Poorgeoisie

Josh Bytes

Under the radar rich assholes dressing down and living the poor chic lifestyle.

People are against flash and gaudiness, not luxury," Falcinelli, who refers to his clientele as "appreciatives," says from under a fedora. As Castronovo puts it, "Our customers generally are more artistlike—they're still doing what they do. The people crying the blues over lost money never deserved to have it to begin with."

Omnutia

Worst. buzzword. ever.

gomidog

Right? I don't know, I guess I'd rather have rich people acting like normal people while living very comfortably, rather than flaunting their flash and cash everywhere.
I think expensive designer jeans are silly and everything, but at the same time, if you aren't being snobby about it, what's wrong with acting more normal and having fewer, nicer things?

I hate the gold toilet seat rich. I'd rather see the fashion hipster, organic gourmet kind of rich person because as long as they don't try to deny that they are very well off, I think they are generally more reasonable.

Josh Bytes

They're still snotty rich people. Don't be fooled.

Kate Monster

I honestly do not care about this. How someone chooses to spend their money or live their lives is their own business. If they aren't hurting anyone, who cares?

gomidog

Sure, but I think it's more about how annoying they are.

Churba

If they aren't hurting anyone, who cares?

The IRS.

Schnevets

Growing up in a suburb of New Jersey, where families would constantly spend outside of their limits, I saw the consequences of poor trying to act rich. It leads to embarrassing debt, inane competition, and a horrible air of snobbery. People would flaunt big purchases just to feel richer than their neighbors, who were actually in the same financial state as they were.
Now living in Greenwich Village, I will admit I see poorgeoisie, and can confidently say rich people acting poor can not be as bad as poor people acting rich. Sure, there's a false sense of modesty, but things could be so much worse. Your menial-laboring neighbor could be flaunting his latest bling while you're saving up for a worthwhile investment (like getting the hell away from that d-bag).

Lyddi

I don't get it... Are they actually wearing "poor people clothes," like shopping at Wal-Mart? Or are they wearing super-expensive clothes designed to "look" like they came from Wal-Mart? If the latter is true, what's the point if they are still spending all that money on "ugly" clothes? If I was going to waste so much money on clothes like they do, I'd at least buy the nice looking ones.

It would be nice if they would buy actual cheap clothes and donate their extra money to charity or something. But alas, they do not seem to think that way.

Kate Monster

If they aren't hurting anyone, who cares?

The IRS.

Are they not paying taxes?

Churba

If they aren't hurting anyone, who cares?

The IRS.

Are they not paying taxes?

I don't know, ask them, I just make bad jokes about it.

Schnevets

I don't get it... Are they actually wearing "poor people clothes," like shopping at Wal-Mart? Or are they wearing super-expensive clothes designed to "look" like they came from Wal-Mart? If the latter is true, what's the point if they are still spending all that money on "ugly" clothes? If I was going to waste so much money on clothes like they do, I'd at least buy the nice looking ones.

It would be nice if they would buy actual cheap clothes and donate their extra money to charity or something. But alas, they do not seem to think that way.

The way I interpreted the article (although I thought it was convoluted), there is a growing fashion trend leaning towards humbleness and not flaunting wealth, mostly because in this financial crisis there's such a backlash against those who can afford to be insanely rich. It's not really "designed to look poor" it's just a more low-key aesthetic. Less people are showing-off expensive jewelry, sunglasses won't be plastered with the designer's symbol, and clothing is trying to convey the message "Just like every other poor slob here. This guy is certainly not managing a department worth $500 million. No siree." instead of "LOOK HOW FUCKING RICH I AM!!!" They want to look like middle management, not menial laborer or CEO.

Lyddi

The way I interpreted the article (although I thought it was convoluted), there is a growing fashion trend leaning towards humbleness and not flaunting wealth, mostly because in this financial crisis there's such a backlash against those who can afford to be insanely rich. It's not really "designed to look poor" it's just a more low-key aesthetic. Less people are showing-off expensive jewelry, sunglasses won't be plastered with the designer's symbol, and clothing is trying to convey the message "Just like every other poor slob here. This guy is certainly not managing a department worth $500 million. No siree." instead of "LOOK HOW FUCKING RICH I AM!!!" They want to look like middle management, not menial laborer or CEO.That makes more sense, I guess. All they care about in the world is looking good, so when people get mad at them for being flashy, they just try to make themselves look good again by not being flashy.

I'm just wondering if they are actually not being lavish, as in not spending so much money anymore. Or are they still spending obscene amounts of money, just pretending to be normal? If so, it still makes them bad. (I say "bad" because I'm not creative enough right now to think of the proper word to label them)

gomidog

Greenwich Village

Hangout number one for these Hipster-type rich kids. See also: Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

cosmicenema

I don't think we have this version of Poorgeoisie in Iowa . . . though I've always thought they were 'hipsters'.

gomidog

Poorgeoisie. . . though I've always thought they were 'hipsters'.

