The Poor Aesthetic

“Being middle class affords you the confidence to feel entitled to enter any space you wish”.

We all know social climbers. People who seem embarrassed of their roots. The people who befriend, attend school or work with middle class people and suddenly drop the accent or slang they grew up using, treat people in the service industry with contempt and start wearing boat shoes. Increasingly among young people, however, is the rise of counter-signalling: privileged kids are almost hiding the fact that they are from middle-class backgrounds.
For some reason, the “urban edginess” of being working class seems to be en vogue, while the luxury of growing up wealthy is apparently just not cool anymore.

Some months ago, I read an article that almost perfectly vocalised my observation of this new pattern in social class and youth. This was a view I had understood especially since starting study at a top UK university, with boarding school kids galore. Dawn Foster’s article explains this trend perfectly: ‘people embracing working class culture while also showing contempt for working class people’.

I almost miss when rich kids actually owned that they were rich. The snobby, Paris Hilton/London Tipton-esque, rowing on Tuesdays, lacrosse on Thursdays, new-season designer, taking pictures of random groups of African children when on holiday kind of kids.

These days, rich kids listen to Skepta.

Rich kids aren’t from Oxford where they were born and raised, they’re from North London where they moved to 6 months ago. And if they really are from ‘oh, just North London’, this means Hampstead. They use slang words. They tell me my hair is ‘peng’ and that this party is ‘bare dead’, all while I reminisce on how people like me used to be mocked (by them) for speaking in this sociolect.

It is also impossible to be blind to the influx of the vintage, 90s, hipster, second-hand, ‘wavey garm’ trend that has hit the high street and particularly e-commerce sites such as eBay or Depop. These items, often branded (Puma, FILA, Champion, etc.) have moved from the disgrace of thrift-shops and marked-down TK Maxx clearance rails and is now retailing for up to £100 per piece depending on rarity. There is a new fetish for the poor man’s clothes; the working-class chav of the 90s is now a celebrated fashion icon – well, at least his clothes are.

So, people like grime music and wearing trendy clothes, what’s the big issue? This is like saying: white people like gentrifying poor, culture-rich neighbours – what’s the big issue? On gentrification, simply put: rich people are snatching the “good” bits they like about an area (e.g. the vibrancy, culture, art) and are rebuilding with expensive houses, shops and restaurants that raise the cost of living. Then they move into said houses and start their own businesses, leaving the originators of said vibrancy, culture and art disenfranchised in the communities they were born and raised in, that they cultivated and brought culture to.

Of course, social cleansing may be a stretch from the issue of rich kids exploiting working-class culture, but it is surely in the same conversation. Although developing poorer areas may seem harmless, it almost always disadvantages or eliminates the working class (including ethnic minorities, which make up much of this class and these communities). In a similar manner, privileged people adopting the aesthetics of the working class may seem harmless: they’re just taking inspiration, they’re admiring the culture. In reality, they continue to ignorantly mock, shame and disparage actual working-class people all while embracing “cool” features of the culture that they have created. On that note, we are no longer allowing fashion or media brands to collaborate with and promote anymore “rising stars” (bored, edgy rich kids, *cough* Hetty Douglas) that steal from genuine, upcoming working-class creatives who live and breathe the culture from which their art is inspired by. The pioneers and originators of this ‘new’ wave of urban streetwear should be the faces of it. The creativity of working-class youth cannot be exploited while the actual people behind the culture are mocked, misrepresented or left out of the mainstream entirely.

What is most saddening, I feel, is the assurance of entitlement many privileged people feel to insert themselves in any space they choose for a time being, only to shrug it off when needed or when they seek to return to their normalcy. It’s almost like putting on a costume for the sake of being edgy or quirky, then having the freedom to take it off when the performance is over – a luxury that many minorities or working-class people will never be able to do. They are the “costume”, the culture that’s been turned into a caricature for kudos or even profit, in many cases. In other words, let people beg in the streets in peace. Don’t beg with them during the day, then go home at night and eat 5-course gourmet. Enjoy Burberry and Ralph Lauren. Take off the white, second-hand Umbro slip-ons no one has bought since the 90s, that you know are ugly but are wearing for the aesthetic of slumming it. Just really mocking it.

In all seriousness, however, there is truly a wider conversation to be had regarding the assertion and domination of privileged people in spaces not created by them. This phenomenon starts with fetishization of the poor and always ends with the dismissal of these already marginalised communities. This historical trend that is now manifesting in middle-class youth, described by Foster as a ‘poverty safari approach’ or even better, what my friend calls a ‘human zoo’, is almost systemic in its ability to benefit (or temporarily entertain) the wealthy while simultaneously mocking and exploiting the less privileged. 

Here's a song fit for the occasion. Read the lyrics if you can, they're great.





This is the incredible Huck article I referenced by Dawn Foster:
http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/hetty-douglas-working-class-dawn-foster/

Some more reading on the topic:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/02/21/oxbridges-posh-kids-like-hide-behind-working-class-smokescreen/

http://www.verbalremedy.co.uk/hetty-douglas/ (amazingly written, hits the nail on the head)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/22/oxford-university-state-schools-st-hildas

Also, for more on gentrification (which I think I'll write about soon!) watch The Grapevine's discussion of it and its effects on the working-class in the DC area of the US: state-sanctioned violence, harassment and disenfranchisement. Scarily similar to what we observe, or could observe in areas like London's Peckham, Brixton and more):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ADR8--2Ma8