You missed the point (again!). I don’t think people in poor countries are constantly miserable, and I (clearly, I thought) don’t think that’s what you think.
But in any case, I can click the ignore button all day long, but you’ll still be an insipid bitch.
[nitpick] It’s Keurig [/nitpick]
I think the meme is ripe for parody.
Oh yeh, this shit has been making the rounds for a while. There are trivial complaints and inconveniences that are valid, and everyone on earth has them. Then there are impatient, entitled douchebags with no perspective who are just in need of some whiny drama.
Louis C.K. has this bit down to an art. (although he’s on Conan, a lot of this material is from his stand up)
I don’t have a problem with the phrase; it seems appropriate when people complain about life’s extravagances not being ‘just so’ without a sense of proportion. Using it for any trivial woe is a misuse, but it definitely has its place.
And, it’s not a call to think about starving Ethernopians, it’s a call to get a grip; some issues are so small in the grand scheme of things that complaining about them publically in order to garner sympathy is just dumb. Learn to not cry wolf every time a privledge you have access to doesn’t work quite as you’d like it to.
(man, typing posts like this on my iphone instead of the computer takes do much more time and effort! 1st world problem!!!)
Yeah, most of the time I tend to see this, it seems less “You have no right to complain about anything… BECAUSE AFRICA!!!11oneone11!1”, and more “Hey, cheer up, life can’t be too bad overall if this is what’s really bugging you the most right now”
But then again I don’t see it used all that often.
Uh oh I just used that term in another thread, though I think it’s the very first time I’ve done so. Do I get a pass?
No.
aside to people in background: Have you guys got that noose attached to the scaffold, yet?
Sorry, I’m all thumbs today, and on top of that I can’t get the bleepin’ trapdoor to ::clunk:: WOOOORRRRRRRRKKK! ::thud::
Ow.
“My counterfeit blue jeans have a hole in them and it’s a week until I get my next vodka ration.”
“lol! Second world problems!!!1111”
Look, it’s really very simple:
Saying “First World Problems, am I right?” about yourself after complaining? Charmingly self-deprecating, shows good perspective.
Saying “First World problems” about someone else who is whining about every little thing? Acceptable if slightly mean way of suggesting they GET some perspective.
Saying “First World problems” about someone else who is complaining like a normal person and not whining about every little thing? Flagrantly douchey.
But closed the lid just in time to prevent the banana peppers from escaping…
I used to hang out with a guy who’s family went through some of the worst shit in modern history, much worse than what most third-worlders go through. Not all of them made it. You could sit there and bitch to him about how this restaurant stopped making your favorite sandwich, or how your cat had fleas, and he would be completely sincerely sympathetic.
Problems are problems. As long as you maintain some common-sense perspective about things, there’s nothing wrong with complaining about trivial irritations. It’s what people do.
Ding ding ding.
Timely enough, I got my first “LOL! FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!!” last night. See, last night I went and got a spray tan, but the machine malfunctioned and left me covered in big, brown splotches. All over. Including my face. These will fade in the next day or two, but in the meantime, I get to walk around looking like a human dalmatian.
So, naturally, I took to my Facebook, posting: “So, in other news, the spray tan machine exploded on me and I look like a dalmatian. An orange dalmatian.” Obviously laughing at myself, because if I was truly heart broken, I wouldn’t be calling myself an orange, human dalmatian.
When I got up this morning, two of fourteen comments were, “#FirstWorldProblems!” Certainly, children in Sudan are not worrying about their spray tans, but it’s still mighty shitty that I have to walk around polka dotted for a few days. I will readily admit that this isn’t even in the top 500 of worst things that have ever happened to me, but it still sucks. “FirstWorldProblems” is so dismissive and shitty, blargh.
I said in my reply: “I expect those of you commenting “first world problems!!!” to only post about genocide and famine from here on out. Thanks!” Then went on to explain how spray tans work to someone who asked. Half of me wants to troll the two commenters’ statuses with “FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS!!!” on all the mundane shit they post.
Sometimes my coworker and I use “white people’s problems” when we want to poke fun at the education system or ourselves. But not to put other people down. Well, only education admins. 
I agree, though - the you-can’t-complain-unless-your-grandmother-died meme is old.
Roland Deschain
a lobstrocity bit off my trigger finger!! LOL Mid-World Problems!!
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Kevin Costner just bored me with 140 minutes of post-apocalyptic boredom! LOL!Waterworldproblems!!1
Well, yeah. Black children don’t get spray tans.
I read this as a thread of “First Word Problems” and expected a rant on Algebra. I was disappointed.
