Ideas on the different aspects of middle class vs upper class?

College Confidential Community
1

I would like for this to be an elaborative discussion. The reason why I have been up this accusation is through experience and reading vigorously. Throughout those retrospects, I began to notice some characteristics between the wealth classes in society, predominantly American since the french have a different aspect of the bourgeoisie.

middle class:
-Think nationally
-Constantly have Facebook, twitter, vines, youtube, accounts that are vulnerable to their identity
-Drink and Party
-Oblivious to space
-Focus on taste for food
-Are concerned what people think of them
-Concerned about making memories for themselves
-Doesn’t appreciate art exquisitely
-Avoid adversity
-Most likely attend big state schools that are cheap knock offs of “Ivy-Leagues”
-Have midlife crises

-Focus on brands for status
-Consume rather than produce
-Watch big blockbuster films with explosions
-Express cynicism and focus on the what at a young age
-Focus on trends
-Simplified Philosophy: “Work hard, play hard.”

upper class:
-Think on a globally
-Have screens for identification security purposes
-Read
-Aware of their surroundings
-Focus on presentation
-Dont care what other people think of them
-Concerned about being remembered in history
-Support independent artists
-Accept adversity
-Attend universities known for its resources (ex: student run venture capital firms)
-Don’t have midlife crises

-Focus on artistic expression, to support artists
-Produce rather than consume
-Watch films from independent artists
-Express wisdom and focus on why at a young age
-Create ideas
-Simplified Philosophy: “Do what you love”

2

Heading for a marketing career, are you?

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@JustOneDad Not necessarily marketing, I’m an entrepreneur with an desire to divulge myself in reading. But true, its nice to know my market for the product I’m in the process of coding.

4

“with an desire to divulge myself in reading”

Okay, I give up. What, exactly, does that mean?

5

I think you’re confusing ‘middle class’ w ‘working class’.

6

FYI
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class

7

@CoolBird, Is English your first language? Your phrasing needs some work. It makes your post difficult to follow. Have you ever been to the US? Your profiles seem like stereotypical characters from prime time TV. Where are you getting your information about Americans? What age group and gender are you trying to profile?

8

This is just plain weird.

9

Why did you make a topic on nonsensical stereotyping of social class

10

Sorry everyone, I have been traveling lately and I have been thinking about the different cultures within society. I just typed really fast without checking my work, so sorry for the confusion. No, but there are so many different cultures that have a different standpoint on socioeconomic culture. The French for example, have a unique way of how they present wealth classes because they base their socioeconomic premise on knowledge. For example, they would look at someone in prestige who reads vigorously compared to someone who doesn’t. Its a whole other world out there.

11

How do you explain the growth of luxury brands, even in a down economy?

My son went to a private school years ago where one of the parents drove an Aston Martin. The every-day car was a Mercedes or BMW. The wealthy elite most certainly do seem to like brands.

12

If you want to understand the American “affluent” class, read the following.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474

13

@SouthFloridaMom9 In my opinion I would be careful to categorize someone as “wealthy” when defined by expenses. From my viewpoint, I believe there are immense factors to consider when “wealthy” are defined by expenses/brands. Those parents could be struggling to pay for that car or sending their kid to private school. We don’t necessarily know their circumstance. Besides there are far more expensive cars than Aston Martins, Mercedes, and BMWs: Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, etc. I’m not saying go out and buy an expensive car today, but I’m only informing that the upper class think much differently than the other wealth classes in America. I believe their wealth is not based on what they buy but what they produce. In my own personal experience, and I don’t mean to brag about this, when I was volunteering at my local hospital, I was comforting a sick physician who prior to going to surgery. We had an interesting conversation about how people are willing to risk their health as a means to make money, just to avoid the thought of surgery. The ill physician concluded, “Money will come, its just a byproduct of society. The main point in life is to do something you love.”

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How is the divulging yourself in reading going, @coolbird?

