# Why Do Rich People "Go Slumming"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 4, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912 "2010-04-04T15:36:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/21 "2010-04-05T00:11:13Z")
1. Sex 2. Wanting to act on liberal political leanings (to what extent you want to call this “liberal guilt”, to what extent “naive optimism”, and to what extent “doing good work” is up to you) 3. Sex 4. Wanting to be a big fish in a small pond (in their chosen profession) 5. Sex ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/22 "2010-04-05T00:27:55Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Well, for the same reason men love to wear girly, girly dresses. Its for the change! The excitement! The thrill! > > Pretty, pretty dresses… :dubious: As stated, it probably really doesn’t happen that much. The only person I’ve ever really known to to do this is a doctor’s daughter I know that moved out of her parents’ cushy home and life and actually became a street urchin-type that hung out on 4th Avenue with her hair in dreadlocks and no place to sleep at night. She got over that phase really quickly, though, as I expect most sane people would. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/23 "2010-04-05T03:53:21Z")
Fun is fun and people is people. Rich people have a huge spectrum of ways to have fun, from golf and opera down to fishing, going to football games, etc. Poor people only get to select from the cheap end of the spectrum, but that doesn’t mean that what they do isn’t fun, or that the people who do it aren’t worth talking to. Near where I live is Fraser Island, a huge sand island with beaches that take several hours just to drive part-way along. People go there to enjoy the nature, but many (most?) go to fish off the beach. People who would be considered working class go there, and camp on the beach for accommodation. People who are stupid rich go there and stay in relatively modest accommodation (fisherman’s dwellings, mostly - there isn’t really any high luxury accommodation for regulars) all for the fun of lining up in the surf shoulder to shoulder and fishing, bullshitting, and enjoying the experience. Egalitarian fun is not just an affectation - it’s actually fun. The difference is that the rich can _also_ enjoy ridiculously expensive pursuits as well, and they often do both. It’s not as though you are only allowed to enjoy opera _or_ football. As to the rich teenager who decides to abandon wholly the privileges of wealth, that didn’t seem to be the flavour of what the OP was talking about. But I guess that is often about rebellion, just like Alex P Keaton rebelled against his hippy parents by becoming a conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/24 "2010-04-05T04:37:02Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But there is a difference; those are kids having a good time, and they have enough parental funds (trustifarians) to avoid serious discomfort. I am talking about kids from a middle class or upper class background who really join the paycheck-to-paycheck working-class grinding poverty lifestyle. Kids who don’t go to college, or flunk out of State U first, then local city U, then community college, never making a serious stab at any of them. Kids that have the capacity, background and resources to go to college but instead want to wait tables or wash dishes at a sports bar and smoke weed _when they can afford it_. We’re talking about the sort of people that look at drinking in bars to be hopelessly high class, as it costs so much more than a case of Natty Lite. I can’t say I’ve personally encountered anyone in the situation you describe, but I’ve known a few kids from well-off homes who voluntarily choose to work at fairly menial retail jobs _long_ after the “learning to appreciate the value of money” or “understanding how fortunate you are” or “most people actually have to work for their money”-lesson learning stage is well and truly over. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/25 "2010-04-05T18:30:27Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But there is a difference; those are kids having a good time, and they have enough parental funds (trustifarians) to avoid serious discomfort. I am talking about kids from a middle class or upper class background who really join the paycheck-to-paycheck working-class grinding poverty lifestyle. Kids who don’t go to college, or flunk out of State U first, then local city U, then community college, never making a serious stab at any of them. Kids that have the capacity, background and resources to go to college but instead want to wait tables or wash dishes at a sports bar and smoke weed _when they can afford it_. We’re talking about the sort of people that look at drinking in bars to be hopelessly high class, as it costs so much more than a case of Natty Lite. That’s most likely because they don’t have the capability or desire to succeed. Just because your parents are wealthy doesn’t mean that you get anything out of it but a bedroom. Some parents send you to public school, send you to college if you want, but not if you don’t, and then hand you $1000 and say “Good luck” as they push you out the door. That they could afford to give you $1,000,000 doesn’t mean they will. And many kids get that $1,000,000 (or more like a monthly stipend), and simply blow through each check within 12 hours of getting it. They _have_ to work a job waiting tables or whatever, because otherwise they’ll starve for the next 29 days. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/26 "2010-04-05T21:19:57Z")
