I’ve recently begun teaching a class in a low-income area of the city, and although anecdotal it seems as though every third car or so is sporting these large chrome wheels. I think the term is “low profile”, and I’m referring to the overly large diameter rim with a correspondingly thin tire. (Imagine a dinner plate with a rubber band around it.)
This is an area where money is obviously tight, and I would think something purely ornamental like this is a strange place to send limited resources. According to a few men I’ve asked, outfitting one’s car with these things can easily run into the thousands of dollars (according to them, some of the extreme ones can top the $10000 mark:eek:) I’ve spent a little time visiting with some of my students, and most seem to be struggling under the burden of parking/speeding tickets, unpaid or lapsed insurance. cancelled utilities, and a variety of financial disasters… but their cars still have these fancy wheels. It’s as if they are the single most important item in their budget. FWIW: I’m dealing with heads of families, not teenagers. As their instructor, I’m not comfortable asking them about personal financial details.
So I’m asking the board. Why? These things are absolutely ubiquitous in some areas. As far as I can tell, there’s not a single car outfitted like this in my neighborhood, so I didn’t realize how popular they are. Are they considered a rite of passage? Evidence of “having arrived” so to speak? Theft seems rife, and it seems an area with only driveways or street parking (no garages) is the last place you’d want to have an expensively ornamented vehicle.
I don’t get it. These can’t be an impulse buy; You’d need to save up for quite awhile to acquire them.
Status symbols. They don’t have to make sense to anyone outside the community, but are very important within the community. You don’t need to “get it,” because your opinion of the social structure is irrelevant.
I can think of a parallel, albeit decades ago. I once worked door-to-door in a poor section of St. Louis, and I got to see quite a few indoor living rooms. Although the occupants were uniformly non-wealthy, and even the food on the table looked cheap, two things stood out. I could almost always count on a giant color TV and a bar in the living room, no matter how small the room or how rundown the other furniture. The bar was typically just a bamboo structure, not a wet bar, but these two possessions must have set them back a bit. It was obvious to me that they were status symbols.
Actually this love of low profile tyres is getting very irritating for those of us who like driving cars, rather than being seen in them - for the overwhelming majority of applications they are the wrong choice, but they’re being fitted anyway because they have to be to sell the thing, especially with so-called “premium” models.
It’s always been this way in the ghetto. The houses are worth less than the cars parked in the driveways. It’s all about the rides, man. The transitory nature of money in the ghetto (low-wage jobs, selling drugs, other illicit trades), combined with the fact that the vast majority of the homes are rented as opposed to owned, leads to money being spent where they can see quick returns.
Ok Ambivalid. This is getting at the crux of my question. I understand that they’re status symbols, and that every part of society has them (some sort of status). I’m just flummoxed as to why the wheels of a car ended up as such a main symbol.
Your explanation sheds a little light on it. To me my car is transitory and my house permanent. For them it may be the other way round. Were I to invest in a status-based upgrade, I’d probably do it to my house. This makes some sense now (thanks).
The car is the status symbol. The wheels are the easiest way to glam up said status symbol. You might not be able to afford a $50,000 Mercedes, but you can find a way (if appropriately motivated) to buy a $5,000 used Civic and spend a couple grand on rims and tires. Rims, paint, window tinting and sound systems are some of the simplest (and most affordable, relatively speaking) ways to make your car distinctive.
As for why the car in the first place, in low-income neighborhoods, having a car is what distinguishes you from people who are stuck riding public transportation. Particularly for younger people, there are fewer things more important in terms of how you’re perceived by others. Spend an hour listening to current rap or R&B music, for example, and try to pick out what percentage of the songs you hear have the performer brag about their vehicle and/or make fun of someone who doesn’t have one. In low-income neighborhoods, having a nice car – or a car with nice accoutrement – can be similar to the middle-class goal of home ownership.
For the price of the rims/tires of the car I saw just today the owner could have purchased a nice used car. The car was a POS and to accommodate the rims the owner had to bugger up the suspension (the wheels barely fit within the fenders). He was bouncing to a stop in what had to be a very uncomfortable ride.
In LA I regularly hear radio advertisements for some company that lets you rent rims for your car. I always think to myself “WTF kind of lame ass rents rims for his car?”. I also wonder if they have to also buy or rent tires separately for the rims.
Every income level has their car-type status symbol. Asians go for the “riceboy” thing, buying el cheapo clapped-out Civics and putting wings and kits on them. White people go for the “domestic rice” Cavaliers and such and do the same thing. More wealthy people don’t do the mods because they’ve grown out of it. Instead they go for the brand status like Lexus or Jaguar.
You can drop a fortune on a house and it won’t stand out, or it will because it’s by far the nicest one on the block in which case people will wonder why you didn’t just move. Cars, however, go with you everywhere you go, and they display the economic status that you are or wish to be. Think about it. If you can afford to burn up $10000 tricking out your car you give off the impression that you have money to burn. How you choose to go about that is merely a reflection of your particular subculture.
This is right-on. In the lowest-level income neighborhoods, where a person lives often is in a state of constant upheaval and change; bouncing around from one rented property to another. The way to differentiate yourself from the poor people in the ghetto is to have a bangin’ ride.
The implicit question hidden in the OP is why someone on such a low income doesn’t save the money they spent on rims for more “worthy” things, like savings so they can attempt to claw their way out of the ghetto or something. The position the ghetto resident is in is unquestionably not ideal, but that is a matter of perspective.
OP can I ask if you have an iphone, ipad, laptop? Or some fun but ultimately frivolous and trendy sink of a couple of hundred to thousands of dollars, I bet you do.
Well imagine some billionaire posting here about this upper middle class person he just saw playing with an ipad, why would this person spend so much money on a toy would they could have invested it, or at least put it into savings so they could get out of that dreadful suburb they live in and into a real manor with at least a century or two of provenance?
The answer of course is that you are content where you are and you don’t spend most of your day hating your life and surroundings plotting how to claw your way up, if you blow money on a toy or status symbol its because you can think of no better use for the money(besides should you live your entire life deprived of things you want for the hope of entering a higher economic class? Of course not thats ridiculous.)
I understand your point about it being a continuum, with all of us perched at our particular point, looking both up and down at others. I assure you I’m guilty of spending a lot on expensive toys as well (although their value as status indicators is questionable).
Your analogy would be more valid if I were also behind on my house and car payments, and raiding the kids’ college fund for the toys. I guess that’s part of my question (for which I’m getting some good answers here… thanks).
