The worst thing about this article is how hilariously smug and self-assured the tone is.<p>Seriously, what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of the middle class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit? How does he not realize that he is projecting his own insecurity and outdated ideas about "authenticity" on to these people.<p>Honestly, I've found that most people don't really give a shit about doing something truly meaningful and soul-fulfilling in their work. I may, you probably do too. But most people are fine with showing up, doing what they have to do, then getting out and spending time with the people that they love. What is so wrong with that?<p>Sure, we get it, the visual signifiers of the exotic have changed over the last 10 years. Once upon a time in the UK it was Superclubs and being part of something fancy and opulent. Now, the iconography of the working-class has been appropriated - and people want to buy into that, probably based on the tail-end of the skeuomorphic thing - where we were desiring to feel connected to nostalgia based aesthetics.<p>But what the author doesn't get is that people are deeply social. Sure, the economic and cultural environment will shift things the modes of interactions - but people will continue forming relationships with friends, relaying experiences, dancing to dumb songs with their friends. The artcile had some great observations, but maybe rethink framing this as "a problem" and stick to the description of culture (which was actually interesting).
I'm always reluctant to embrace something that is basically bemoaning "cultural malaise", especially with a rather obvious left-wing bent, BUT, it's very well written and offers several good points.<p>In particular, this bit:<p>"That their accent, speech patterns and knowledge of institutions, by their very deployment in the job market, perpetuate norms that exclude those who were born outside of the cultural elite."<p>It's a very valid point that culture drives so much of hiring and economic reality. That it creates economic barriers everywhere.<p>There's also a valid complaint against the meaninglessness of the office job. But to say "Hipsters :("... I'm not sure that really means all that much on its own.<p>I don't think it's a case of seeking meaning in a pointless non-struggle by emulating the struggling classes.<p>It's the same as it always was - the middle classes trying to differentiate themselves by social signaling - doing things others can't. Classic yuppies just bought expensive toys. The newer generation spends on other things. For instance, by dressing like a hipster, you can signal that you are not chained to the traditional office. You can buy $8 drinks at bars on weeknights. You can spend a year or two abroad.<p>We aren't quite like Effie, but only because the peacocking evolved in a different direction.<p>But let's not forget that Hunger Games is some ways an allusion to the Roman Empire - and that the fundamental problem is not a new one.
<i>Culture</i> has become commodified full stop. Culture of all classes is consumed, revered, hated, and loved by people of all classes.<p>I'm a working class boy with the middle class car and I know upper class people with the working class clothes listening to grime, middle class people living in a working class area who like eating out at the upper class joints, and even working class people with upper class money. While it's extremely unlikely for one change their underlying class (in the UK), now more than ever it's possible to enjoy the diversions, entertainments, and even trappings of any class.<p>As Kanye said to Zane Lowe in his interview today, fusion the future, and that's not just music but culture full stop. And it's a great thing too, IMHWCO.
<i>"Now the warehouse resides in the middle-class consciousness as the go-to space for every art exhibition or party."</i><p>(UK but not London) Warehouses are cheapish, available and more easily licensed. Good old fashioned middle class practicality.
The middle class are damned if they do, damned if they don't by the author's argument.<p>They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class culture, and for embracing it.
Between white America's appropriation of black American pop culture and the rise of yuppie hipsterdom, this applies just as much to the U.S., doesn't it?
The only constant is change. Working-class culture isn't static either, and it's pretty patronising to imply that it is.<p>It's also weird that the article states that the middle-class are priced out by rent and head towards working-class areas for the cheaper rent, then blames the middle-class for doing so.
This author hasn't spent a single day living with people that work for a living. There is just as much boredom with life and existential malaise amongst the working class as there is amongst the bourgeois. The only difference is, they have less free time and money to pursue things they think will fill the void.<p>I'm kind of sick of these idiots that raise a particular kind of work up on a pedestal. Seriously, the author is complaining about fetishization and doing a boatload of it himself.
