2D8HP's extended mea culpa and Random Banter #218

[WarKitty]

I meant more like clothing or stuff in your car or whatever, not stuff in your house.

[factotum]

I meant more like clothing or stuff in your car or whatever, not stuff in your house.

Surely the car itself is more of a indicator of your wealth than anything you have in it, when you're in that situation? Anyway, it's not something that ever arises for me because I don't buy expensive things!

[WarKitty]

Surely the car itself is more of a indicator of your wealth than anything you have in it, when you're in that situation? Anyway, it's not something that ever arises for me because I don't buy expensive things!

In america? No. A car is, in most places, a basic necessity to be employed.

[Anonymouswizard]

I meant more like clothing or stuff in your car or whatever, not stuff in your house.

In this case, no. I sound posh, and no amount of not wearing nice clothes will change that, so people already assume I must have at least some nice stuff.

In america? No. A car is, in most places, a basic necessity to be employed.

This is a cruel discrimination against those of us with disabilities that make us feel unsafe driving a car.

(Seriously, in a bad month I drop my phone at least once a day, I do not feel safe driving and never will.)

[AMFV]

Random question: are you ever embarrassed to have expensive or fancy stuff out where people can see it? I always feel like I have to justify where I got it because otherwise I feel like I'm showing off my money. (Usually I really didn't spend that much, I just have a good eye for getting nice stuff for cheap.)

Not really. But in my case the expensive stuff is usually tools, and those are only usually seen by other folks who have expensive tools, since those are what you use to make your living. I wouldn't be able to wear clothes that were nice around too much, since I wind up spending money on work clothes which are damaged and destroyed too often to be really fancy.

Surely the car itself is more of a indicator of your wealth than anything you have in it, when you're in that situation? Anyway, it's not something that ever arises for me because I don't buy expensive things!

Well the type of car you have can be a status symbol, but as people have said it's really a necessity. Actually it's kind of funny because the types of cars that are status symbols vary greatly by area. Like if you're out in the country where I live, it's big trucks, if you're in the city it's super fancy cars.

This is a cruel discrimination against those of us with disabilities that make us feel unsafe driving a car.

(Seriously, in a bad month I drop my phone at least once a day, I do not feel safe driving and never will.)

Well it's not really discrimination mostly it's just because things are so far away in the US. The UK is roughly forty times smaller than the US. So a lot of things are very far apart. If you live out in the suburbs, you'll probably have a minimum of a thirty minute commute every day. And that's without traffic. Now if you were living here, you'd probably want to move into one of the larger cities in the US, which can have reasonable mass transit.

[Algeh]

In america? No. A car is, in most places, a basic necessity to be employed.

Sure, but what kind of car, how old it is, and what kind of shape it's in do tend to be indicators of wealth/status.

I drove a 1984 Camry that my grandpa had fixed up after it was totaled as my main car for most of my adult years (until a year or so ago - the defroster stopped working and it's too expensive to hire someone to tear apart the dash to fix it, so it's parked until I have time/space/tools to do that myself). I once got a parking ticket for parking in a visitor spot at the high school I was substitute teaching at because they assumed it was a "student car". (They waived it once I took the ticket into the office since I was, in fact, supposed to be parking where I was parked.) I also once got pulled over for "having a dirty license plate" when driving late at night, and the cop visibly startled and changed his train of thought when he saw it was a middle-class white woman in their 30s behind the wheel (not quite sure what he was expecting - a bunch of teenagers?).

I have a friend who has wealthy parents but is not himself wealthy, so he's always driving 10-15 year old Audis.The combination of "expensive car" and "old" is particularly awkward when you're trying to find a repair shop.

I kind of have the same thing now. I bought a house, and it has an in-ground swimming pool. I didn't buy the house because I wanted a pool, pools don't actually make houses sell for more money where I live (in fact, at least one of the other prospective buyers decided not to put in an offer because they didn't want to deal with having a pool, and I suspect the pool is part of why I was able to get the house as quasi-affordably as I did after getting outbid on several other properties previously), and I wouldn't have paid money to put in a pool, but now I have a "fancy" thing about my house. It's kind of awkward, because people make assumptions about general house and lifestyle fanciness based on the fact that I have a pool.

[Peelee]

Random question: are you ever embarrassed to have expensive or fancy stuff out where people can see it? I always feel like I have to justify where I got it because otherwise I feel like I'm showing off my money. (Usually I really didn't spend that much, I just have a good eye for getting nice stuff for cheap.)

