Financial status in society

[Wewt]

Why do people care so much about it? I am not talking about credit status. I am talking about the kind of people that would look down, or even make fun of another because his/her financial status.

Personally, I've been fortunate enough to have been raised in a family that have been able to provide for me as I've grown up, but this wasn't the case when I was a lot younger. My family struggled. I only remember this vaguely because I was really young. There were times when I'd see people looking at my parents in a strange way because we were poor, and even other kids making fun of me when I was at school. I never really took it seriously, since I mostly never gave a shit what other people said about me. You learn to do that when you're not like every single other mindless idiot. It's not really a big deal to me now, but as for a close friend, she's been living through this for most of her life. She's turning 20 a week on Tuesday, and yet again, she's struggling financially. Anybody that receives the kind of abuse she has received for most of her life eventually breaks down. It's not easy to stay strong and not allow these people to get to you, especially if you're like my friend, who happens to be a very emotional person. This is what I am angry about. The people that make fun of another because of their financial status, you have no idea what kind of impact you're really doing the person later on in life, that's if you crack them (this could also be said about any kind of bullying). Sure, some of you may say she's weak, but not everybody is strong. Not everybody can take the abuse and turn it into something positive, or motivational, for yourself to succeed in the future.

If you have ever made fun of another person because of their financial status, please post and tell us why you did it. I won't start flaming you or anything, I am just curious as to why you do it. I've heard many bullshit reasons before, but I want to hear something that sounds more real.

[Shimarisu]

On 2003-08-24 04:12, WWWWWWWWWWWW wrote:
Why do people care so much about it? I am not talking about credit status. I am talking about the kind of people that would look down, or even make fun of another because his/her financial status.

Personally, I've been fortunate enough to have been raised in a family that have been able to provide for me as I've grown up, but this wasn't the case when I was a lot younger. My family struggled. I only remember this vaguely because I was really young. There were times when I'd see people looking at my parents in a strange way because we were poor, and even other kids making fun of me when I was at school. I never really took it seriously, since I mostly never gave a shit what other people said about me. You learn to do that when you're not like every single other mindless idiot. It's not really a big deal to me now, but as for a close friend, she's been living through this for most of her life. She's turning 20 a week on Tuesday, and yet again, she's struggling financially. Anybody that receives the kind of abuse she has received for most of her life eventually breaks down. It's not easy to stay strong and not allow these people to get to you, especially if you're like my friend, who happens to be a very emotional person. This is what I am angry about. The people that make fun of another because of their financial status, you have no idea what kind of impact you're really doing the person later on in life, that's if you crack them (this could also be said about any kind of bullying). Sure, some of you may say she's weak, but not everybody is strong. Not everybody can take the abuse and turn it into something positive, or motivational, for yourself to succeed in the future.

If you have ever made fun of another person because of their financial status, please post and tell us why you did it. I won't start flaming you or anything, I am just curious as to why you do it. I've heard many bullshit reasons before, but I want to hear something that sounds more real.



It means nothing. I am far more well off than the people I know who went to uni, and by uni I mean as good as Cambridge. I am looked down upon purely for the fact that I do not have a degree, and apparently videogame journalism is not a proper job.

Meanwhile the people who say it, having devoted their lives to slaving at education until the age of
25+, are rejected for jobs, ridiculed by jumped up, middle class, untalented bosses, and yet they still feel the need to criticise me for not doing the same thing. Actually, I feel quite enlightened for realising that this is all bollocks.

My conclusion? Everyone, whether rich or poor, is programmed by the government to feel they need to contribute to some utterly fake ideal to feel worthwhile, and that is a crock of shit.

- Shimarisu

[_Sinue_]

Honestly, I've never encountered a situation where people are "Looked down on" because of their financial status. The only person I've ever made of for being poor is a kid I went to HS with.. and that's cause he was naturally an annoying lil shit who used his poverty to try to make people feel sorry for him. We never made fun of him because of his finances.. but because he lived in a School bus. We'd tell him if he didn't shut up we were gonna tip his house over.

My parents weren't exactly rich either.. I remember quite a few times when I was a kid listening to my parents tear at each other's throats while wrangling over money problems. I was one of poorer kids at school actually, but ended up with some of the neater toys. I was one of the first kids to get a computer back when they cost $4,000 a pop for a nearly outdated system. (My first was a 33mhz 386DX gotten a year before CDRoms and 486's came out) Yet, when book sale drives and certain feild trips would come up, I often couldn't go as $20 that week was way over their budget.

As it is now, I actually have a lot of friends who don't have a penny to their name. They live on the road, going from show to show, trading their stuff for the things they want and selling food in the parking lot to afford the gas money to get to the next show. They have no home, no equity, no credit, no fancy possessions, no job, and no retirement fund. They just have a each other.

Outside of that.. I work in a factory, so everyone there is pretty much in the same boat I am financially. The only person there we make fun of is the President/Owner for wanting to think he's rich for running (into the ground) some two-bit operation in a backwoods Indiana town when the real bigwigs live just 40 miles down the road in Warsaw, the Biometics capitol of the world.

[Wewt]

Thanks for your reply, but you were talking about something else. What I was asking was why do people look down or even bully others PURELY because of their financial status. Not other reasons, but because of how much damn money they have, or the value of their possessions.

[muff]

It always makes you feel better to put others down in order to make yourself feel better. In most cases anyways. People look down on people all together. I know people that arent financially secure and they would say rich people dont have friends and havent lived there life because of saving.

Its all BS.

(Btw Im a fukkin hypocrite http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif)

Yeah we SHOULD look at others equally but through my 15 years of experiance, I've never met anyone who has never judged someone by looking at them.

[bordering]

well, it's all part of the evolutionary tendancy to group together with those most like you. which, at a broad level is a good thing. (imagine if we didn't have ANY discrimintaion and tried to mate with say, rocks or dirt all the time, we wouldn't get far as a species.)

just like a couple of people have mentioned, financially disadvantaged people often behave the same way in regards to rich people. (the only difference is that rich people hold more power than poor people.)

so, look at it this way: why will people pick a rich mate over a poor mate? it's more advantageous to potential offspring. same thing with why everyone wants to get with someone who's considered to be attractive. subconciously, you're registering it as "oooh, this person has good genes/resources".

but yea, seeing as it's a fundamental part of our human nature doesn't mean we have to be prigs about it. i would never mock anyone for being poor or "unattractive" because it's just uncivilized. just because we are animals doesn't mean we have to act like it.