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@Madison85 Hahaha, I know bad typing. Its going pretty well, thanks for asking, I’m working on a book by Percy Fitzgerald on the Art of Acting. I have some thoughts about getting into acting because I have some connections with an agency and I want to understand how to become a good actor instead of the “Big Blockbuster hit” actors. I read The Lean Startup and thought of an idea for a couple retail start up companies. Primarily Im teaching myself coding, well Im working on a website in HTML and CSS by teaching myself because I see coding as an art, which I like because I have an idea of what my product is going be. I finished a book called The Quest for a Fusion Energy Reactor, it was very interesting on how scientists from the world theorized about a tokamak reactor. I even emailed the author personally on some questions I had in mind pertaining to big oil companies and how they can create laws that could inhibit people from selling fusion energy because investors in gas and oil will loose money. I’m also working on a book entitled Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. I love how its teaching me how to look at problems head on when negotiating instead of trying to “win” an argument. I read The Wolf of WallStreet and you can obviously tell that Jordan Belfort is trying to rebrand himself so people would forget about what he did, and no one necessarily called him The Wolf of WallStreet, but it gave me a new perspective on Swiss banking and corporate bank fraud, interesting stuff. I started a blog called KRYLFS if your interest, its pretty much a blog about book reviews, it helps solidify my thoughts. I haven’t been blogging much lately, you have been warned.

Also @SouthFloridaMom9 just to point out there are no designer cars, we only have brands, but sometimes there are people who decide they want to remodel old ones if they want. Just wanted to share.

16

I find your differentiation is nonsense.

17

Yeah, this list is incredibly stereotypical: I could pick out many people considered “lower class” that have many traits from both of these lists.

-Think nationally v globally - this is completely nonsensical and doesn’t even have a stereotype

-Drink and Party - people from all classes do this

-Oblivious to space v Aware of their surroundings - what does this even mean?? Again, no sense here

I would argue there’s no difference between these two, on top of the fact that being remembered in history is not the goal of many people.

-Focus on taste for food - um, what? What person from any class doesn’t care about food taste?

-Avoid vs accept adversity - This can easily be reversed: there is no trend here

-Most likely attend big state schools that are cheap knock offs of “Ivy-Leagues” - pretentious much? On top of the fact that many people that go to ivies get lots of need-based aid and would therefore not be middle class…

-Have midlife crises - funny, I always thought that came with being upper class more, as you struggle for real happiness with all the extra time you have

-Watch big blockbuster films with explosions v Watch films from independent artists - I am probably not either of these classes and as a huge sci-fi and philosophy buff love the latter. Class has nothing to do with movie preferences: to me it seems you’re trying to boil down low and high brow very unsuccessfully

-Read - um, lol. Everyone reads. Often lots of upper-class kids can get spoiled and go out and party nonstop while the middle and lower class kids stay in and read. And it goes the other way as well. People don’t read or not read based on class…

This entire list is incredibly stereotypical and even incorrect in its stereotypes. Where did you get this information from? As someone who is not on either category but will probably live most of my life as middle class, I think I found myself identifying much more with your “upper class”. Personally I would go as far as to say it’s even offensive, basically summing up the idea that middle class is petty, short-sighted, not as smart or cultured, and have a bad taste in media. The post has a lot of incredibly clear elitism in it, and it is simply not accurate at all, even of the classic stereotypes.

What is the point of this anyways?

18

Dr. Ruby Payne published “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” with a list not unlike the above. The only link where you can see the overview I could find is this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+defines+lower+middle+and+upper+class+ruby+payne&biw=1366&bih=625&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAoNGV6K7JAhWDYiYKHY20AcEQ_AUICSgE#imgrc=h6PNCc_TN5Wz7M%3A

The book reviews on Amazon are interesting, too.

19

I don’t think the difference is as pronounced as indicated by your list. There is wide variation to such a degree that such sweeping generalizations would be difficult to apply. To better gauge the differences, you might want to define and classify what you define as “middle” or “upper” class; clearly, Zuckerberg would be upper, but what about someone with 3 million in San Francisco? Or 3 million in a small town? Especially prominent nowadays with the so called “rise of the middle class” is the “upper middle class”. For leisure, I think your list is an accurate portrayal of one person’s view; I’m not sure how well it would reflect reality though, that which you may wish to capture. It may be aligned with stereotypes however, and could reflect how one side views the other. I do agree that some points are likely to reflect reality: large charity foundations and patronizing arts in wie expanses is more likely to occur with those excesses.

20

What even is this list? This makes no sense and people from all statuses can do both actions…