Not at all, but that's probably due to how I was brought up.

Unrelated to that, we baptized our baby today. My mom gave me a family baptism gown that my great great grandfather, Peelee I, got for just great grandfather, Peelee II. It's over a hundred and twenty years old. Little Peelee VI loved it.

[Mith]

Unrelated to that, we baptized our baby today. My mom gave me a family baptism gown that my great great grandfather, Peelee I, got for just great grandfather, Peelee II. It's over a hundred and twenty years old. Little Peelee VI loved it.

Congrats! Family heirlooms are great!

[Peelee]

Congrats! Family heirlooms are great!

Thanks! I also have a teddy bear that I think was from somewhere in the early 1900s. It's a cool gold color. I'm excited for when the baby can start sleeping with it.

[factotum]

Sure, but what kind of car, how old it is, and what kind of shape it's in do tend to be indicators of wealth/status.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Nobody who sees me driving my 2012 Fiat Panda is going to say to themselves "There goes a millionaire being flash and showing off their wealth", but if I was in a 2018 Range Rover the situation would be somewhat different!

(The ironic thing is, if I won the lottery, I'd probably still have a Fiat Panda, because it's one of the only cars I've ever owned that I actually enjoy driving...).

[Insane Jeenyus]

I never watched Firefly but what I heard from other people it was a good TV show.

Actually, IMHO, it was a great TV show.

[2D8HP]

I meant more like clothing or stuff in your car or whatever, not stuff in your house.

Well of course!

Clothes (as I posted upthread) to reduce being hassled, and keep possessions low and bad looking (old newspapers) in the car because of break-ins.

My wife theorizes that we haven't experienced a break-in of our house because our front yard looks terrible and I have a '91 parked in the driveway (before that an '84, before that a '76), so our neighbors look more enticing to burglars (and they have been burglarized).

We also have a Prius that we keep looking nice, which my wife insists that we use for visiting open houses, which came up yesterday when we were already out in the '91 we had to go home first and swap cars.

[WarKitty]

Sure, but what kind of car, how old it is, and what kind of shape it's in do tend to be indicators of wealth/status.

I feel like there's a wide range where the mid-line cars are ok though. Like, I have a 10 year old honda fit. You'll see that car on all sorts of price ranges, because it's the kind of car that mostly says "I wanna get from point A to point B without a fuss."

What actually started this was I was eyeing a second-hand designerish purse. It would actually only be about $20 (it's the kind of bag that retails for like $200 full price but one really doubts anyone ever paid that even when new). And I have found that a nice bag like that will last longer, especially if you're me and have far too many meds in there and some random craft stuff and an ereader and...you get the idea. But it's got this big fancy gold label slapped on it.

[Algeh]

I feel like there's a wide range where the mid-line cars are ok though. Like, I have a 10 year old honda fit. You'll see that car on all sorts of price ranges, because it's the kind of car that mostly says "I wanna get from point A to point B without a fuss."

That's a good point. There are certain cars that basically just make the statement "I am an adult who owns a car, which I use to drive places", possibly with a side of "with other people also in the vehicle most of the time" for some SUVs/minivans.

What actually started this was I was eyeing a second-hand designerish purse. It would actually only be about $20 (it's the kind of bag that retails for like $200 full price but one really doubts anyone ever paid that even when new). And I have found that a nice bag like that will last longer, especially if you're me and have far too many meds in there and some random craft stuff and an ereader and...you get the idea. But it's got this big fancy gold label slapped on it.

That is a trickier case. I've never experimented with designer handbags to see if they're actually sturdier than what I've been buying and had kind of assumed that handbags was one of those product categories where price and durabilty weren't closely related.

I came to this conclusion after I was talked into buying a Baggallini purse by being told that it would be sturdier than the cheaper purses I had been buying (which were mostly "whichever brand Target had the day my previous purse broke") and have zippers/straps that would cope better with my tendency to put too many things in my purse. This turned out not to be the case. I now buy MultiSac purses, which hold up just as well or better but are cheaper and easier to find at stores I'd go to anyway. (I want square or taller than they are wide rectangular cross-body bags with lots of zippered compartments, because I want something I can fit a book/ereader/tablet/etc. in that looks small enough that people don't make me check it at places that require large bags to be checked, and I've found that shape to let me get away with carrying the most stuff in that situation because estimating relative volume across different shapes is hard for people.) I've never tried buying a properly "designer" purse to see how those hold up in comparison.