The correct answer is usually “drugs”. It’s difficult to answer the OPs question without defining what “rich” is and what is considered “slumming”. Is billionare Warren Buffet slumming because he lives in a relatively modest (for his income) house? Should people only associate with those of a similar income bracket? > [@MandaJo](#): > > I am talking about kids from a middle class or upper class background who really join the paycheck-to-paycheck working-class grinding poverty lifestyle. Kids who don’t go to college, or flunk out of State U first, then local city U, then community college, never making a serious stab at any of them. Kids that have the capacity, background and resources to go to college but instead want to wait tables or wash dishes at a sports bar and smoke weed _when they can afford it_. Because they are lazy fuck-ups? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/27 "2010-04-05T22:11:38Z")
Edmund Blackadder said it best: > [@](#): > > It is said, Percy, that civilised man seeks out good and intelligent company, so by learned discourse he may rise above the savage and so, come closer to God. > > Personally, however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead, to remind me I’m best. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/28 "2010-04-05T22:38:35Z")
I think the poor people are cool. They have gritty experiences that build character and interesting stories that give them an edge. They make dirty, grimey art and fashion and music. Their language takes shape in such a way that an outsider may not even understand a word they are saying, but they can of course still understand the language of even the most hoity toity rich folks. Not to romanticize being poor…the drawbacks of poverty are obviously awful. But if one is rich, they can slum it without having to put up with the pesky drawbacks of poverty. Also, I always wondered why rich people need so many rules. Common sense should tell one how to behave in polite society. No need for all of this, “Start with this fork, then, this spoon”. You should have developed the kind of character that tells you how to behave without offending, without all of these ‘rules’. By the time you rack up all of these rules and rituals, it must be boring to put up with, and wonderfully freeing to go slum it in the ghettos. But, as much as I love the ghetto, one of the funnest times of my life was in Vegas with a man for whom money was no object (my boss, not a romantic interest or anything). Also, I have another friend that not only loves being what I consider ‘rich’ but also takes pains not to spend any time at all in the ghetto. We wanna see him, we gotta come to _his_ element! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/29 "2010-04-06T14:04:07Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I think the poor people are cool. They have gritty experiences that build character and interesting stories that give them an edge. They make dirty, grimey art and fashion and music. Their language takes shape in such a way that an outsider may not even understand a word they are saying, but they can of course still understand the language of even the most hoity toity rich folks. Not to romanticize being poor…the drawbacks of poverty are obviously awful. But if one is rich, they can slum it without having to put up with the pesky drawbacks of poverty. The you become one of those douchebag hipsters in Brooklyn who dropped out of law school so they can shop in thrift stores and talk about starting bands or becoming actors while they wait tables and tend bars. > [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Also, I always wondered why rich people need so many rules. Common sense should tell one how to behave in polite society. No need for all of this, “Start with this fork, then, this spoon”. You should have developed the kind of character that tells you how to behave without offending, without all of these ‘rules’. By the time you rack up all of these rules and rituals, it must be boring to put up with, and wonderfully freeing to go slum it in the ghettos. Much of the rules of the upper-middle and upper classes are for identifying themselves as part of that class and for excluding others. The upper classes spend a lot of time and money isolating themselves and building a kind of fantasy world sphere of bullshit where they can be