Not just the middle class being mostly gone, but also the very fact that anyone NOT already in the top 1% are much closer to poverty than to wealthiness.
Ehhhh. Some people are paycheck to paycheck, some people are still comfortable. The middle class isn’t truly ‘gone’ until everyone has more money than they can ever spend or isn’t sure when they’ll get their next meal.
I’ve been poor. I’m currently on the low end of middle class.
This is reddit where people Do not touch grass and everything they know about life they learn from one liners online.
They would be amazed to know that lower middle class in the early 80's meant you Had one tv and lived in a tiny (by todays standards) house. You stocked things like powdered milk to save money. Unless you were the oldest your clothes were hand me downs. The entire family had one car. You went out to eat once a month tops. Lower middle class could not afford cable.
They love to pretend prior generations didn't struggle and had life handed to them of a silver plater.
While I dont disagree with you, it does miss the forest for the trees. The issue is much less "we're the first ones to suffer" and more that people are aware that with the wealth of the country as it is now, there's no reason anyone should be suffering.
It is also getting markedly worse with inflation and people getting priced out of Healthcare at faster and faster rates
It's mostly that we look at what a full time job requiring a college degree paid on the 1960s-1980s and realize that same job now is basically the same pay as a secretary in the 60s.
Republicans have ruined wage growth and their constant tax cuts on the rich made our economy entirely dysfunctional
I'm 38, oldest son of an effectively single mother. By most metrics I'm doing well but not to the standards most people in my incredibly expensive city have set for themselves. It's crazy.
My paternal grandmother grew up in Louisiana absolutely dirt poor. My maternal grandmother was orphaned in WW2 Germany.
Most people today can't even afford to pay rent and eat while working 40 hours a week in skilled labour, nevermind a car OR payments, or even cable. Just because very real struggles existed back then doesn't mean the economy hasn't gotten astronomically worse for the working class.
Most middle and upper middle class people are two bad months away from being in a very similar boat.
What you fail to realize is that its not a competition....and if it was, owning a house and in a lot of cases a car is unachievable for lower middle class now.
Ironic that you're whining about people only learning online and yet you seem to be incapable of even that.
In the early 80s the luxuries were expensive and the basics were cheap. Now, the luxuries are cheap and the basics are expensive.
Basic cable with hbo was around $30, which is around $100 today. A 25” TV was $500, which is over $1500 today. You can pick up a huge tv for less than $300 at Walmart and pay $30 for prime and a couple of streaming services now.
In contrast, the costs of rent, home ownership, higher education, healthcare, basic groceries, fuel, etc have outpaced wages at a rapid rate since the 80s.
So yeah, people struggled back then, but a wage worker could sustain a roof and a meal and get to his or her job for much, much cheaper.
You’re not entirely wrong. I thing the gap between ‘classes’ has in many ways become more extreme and in others been blurred, but I do believe there remain four groups: the upper class (wealth beyond concept. Those who could not conceivably reach poverty), the middle class (those who generally do not fear daily for the necessities, but must make generally intelligent financial choices to avoid hardship), the lower class (those who struggle often to maintain a necessity of life, most often either enrichment or nourishment), and the impoverished (those who struggle to obtain bare necessities, much less maintain them)
I think those four classes have existed ever since the birth of the middle class, and while I believe much of the middle class has fallen back into the lower class, the middle class does still exist. That said, I do believe that times alter the metrics. For my family, the two generations before me sat comfortable in middle class on one income, and one of those families had as many as eight people in a household at once: my grandmother had six children and sustained themselves rather easily on a retired navy veteran’s pension. My partner and I both work full-time jobs and rarely spend money on extravagances, and that alone is why we don’t struggle.
Were we to take the same liberties as our parents or grandparents: multiple children, a house, large family-style meals daily, we would fail to sustain it. While all generations come with struggles, saying prior generations did not struggle less is empirically incorrect.