This is basically just Pulp's "Common People" in article form: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM</a>
While I connect with and appreciate many of the points he has made, I have to say I'm getting pretty damn tired of the almost constant attack on the white middle class person from left-wing journalists.<p>You are damned if you do and damned if you don't with these journalists, many of whom are middle class or higher white people themselves who've simply developed somewhat of a hardon for self-loathing.<p>If rich young techies in San Francisco took their money and went and lived in areas already established as being the dwelling of the rich they would face criticism from these journalists for isolating themselves, not investing in the community, etc.<p>If rich young techies go and buy up property in previously poor areas, attract businesses to serve their needs, etc. they're damned for gentrifying the area and driving the culture out.<p>The only way it seems that these people would be satisfied is if the value creators simply went to work every day and created value and the output was distributed across the entirety of society, regardless of contribution...which in a very unfair way places all of society's burdens at the feet of the working current middle class even more than they currently are.<p>I'm a white, middle class software developer. I tend to go for these kind of things such exhibitions in warehouses, quirky restaurants and bars, etc. I don't do it to appropriate culture, I do it because it's more interesting to me than sterile, obviously very well financed restaurants and bars that charge you huge amounts of money to sit in a room packed with suits desperately trying to impress other people.<p>I'm not trying to take from below, I'm trying to find things of some substance that I'll enjoy and will likely find other people that I can connect with at.<p>Again, these hit pieces are pretty damn tiring. Who is it whose paying the bulk of the taxes to sustain the free schools the working and welfare classes send their kids to? Who is it that is making the finance available so that working class, welfare class, etc. can access third level education as those above them can? Who is it that is paying the bulk of the costs associated with those universities? Who is it that is covering the welfare that those in the welfare class are currently surviving on? And those in the working class whose manual jobs are quickly becoming redundant?<p>Who is it that is paying the vast bulk of the costs associated with providing the welfare and working classes with access to healthcare they absolutely otherwise would not be able to afford?<p>The middle class.
I'm always surprised to see articles like this upvoted on Hacker News. Not that there is anything wrong with the content, but it surprises me that it is popular on a forum relating to startups and technology.
"At the same time our doctors, teachers, university professors, architects, lawyers, solicitors and probation officers are rendered impotent. "<p>What does it say about a society where lawyers, doctors and professors are considered "middle class"? These are educated professionals. They earn, or should earn, higher-than-average wages. But today such professions are looked down upon.<p>Why would anyone want to be a doctor? They spend their time dealing with old/sick people. Even a lawyer has to keep appointments, has to show up to work regardless because other people plan their day around meetings with lawyers.<p>It was not that long ago that people dreamed and struggled to complete the education necessary to enter these professions. Today they are looked down upon as labourers, wage earners whose pay is a function of their skill and the number of hours worked. Instead we praise property owners, capitalists, whose investments and pensions are instead a function of how much property they already own.<p>It is time to properly tax investment income and start respecting those who actually work for a wage,.
Good article in many ways but what I always feel like these commentaries miss is that many of us came from working class backgrounds and put ourselves into the middle classes. And we still identify with the working class and that it isn't a fetish but rather our roots.<p>Say what you will about Western society but it does provide many opportunities for a working class kid to take agency and move themselves into the middle classes while still identifying with their upbringing too. I can afford nice things now, and I treat myself from time to time, but I (and many others I assume) haven't abandoned the things I grew up on either.
As a fairly recent immigrant to London, I haven't the faintest idea what the author is talking about. Can anyone please explain to me what this nonsensical rant really means?
Let's consider how the author's description of London contrasts with San Francisco and Silicon Valley.<p>As the poster child of gentrification in action, the city certainly has no shortage of artsy hipsters culturally appropriating both the trappings of the poor, as well as their actual dwelling spaces (adding insult to injury, one could say).<p>But unlike the article's description of London, the Californian hipsters aren't underpaid, underemployed youth who aren't able to make it to affluence in a finance-dominated economy. They're those working in software, supposedly the most meaningful of professions in the area, for companies that "change the world." They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last vestige of the middle class here (<a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much/answer/Michael-O-Church" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much...</a>)<p>So where are the similarities?
I dont get this. <i>Bullshit jobs, pointless existence, drinking in bars, gentrifiers, working class.</i>..? It sounds like communist manifest. Most londoners I know are in constant buzz just to keep flowing.<p>London problems could be fixed in four simple steps:<p>1) introduce 0.1% property tax<p>2) build a few decent schools<p>3) improve subway<p>4) deregulate high raise buildings