superior. It often results in a sort of “Preppy Handbook”\* cultural uniformity. Take the college I went to (education being one of the key indicators of social class). There was a certain sameness to nearly every one who went there. I remember a girl visiting from another school commenting on how nearly every single guy at the fraternity party we were at seemed to be wearing a Ralph Lauren oxford shirt, jeans and a beat to shit baseball cap (this was 1994, I don’t know how they dress now but I’m sure it’s the same as each other). After awhile, it just gets boring hanging out with the same interchangeable carbon blobs, going to the same parties, talking about the same stupid stuff that ultimately has no real meaning. \*This is an actual book one of the partners in my first job had on his desk. It goes into great length about the “right” schools, bars, vacation spots, Madras patterns, even personality types of living a WASPy/JAPy lifestyle like something out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/30 "2010-04-06T14:28:21Z")
What the hell is a Madras pattern? ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/31 "2010-04-06T14:33:15Z")
The “Preppy Handbook” was a sort of joke book, but gave the general outline of what was considered acceptable at the time. I seriously doubt much of it would fly today. I think the answer is usually Family Dysfunction (sometimes followed by drug/alcohol addiction). I could have had a free ride to college if I’d been willing to put up with (and able to survive) another four years of verbal and emotional abuse. I chose fredom, thank you, and it was the right choice. So I lived in a run-down Latino neighborhood while my brother went to the uppitiest of colleges. But most of my life has been much happier than his, and I’m please with the majority of my choices. He is now making the same mistakes with his kids that our parents made - and living the same miserable, hocked-up life our Dad did. Sad. Bottom line - when you’ve spent you whole life among people who judge, berate and compete with you, the discovery of a world of humans who are understanding and fun to be with is limitless joy. Who wouldn’t choose good friends/kind neighbors over mean girls and jerks? ETA: Madras is a sort of pastel plaid, always with just one too many colors in it. [Madras\_quilt](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_QOBLd-3Fi7c/SCtJXIM79_I/AAAAAAAAAL8/Aty9mIlr76Y/s400) ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/32 "2010-04-06T14:40:34Z")
Back when the drinking age was 18, after the prom and the dinner and everyone standing around in tuxes and ball gowns, where did the prom goers go afterward? Why, to the tackiest, smelliest dive bar in town, for cheap pitchers of beer, pickled eggs and bags of chips, and to feed quarters into the juke box. That’s a minor example of slumming, isn’t it? This isn’t the same thing, but an awful lot of people who live in McMansions in the suburbs seem to get their names printed in the police blotter in the paper when they’re arrested at 3 a.m. on a street corner on the south side. Like some Kennedys used to do. Not so much “slumming” as just driving their Corvettes through a slum. (I should think with so much money they could have deliveries made to their mini-palaces.) If they’re interested in slumming it up with ladies of the evening, though, I could see driving downtown. Old movies from the 30’s often featured the rich going out slumming among the ‘real’ folks. The purpose of this seemed to be a device to make the rich, bored ingenue meet a real manly man, a man who worked with his hands doing honest labor. She would then look around at her rich, bored men friends on her yacht and realize a real man of the people was the superior choice. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/33 "2010-04-06T14:41:48Z")
I’m going to Waffle House in a tuxedo on the morning of my wedding. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/34 "2010-04-06T14:46:54Z")
The driving urge is “nostalgie pour la boue”, as described by Tom Wolfe in “Radical Chic” and also defined [here](http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/12/yasgurs-farm-american-digest-has.html): _"…nostalgie pour la boue, is a longing for the gutter, a “compulsion that comes over people when they have, for complex reasons, a need to immerse themselves in self-degradation. It’s usually a mix of drink, drugs, and weird sex until the soul is obliterated by the abused flesh”. "_ Oooo, fun. The “Radical Chic” experience was a milder form of nostalgie pour la boue, in which wealthy liberals rubbed elbows (but not too closely) with Black Panthers. Hilarity ensued. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/35 "2010-04-06T16:36:10Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > _"…nostalgie pour la boue, is a longing for the gutter, a “compulsion that comes over people when they have, for complex reasons, a need to immerse themselves in self-degradation. It’s usually a mix of drink, drugs, and weird sex until the soul is obliterated by the abused flesh”. "_ Sounds like my recent trip to Vegas.😃 > [@TruCelt](#): > > Bottom line - when you’ve spent you whole life among people who judge, berate and compete with you, the discovery of a world of humans who are understanding and fun to be with is limitless joy. Who wouldn’t choose good friends/kind neighbors over mean girls and jerks? I think that basically describes nearly everyone I went to college or ever worked with. [These are Madras.](http://www.capemadras.com/product/mens-madras-pants.htm) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/36 "2010-04-06T16:50:32Z")