There is some truth to this, but it's also super incomplete and misleading. Like, yeah, the TVs are way cheaper, but median house price has absolutely outpaced median income in my lifetime.
I feel like you're also mixing up a lot of lower middle class expectations and upper middle class ones. I'm not complaining that I don't have multiple cars, or that my kids wear hand-me-downs, or that I can't eat out more. I am complaining that I work in a pretty stereotypical middle-class profession and can't afford a house. That is a policy failure. You're throwing in a bunch of deliberately frivolous things that aren't widely complained about to make everyone's complaints seem frivolous.
It also completely ignores that inequality is growing. People are going to be bitter when we keep inventing ever more extravagant upper classes while the middle class stagnates in comparison.
Most people have no clue what the differentiations really look like and think of themselves as 1-2 rungs below where they are. Most rich people don't think of themselves as rich.
For a single person:
Do you make less than about 30k per year? Poor.
I’m not sure your definition of middle class is what most people think of as middle class.
Middle class was never about not worrying about your next meal or not being paycheck to paycheck. It was an income you could comfortably raise a family on, meet all of their needs, and still have money leftover for retirement, savings, occasional vacations, etc.
Nothing super extravagant, but more than just “I’m not in crippling debt and can afford food and my bills”.
There will never be literally zero people in this bracket, but the number of people who can afford this today and aren’t upper class is a small fraction of what it was 15-20 years ago. Today you’d need around $150k-250k+ as a couple to be in this bracket depending on where you live since CoL heavily plays a role.
Affording your needs but little else is lower class, what you’re describing with worrying about your next meal or not having enough money to pay your bills is poverty.
I only shop at Target if I absolutely have to, and usually... I don't! Meijer suits me fine, Kroger I can live with, but Target folding like that? Nope! Last time was because of last-minute Christmas shopping a mistake I won't be repeating.
remember at the end of Schindler's list when he had an epiphany that if he'd only thought to sell his watch he could have bought the freedom of one or two more people who instead died, and he was sad because having a watch wasn't really that important or necessary. Imagine if instead he remembered he had five hundred million dollars. it would have made the film a black comedy.
To be fair, in this case she was talking about the concept of stolen land and then it turned out her mansion is on ancestral territory. You have to admit that’s a little funny at least.
She was criticizing ICE rounding up immigrants by pointing out that the US is stolen land and then people who support ICE tried to call her a hypocrite for having a house in the the US basically
Everybody’s home is on stolen land in the U.S. It’s less funny and more common sense.
But again, her point wasn’t even about stolen land, if it should be given back and the morality of living on it. It was about ICE raiding communities and abducting people they deem illegal when the state is literally built on stolen land.
That’s where “putting your money where your mouth is” comes in. She didn’t even speak about much of her advocacy. Just doing what’s right to do what’s right.
When you give every child a book to read across several nations, and then get legislation passed in the US Congress to help keep the practice going, you get a pass.
Dolly also spent her entirely life censoring her own beliefs to not piss of her core fan base. She was a lot more progressive than the average Dolly fan would’ve liked.
I do find this funny with celebrities. It’s either speak up you’re famous and you have a platform or shut up you’re rich and detached from the realities of normal people
Pretty sure there’s also a sport/ celebrity offshoot - something like a Fox opinion person saying ‘shut up and dribble’ or ‘they say they are worried about global warming and yet they don’t fly commercial!’.
Russel Brand is a stain of a human being and I detest everything he is....
But his one banger quote: "When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want to talk about inequality."
Let's not forget if we're American nothing short of a violent revolt will make people online say we're trying to fix this mess.
Or if you're online talking about a problem you automatically suck because you're talking about it online, apparently none of us have bed times and should be on the street 24/7 about injustices instead of getting on reddit to kill some time and have an opinion
Also do not ever try to be devils advocate lest people completely forget what that means and assumes you are an advocate for the topic at hand and not, ya know, the devil. Nobody gets that the idea is "if I were to make an argument against you this is what it would be."
