I think it was the whole “insult in the form of a compliment” thing. I mean, you expect to be called a mouth-breathing subtard if you’re debating with someone or you’ve pissed them off or whatever. (Maybe that’s just me.) But, “No really, apart from her lack of intelligence, lorene seems like a decent person” is just…tone-deaf. Obnoxious. Obnoxiously tone-deaf.
Yeah, but come on. This is the pit. I don’t mean to defend her, since I don’t know her posts really, but in this thread, lorene called her smug and condescending. This is a pit thread and there is some give and take insults being hurled. Or lobbed.
Plus, this is the SDMB, where saying mean things about fat people is only one step below ripping puppies’ legs off.
And I can’t spell privilege either, WordMan.
While this may once have been true, since I’ve been here posts like the quoted one have been about three times as common as the behavior they note.
Honestly—since we’re talking about you, I suppose I shouldn’t hold back—that really isn’t very interesting. Lots of parents worked very, very hard to provide for their children (mine certainly did; after his car lot imploded miserably my father had a bitch of a time for his last few years of life, but managed to keep us provided for). Lots of people have done volunteer work in college, and the fact that you didn’t have to work adds little to the story, since most people don’t work very much in college. (My father died bankrupt and my homemaker mother was forced to work at a gas station, and I still only worked a bare minimum my first several semesters.) A what-seems-to-be-false sense of one’s own interesting-ness is ripe for being taken the wrong way.
I did not accuse you, even in some hyperbolic sense, of “piss[ing] on poor people in your spare time”.* To be honest, I readily admit that my first interpretation of you question—that you were deigning to descend from On High to solicit questions from those less interesting than you—was a bit uncharitable. But that is genuinely how it read to me (and others). It may not matter to you; but given the realities of human nature, I find it helpful to choose my words carefully when discussing how much more fortunate I am than others. Some people will simply bridle at being asked, more or less (and among other things, agreed), if they want to know what it’s like to drive expensive cars.
- From what I’ve read of your posts, this is an example of the kind of snide exaggeration that makes you look rude, seeing hateful comments directed toward you when there were none. I think you were being insensitive to various reasonable interpretations of your writing; I simply can’t imagine how you would impute such vitriol.
Some people think that’s true, but by no means many or even most of them in America. In fact I think it goes too far in the other direction; people have an inflated sense of their potential for financial success and upward mobility. Many individuals are so entrenched in the “If I do things right I’ll be successful” mindset that—when something catastrophic does happen—they’re caught unawares; they haven’t prepared for it emotionally or practically.
The US hasn’t totally shaken its Alger-esque innocence just yet. I don’t necessarily think it should, of course.
nevermind
I suspect it’s a combination of a general sense that lorene is the aggrieved party, and the fact that lindsaybluth by all appearances really means it. There’s a difference between “I genuinely believe that you are of below-average intelligence” and “You are a goat-felching neanderthal who takes pride in kicking pregnant dogs” that makes the former more insulting.
It was just such a delicious example of what people were complaining that she does. Then, in the very thread, she does it again, seemingly obliviously. How could she not be called out on it?
Hmm. I understand this.
Some elephants, too.
No, it’s really not…my late husband did that once, because he saw a surveyor on the empty lot next door. Since he wanted the lot to remain undeveloped he bought it for cash the next day. And I wouldn’t consider us rich by any means. My dad, who was solidly middle-class but never rich, purchased property twice without financing it. One of my best friends is using her bonus to buy a beach property for cash, she’s closing on it next week. She’s not rich either.
I don’t know anyone that thinks this and your idea most people other than you have mundane lives because of their finances is freaking condescending. I’ve been poor and I’ve been not poor and money has very little to do with how “interesting” your life is…one of the most exciting times in my life was when I was living in Mahattan on $120 a week take home. And my parents were always trying to give me money but I was into independence and didn’t want it.
This is such a completely typical American experience that I don’t find it interesting at all…I would say that 90% of the people I know are living in drastically different financial circumstances that those they grew up in…although my Vietnamese friend that escaped to this country with nothing but the clothes on his back actually grew up as the richest kid on the South China coast, lost it all in the war then made it all back. And I might not even find this story that interesting if I wasn’t friends with the person involved.
Now if you had grown up with 7 - 7 bath houses in 7 different countries… that might be interesting enough to justify the Child of Money thread.
See, you still think people are fascinated by you and jealous of you because you’re not broke. You have a lot to learn about knowing your audience before you try to hold court.
I don’t really “get” this…are you trying to say that everyone but your own priveleiged self is stupid or deluded? I don’t know anyone that even vaguely thinks that they could be JK Rowling. What was this “college” you went to???
Do get some sleep sweetie, you sound really tired
One thing is for sure. None of us can spell privlij.
I feel better.
Sorry WordMan, that you didn’t have the prevulige of grawn urp rich and stuff like that, but youre probubly full of grace & such.
Look, it’s not hard. You start with a p, throw in some vowels and maybe a g somewhere, and then end proud on a d.
ppeeervilaggd. See?
I therefore propose replacing it with the loosely equivalent “subject to beneficial circumstances, providing an advantageous set of opportunities likely beyond median levels”. Privy-ledge sounds like a shelf in a bathroom anyway.
I was so tempted to start a thread in the **Happy Thoughts **forum “ask the child who is priviledger than you and feels great about it”…
“priviledger” = to be more privileged; that’s a word, right?
I know this is not appropriate for the Pit, but . . . MsWhatsit, you really are one of my favs.
I agree with those who say that, on its face, this kind of disparity doesn’t strike me as all that interesting in a “Ask the <blank>” sense. Obviously yall were enough alike to attend college together. Maybe she had to take on more loans or scholarships than you did, but really, who gives a fuck about that? So she got her clothes at Old Navy once every six months and maybe you shopped at Nordstrom twice a month. And when she went grocery shopping, she looked at the price stickers more often than you did, and ate ramen while you had pre-made fettucine alfredo from the Whole Foods deli counter. I bet yall shared some heartwarming tears and laughs as you endeavored to bridge these massive gulfs together as friends, but to a wider audience, this isn’t all that intriguing.
If you were to ask the average person how many bathrooms per person their childhood home had, they probably wouldn’t know. Not because they had so few toilets relative to family members, but because no one keeps track of shit like this. Especially people who are truly rich. So the more you go on about how much you had relative to others, the more nouveau and gauche you look. Ask the Hiltons how many bathrooms they have. They’d probably laugh at the very idea that someone would actually sit down and count this out. And they’d be right to laugh. Eddie Murphy from Trading Places would do something like that.
Well if the word man says it’s so, it must be so.
Who’s more qualified than the WordMan?