
poor'.

PS: Consider all the "hardworking" people here on HN. Yes, long hours may be
expected, but effort has little direct benefit.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
There’s a difference between working hard and working smart. One is the brute
force solution. The other uses a heuristic to narrow the solution space.

~~~
emodendroket
I think the point here is that in white-collar workplaces long hours are
mostly an abstract way of signaling that you take the job seriously, not
exhausting in the way that long hours in a job demanding physical labor would
be.

~~~
gbacon
There are different kinds of tired — physically exhausted, brain-fried, and
emotionally spent — but I’m not making any sort of comparison between them.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, but the guy who always stays after at work, how much of his time is work
and how much of it is browsing Reddit?

~~~
gbacon
Fair question. Is that person slacking, projecting, coping, or percolating?

~~~
ShabbosGoy
They’re signaling to management. Plain and simple.

------
rb808
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
It’s simplified, but aside from the subclasses which will exist within any
group, isn’t it broadly accurate?

~~~
rb808
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.

------
DoreenMichele
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.

------
johngalt
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
Read "The millionaire next door" for a book-length explanation of this.

------
malvosenior
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
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?

~~~
asmithmd1
Tom Brady owns a multi-million dollar house next to "The Country Club" (yes,
that is exactly how it is referred to, anyone who has to ask which country
club does not belong) and he was denied a membership until this year:

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2017/07/13/the-c...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2017/07/13/the-
country-club-brookline-finally-admits-gisele-
bundchen/D6FedQkhgn9QMsstOSXyNM/story.html)

------
matte_black
If you want a quick hack to be seen as high class and authoritative (and you
probably do since this is _hacker_ news) 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.

------
ErikVandeWater
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
> "you cant fight the system"

but we can die trying : ).

------
FiatLuxDave
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
There might be an aspect of shame where those people are less likely to talk
about adjusting to moving down the ladder.

------
murph-almighty
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
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-
incom...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-
ladder-location-matters.html?pagewanted=all)

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)

------
zitterbewegung
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
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
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.

------
ChuckMcM
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
> _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.

------
seqastian
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide)
American dream? better say in Europe.

~~~
specializeded
*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
Race? I'm not sure what that would do here, especially since race usually
doesn't change a lot between parents and their children.

------
chicagoscott
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)

------
dsacco
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.

~~~
emodendroket
The article actually profiles one guy who had to acclimate himself twice over,
first to the old-money world of the East Coast, then once more over to the
new-money world of Silicon Valley.

~~~
dsacco
Yes, it’s quite fascinating differentiating between the social idiosyncrasies
of each.

------
awaythrow937
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.

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

------
AnimalMuppet
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.)

------
whytheam
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
You think you're rebutting the article, but it says those exact things.

------
marnett
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.

------
nitwit005
> “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.

------
dominotw
i thought this was about class-pass gym thing.

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

------
jnordwick
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
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.

------
snvzz
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
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
Yes, that's the one and only reason I can think of.

~~~
emodendroket
OK, but that's a pretty huge one.

~~~
snvzz
Fair enough.