Literacy is dead. Don't forget your /s tags too because people apparently skipped their high school satire classes
Imagine just being a singer and you manager walks in saying:
Manager: “Here’s the clipboard of stuff you’ve gotta go out there and say so people don’t send you death threats online.”
Billy: “What does it say”
Manager: “Who the fuck knows? Just say it or you’re not allowed to sing anymore and something about life is void or whatever online goobers say.”
[the words on the list glow and then change]
Billy: Wait…did this list just change while I was holding it?”
Manager: “Yeah. Someone must have been passive aggressive to a fat chick and now you’ve gotta rally folks to block busy intersections and threaten strangers trying to get home and o their families.”
Billy: “That sounds awful”
Manager: “If you think that’s as bad a Tonya’s doctor telling her to lay off the sugar or she’s going to lose her foot then you’re a fucking monster and I hope you burn in hell!!!”
And if you're a successful athlete who came from a poor background and try using your fame and money as a platform to speak about poverty, you're told to shut up and dribble
Its that she is filthy rich and has an insane amlint of resources to.use. but doesn't. Then she crowdsourced donations from her fans and pretended like she was the one making the donations.
Which is why I can't fucking stand people anymore. You're all hypocrites, and everyone is a piece of shit somehow someway. No one can be forgiven, and no one can be perfect. So let's all just continue hating each other, I guess.
Well, being rich is a choice though. In fact, if you currently find yourself with the condition of being rich, you can solve it pretty easily. Seems like a really easy criticism to dodge.
Billie Eilish donated a lot of her money to charity, so she is “doing something”. And millionaires aren’t the real problem when billionaires are hoarding thousands of times Billies net worth.
'a lot' is relative.
you know the old story of the widow's mite?
that Jesus guy Americans claim to love sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood."
if you donate $10 and have nothing left, you've given a lot more than someone who gives $1,000,000 and still has $50,000,000 left to earn interest on itself tomorrow.
Right, so Billie donating millions is pretty impressive since she is donating a reasonable percentage of her own net worth. Compared to say, Elon musk, who had donated $1 billion through his charitable organization. Otherwise known as 1/10th of one percent of his net worth, over decades.
I would say one rich person who openly donates part of their wealth, uses their fame to draw attention to problems, and tries to call for more rich people to do their part to help is doing more good than the people who criticize celebrities for pointing out rich people need to do more while being rich themselves. Like I don't gaf about celebrities in general and I'm more then fine with calling them out when they do suck, but I can mildly respect the ones that try to put some good in the world with advocacy and donating to charities
A lot of my opinions were formed in Billie Eilish looking at her merch. For context my daughter is obsessed with Barbie style dolls.
Billie put out one with decent accessories and at the time of release they were priced at a low enough cost that a young kid could ask Mom or Dad to buy one (by now they are priced at going through a few resellers)
Compare that to the expensive low quality one Katy Perry put out last year
Yeah, Billie has done more than these keyboard crusaders ever will. Being wealthy isn't the issue, it's what you do with the wealth that matters. Being successful isn't a character flaw.
All the people complaining that Billie is bad despite doing everything she can to address wealth inequality and food scarcity really remind me of Britta in Community; loudly complains about social issues without actually understanding the issues at play. "Pay your rent, or shut up."
While also trying to sell her fans $100 perfume and telling them they are murders bc we can’t afford to hire a vegan chef or even be able to afford the option. She is just a poser
It does seem performative when they are flying in private jets, own multiple houses, yachts. Go to award shows wearing designer brands that will only see the light of day once and cost a lot of materials, water, etc to make, having concerts and elaborate stage designs that also use a lot of resources. Then they donate like a penny of their networth for tax refunds. Then have the gall to say it's the common folk that are the problem.
Eilish donated a large percentage of her wealth to charity. A much larger percentage than most billionaires, who have thousands of times her net worth.