This just (to me at least) sounds a little like the rich older brother of hipsters, where cheap, tacky stuff becomes fashionable. These people pay top dollar for vintage shirts.

Kate Monster

Again, I ask: Who cares?

gomidog

...Not me.

cosmicenema

. . . only people posting in this thread.

Schnevets

I still say it's an improvement. Better for rich people to try being poor than poor people to try being rich (at least when it comes to fashion, entertainment, and other superficial things).

Josh Bytes

Found another article on the topic. Author of this one clearly has an axe to grind on the topic.

Inconspicuous consumption

They're rich and they love to spend - but they like to pretend they're having as hard a time as the rest of us. Stuart Jeffries charts the rise of the 'poorgeoisie'
What do you mean, you've never cured your own boar prosciutto? Are you seriously telling me that you aren't worrying about how your Jerusalem artichokes are faring in the new vegetable plot dug by your Lithuanian au pair at the back of your five-figure designer minimalist garden? (Don't pretend you aren't.) Surely you know that you can get a classic hand-made South American guayabera shirt online for only £150 which looks quite similar to one you could get from Primark for £3? Don't you realise that if you haven't grown a beard or have at least three days of stubble that you're part of the problem, you money-fixated, conspicuously consuming scumbag? (No offence.)

What on earth, you may well be asking, am I on about? I'm talking about the poorgeoisie, grandad. It's the latest must-have term, fresh in from Brooklyn and Portland where the streets are paved anew with poorgeois hipsters. The poorgeoisie are the countercultural rich who have adopted a form of consumerism against consumerism, a way of spending to make themselves look as though they haven't spent. It's a new way for rich people who don't want to seem rich to buy their way out of the guilt and shame of having money at a time of mass economic woe. It's a way of being rich but remaining undetected. Poorgeois: it's just the thing to be in these credit-crunch times if you don't want anyone to know how flush and smug you're feeling. If you're poorgeois, nobody will smash your windows like they did with Sir Fred Goodwin, even though you may well deserve it just as much.

What do the poorgeois look like? The poorgeoisie are never gaudy but still insist on luxury. They're hypocrites, but tasteful ones. As you know, the economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term "conspicuous consumption" in his 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class. Now, 110 years later, we have the poorgeoisie's inconspicuous consumption, which, to be sure, is based just as much on the desire for immediate gratification and is equally narcissistic and addictive as Veblen's leisure classes.

The poorgeois don't drive 4x4s or Maseratis, they don't wear suits (the idea!), they drop their aitches and speak in Estuary English even though they (quite possibly) went to Cheltenham Ladies or Ampleforth, work in creative jobs that mean you don't have to dress smartly for work, wear pricey handmade clothes that don't (unless you've got a real eye for detail) look pricey. They realise that to wave your wad at this juncture in history would be folly.

They tend to have a funky, eco-friendly, grow-your-own philosophy that means roughly that if your chard seeds don't germinate, you'll drive your au pair to the farmers' market to buy a bunch of the stuff. It's called "virtuous consumption".

The poorgeoisie are also politically subversive, in a conformist sort of way. "If people find the culture loathsome," explains Thomas Frank, author of a book on alternative marketing called The Conquest of Cool, "they solve the problem by buying different stuff."

"Even in the 60s," he tells this month's Details magazine, "products were sold as a way of dealing with the anomie of consumer society - things like Volkswagens that were seen as non-conformist."

But here is a paradox of the poorgeoisie: the poorgeois don't want their camouflage to go unnoticed by everybody. If only Roland Barthes were alive to write about the subtle sartorial semiology of the poorgeoisie. Yes, they don't want to get filled in for being too rich by people on the fuzzy end of the credit-crunch lollipop, but they do want to impress their peers with their good taste. They want dinner guests to know that the boar prosciutto appetiser was home-cured (but not that it was the Lithuanian au pair who cured it) and that that dress was hand made (and hand washed and ironed by the au pair).

The poor, as Jesus realised (Matthew 26:11), will always be with us. As for the poorgeois, they'll be here until we do something about it. This is why I am even now carving my own bludgeoning stick. Later, I'll be mixing my own arsenic. And before the summer is through, I'll be spreading poorgeois entrails on my vegetable plot as compost. I like the whole poorgeois low-carbon-footprint-grow-your-own vibe, you see.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/12/poorgeoisie-rich-spending-habits-recession/

gomidog

They tend to have a funky, eco-friendly, grow-your-own philosophy

I like the whole poorgeois low-carbon-footprint-grow-your-own vibe

So? If you can afford it (both timewise and financially), isn't it better to buy handmade clothes and shop at the special fresh vegetable market than to buy huge mink coats and african diamonds? I mean, this is just my personal moral judgement, but I think one is a little less bleh than the other.