I do buy some pretty expensive clothes, but they're "technical" rather than "fashion" so people parse them differently. (I wear $200-$300 hiking boots with wool hiking socks that cost more than $10/pair. The boots last a really long time and can be resoled, and the socks seem to last longer than cheaper socks, too.) People make assumptions about how I spend my weekends based on that, but not so much from a "how can you afford that" perspective even though they're pricey.

I suppose it might be kind of like my boots, in that once it's scuffed up and obviously in daily use it's parsed as a utility rather than status item, but I don't know if that's how it would be read for a designer purse.

[Florian]

@WarKitty:

Depends. I wear and use some pretty expensive stuff, but a lot of it isn't known beyond certain in groups. Thing is that we have some global brands that apparently stand for luxury, while in reality, they aren't, it´s only the price tag for the brand name as an entry hurdle. Wearing, for example, an Armani or Boss suit ain´t bad, it´s just no Saville Row or Brioni.

@2D8HP:

Funny, that. I live in a very quiet suburb of Berlin, in a "quaint and rustic" town house quarter. Thing is, we get hit every year with the usual December crime wave. Three years in a row, 39 town houses out of 40 were hit... but not mine.

[WarKitty]

Yeah I'm in that weird sort of pink-collar thing where you're supposed to look nice, but at the same time most people aren't making a whole lot and we have a lot of people who aren't making much more than what pays the bills. I get away with a bit more because I only have myself to pay for - many of my coworkers have children and I know a number who are helping to support elderly parents or similar.

I kind of feel like fashion is its own thing in a way. Because you're supposed to look nice but also look like you're not overspending, because overspending is frivolous.

[Honest Tiefling]

I feel like a fashionable bag is more likely to get stolen. However, I also think it would depend on your habits, as in, do you frequent crowded areas or walk around at night? Are you careful with your bags, so they won't get scuffed, ripped, or even lost? Is your workplace safe enough you can leave it alone without concern? Do you travel a lot?

In my opinion, if the people around you are judging you for what you are wearing, get new people, not new things.

[enderlord99]

How many time-traveling doctors and/or doctors with time powers do you know of? I can name four, assuming The Doctor only counts once.

On the off chance anyone was wondering, the other 3 are Doc Brown, Doctor Strange, and Doc Scratch.

[2D8HP]

On the off chance anyone was wondering, the other 3 are Doc Brown, Doctor Strange, and Doc Scratch.

I know Brown & Strange, but I'm ignorant of "Doc Scratch".

[enderlord99]

I know Brown & Strange, but I'm ignorant of "Doc Scratch".

He's from Homestuck, which is a really long webcomic.

[factotum]

In my opinion, if the people around you are judging you for what you are wearing, get new people, not new things.

Not always practical if the people in question are your work colleagues and there aren't any jobs as good as the one you're in available.

[WarKitty]

Goth girl problems: I thought I grabbed my black lipstick this morning and threw it in my purse. Turns out I actually grabbed my dark turquoise. Oh well, it still coordinates well with the gold accents.

[LaZodiac]

Goth girl problems: I thought I grabbed my black lipstick this morning and threw it in my purse. Turns out I actually grabbed my dark turquoise. Oh well, it still coordinates well with the gold accents.

I tend to not use makeup because of a lowkey despair and dislike of looking at myself in the mirror but I still feel I can relate to this on a functional level.

[Insane Jeenyus]

I tend not to use makeup unless I am going on stage for a play, then lip stick is not one of the things I use. Of course, I am a guy who felt odd about going out in the public when my Niece painted my nails


ION, I just noticed I am a dwarf!

[enderlord99]

Doesn't "goth" just mean "depression fandom?" Why would a mental disorder need a fandom?

[Peelee]

ION, I just noticed I am a dwarf!

Huh. I wouldve thought you'd have noticed something like that quite some time ago

[Honest Tiefling]

Goth girl problems: I thought I grabbed my black lipstick this morning and threw it in my purse. Turns out I actually grabbed my dark turquoise. Oh well, it still coordinates well with the gold accents.

Fashion isn't about looking good, it's about making OTHERS think you look good by being extremely confident. At least that's what I think when people wear things I don't like.

[Peelee]

Fashion isn't about looking good, it's about making OTHERS think you look good by being extremely confident. At least that's what I think when people wear things I don't like.

I like this theory.

[LaZodiac]

Doesn't "goth" just mean "depression fandom?" Why would a mental disorder need a fandom?

That's...not even remotely correct, in basically every single way possible.

[enderlord99]

That's...not even remotely correct, in basically every single way possible.

What does it mean, then?