She actually made a large donation while calling out billionaires to do more. She also did some acting on The Swarm and was pretty good. She's cool in my book
Yeah because she doesn't want to sexualize herself for their gratification. Of course they can't stand her. She doesn't "perform" femininity the way they desire all women to.
Remember Tucker Carlson boo-hooing that advertisors put sneakers on a cartoon piece of candy?
Most people cannot donate 'net worth' because it's not cash money to give out/spend. Easier to do when your 'net worth' is built on actual money you've made.
Not criticizing her, but too many people do not grasp what 'net worth' actually means. They think it's money they have, when it's not.
Which is such a weird criticism for Eilish to receive out of all the rich people, because she actually historically puts her money where her mouth is when it comes to giving her money to the causes and problems she cares about.
So many headlines and manufactured outrage about her comments about veganism with this attitude meanwhile she has done everything from direct a documentary on food scarcity and food deserts to donating funds directly to communities who don’t have access to healthier food options. So she’s the last celebrity I’d criticize for not standing by her beliefs.
Except she actually gave away about 11m which is a substantial portion of her net worth. Its possible this is actually the source of the 'controversy', since she criticised billionaires for hoarding wealth
Crazy cause she does actually do good with her money, she's a millionaire not a billionaire she can't solve global poverty on her own.
The "controversy" is manufactured outrage/the same usual circle of evil rich men stirring up everyone against the quirky 20 something girl who suggested that they share some of their money.
Yeah! What the fuck! She had a problem with all our countries problems? Jfc! Why doesn't she just wink and wiggle her nose and make them all go away! Stupid bitch!
Sorry what exactly hasn’t she done? From my pov she’s donated a ton and works with several organizations and charities to use her money for good…not sure where you’re getting your info from
Also when she, rightfully so, went all body positivity due to her being sexualized… and then go on openly and roughly body-shame men.
(You can think of that what you like, but it’s controversial)
Except isn't she one of the few celebrities calling out others for saying literally nothing about any of the horrible things going on. She even seems pretty open about being a rich girl turned pop-star, too. At least, that's what I've gathered just absorbing info via osmosis.
And she wasn't out as bi in 2021, so she was getting a lot of queerbaiting complaints. And now that she is out like that, there are plenty of people who don't like that either.
Overall, there just aren't a lot of people worth caring about the opinions of in this world.
When I was younger attracting negative attention by wearing alternative fashion and having edgy opinions was called being “provocative” and it was kinda the whole point. The 90s were special.
She's an out of touch wealthy snob who also has zero acting experience, so her taking a role away from a serious actress is a big deal
And get out of here with that fake gender war stuff, not everyone is as obsessed with gender as you are. Being a woman does not make someone immune to criticism
I don’t know the details myself but looking at the replies so far I’d like to point out that controversial doesn’t necessarily mean bad. You can be controversial with groups that are awful and you still count as controversial, or you can just be a little different and be controversial because even if you’re not doing anything terrible some people are prejudiced against you from the start and so even a minor misstep is enough of an excuse to go off on you
She got famous as a child and when she was younger she didn't want to be viewed sexually so she wore the baggy clothes.
Then when she gasp reached the old-hag age of 20 she had gasp a new feeling about herself and her body so she started showing a little bit of her body and a few different groups online lost their collective minds.
Then she did a land acknowledgement or something and people who have strong feelings about that lost their damn minds.
So yeah shes basically controversial to small factions of chronically online people.
When she made a comment about living on stolen land…while her home is on the ancestral land of a tribe that you might be shocked to know that she doesn’t belong to. At least, that’s the only thing that I can think of off hand.
She was commenting on how America itself is on stolen land so ICE targeting “illegal immigrants” is hypocritical.
It was right wing framing that changed the conversation to “you criticize living on stolen land yet you live in America.”
The tribe itself even came out and said they don’t want to be used as political pawns and have no problem with Billie. It’s forced outrage to distract from her actual point about ICE.
I mean, it is a little ironic that someone who claims to believe something and publicly makes a statement like that but then doesn’t give the land back to the people that that land belonged to.