What about the kids of the rich rejecting college? Rob Mondavi (great grandson of the founder of Mondavi wine) dropped out of Stanford, to persue snowboarding. This while his dad was worth somewhere north of $120 million! This kid had everything… yet dropped out of one of the most prestigious colleges in the USA! ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/37 "2010-04-06T16:54:36Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > What about the kids of the rich rejecting college? Rob Mondavi (great grandson of the founder of Mondavi wine) dropped out of Stanford, to persue snowboarding. > This while his dad was worth somewhere north of $120 million! > This kid had everything.. yet dropped out of one of the most prestigious colleges in the USA! Also, didn’t Adrian Veidt give up all his inheritance money to prove to himself that he could “make it” on his own? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/38 "2010-04-06T17:02:13Z")
Not everybody has the desire or ability to graduate from college. Just because your parents had that ability and desire doesn’t mean you will (though it does increase the odds that you will). People have different tastes in leisure activities. A rich person might like something that is usually associated with poor people. > [@ralph124c](#): > > do the rich regard us ordinary folk as zoo animals? And they want to know about our habitats? My guess would be “some do, some don’t”. Rich people don’t all think alike, any more than poor people or women all think alike. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/39 "2010-04-06T17:02:15Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > There are just some people who are happy without making their lives about constantly getting ahead in the rat race. It’s a lot easier when you know you have someone to bail you out if the shitty jobs dry up, frankly. > > I know a guy who is incredibly smart and talented, but has worked a series of dead-end food service and labor jobs for his entire adult life. He quit college with 3 credits left towards his degree because no more classes interested him and he was making enough money delivering pizza to fund the lifestyle he liked. He’s comfortable living in shitty apartments as long as he has enough money for pizza, beer, pot and World of Warcraft. > > I was frustrated with him sometimes but I get it now: he’s happy the way things are. Why change anything? He was honestly more content with life using his brain to figure out the most complicated strategies to make new and exciting Magic: The Gathering decks rather than apply it towards a job he didn’t care for. He didn’t care about impressing people, or working towards job-related goals, so why do those things? The problem I see with that lifestyle is that while it may be a lot of fun for a young person, as you get older it gets increasingly isolating. Your old friends leave town, or drop outta contact and young folk who live this way increasingly don’t really want to associate with/are creeped out by the 40 or 50 year old geezer who still lives in a shitty basement apartment collecting _Magic: The Gathering_ cards and smoking pot. As for getting dates … well, you would mostly have to give up on that. If you are a guy, most women appear to have no interest in guys who live like that beyond their 20s or so (dunno what the female or gay equivalent is like, all of the folks I know who chose this path were straight guys). Yeah, I’ve a few friends who did this more or less, but I can’t say it brought them a lot of happiness. The longer you live like that, the harder it is to simply decide not to. ---
**Author:** ![Minnie\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Minnie\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minnie_Luna)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912/40 "2010-04-06T18:04:14Z")
> [@](#): > > The “Preppy Handbook” was a sort of joke book, but gave the general outline of what was considered acceptable at the time. I seriously doubt much of it would fly today. A “sequel” is in the works. [True Prep](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/books/04preppy.html) Those people still exist in large numbers. Who do you think buys all the Lily Pulitzer schwag? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-rich-people-go-slumming/534912.md?page=3)