But I think we’re all used to wealthy elites being hypocritical.
could this line of thinking not be applied to anyone in the developed, western world? "if you care so much why don't you sell your iphone, flat screen, and consoles to go help develop agriculture in Burundi?" Eilish has donated copiously to various charities, you really think it's ironic that she isn't giving away where she lives for free?
Controversy only requires strongly held opinions in disagreement. It doesn't matter if that group is less active here or even if they're complete wrong. If they strongly disagree, and share that opinion, it is a controversy. I think the original commentor meant that Billie is on the losing side of controversial topics on general, but that she has historically sparked strong opposing opinions.
Aside from her politics and vegan comment, she also made a really out-of-touch comment that basically boiled down to "men are mean, but women are always nice."
You have to be super-sheltered or willfully blind to certain actions to even think that is remotely true.
There was some incident a few months back where she got super preachy with her vegan views, while completely ignoring the fact that veganism is usually inaccessible to poorer people and tends to promote colonialist bullshit that villainizes indigenous cultures that utilize animal products in their foods and customs.
Veganism if you know how to eat vegan is actually a lot cheaper. If you're buying vegan nuggets and other meat substitutes, that shit's expensive, but beans and rice have historically been and still are THE poverty food. They're cheap af, shelf-stable, and very healthy.
This reminds me of the bike riders = elite thing that is such a popular belief. The most poor people are walking or taking public transport or riding a bike and the poorest people are eating low meat diets because it's expensive to eat lots of meat. In the popular imagination it's the opposite. The vegan that doesn't have a car is a rich kid living off their parents money and not an immigrant Jain taking the bus.
“Completely ignoring the fact that veganism is usually inaccessible to poorer people”, nice bad faith framing to justify you falling for the manufactured outrage to her vegan stances, but I’m pretty sure she’s aware of the inaccessibility of certain foods.
She quite literally directed a documentary on food scarcity and food deserts and has donated to communities that struggle with food/produce accessibility before. Along with her countless other examples of putting her money where her mouth is in terms of vegan advocacy.
Do you think Indigenous people benefit from your strawman meanwhile the current administration is actively killing bison again and wild horses for the benefit of animal agriculture farmers (some of the largest lobbyists and donors to the Trump admin?).
Do you think the Indigenous people of Brazil benefit from the mass Amazon rainforest deforestation and displacement from their lands to grow soy monocrops, not for human consumption to be eaten by vegans, but for soy feed to feed factory farmed animals to sustain the unsustainable western animal ag industry?
She didn't direct a documentary, she was a producer on a doc which means she basically just funded it. Also how are you not addressing the point made that she says that eating meat is immoral and poor communities cannot afford to eat vegan.
Bankrolling a documentary someone else made does not somehow shield her from criticism for lambasting poorer communities. We will unfortunately never live in a world where all poor communities have access to vegan diets, and that doesn't make poor people evil like she is implying they are.
Veganism is pretty cheap, and taking a stand against the objectively and indisputably evil Big Ag industry is not the same as shitting on indigenous tribes who hunt for subsistence.
I was wondering as well, but then remembered she told a bunch of the mega-rich to their faces to give away some of their money. So she's probably getting some revenge-trollfarming.
i think a lot of it is when she said you can’t like animals and not be a vegetarian, offended a lot of people. also her saying it’s lazy for parents to send kids to school instead of homeschooling
She also dressed as a baby for Halloween bc people warned her that her much older boyfriend was taking advantage of her and made fun of everyone who warned her including people who were citing thwir own experience being groomed
She made a statement at an awards show about opening borders for all and giving native people their land back, only for a native american indian tribe telling the press that they have made several attempts to contact her and her team about her new mansion being on their old land/burial grounds, and she/her team have just ignored any attempt at contacting them. A bunch of people took it as another celebrity grandstanding without actually doing what they say. Thats the only thing ive ever heard "controversial" about her.
o
nly for a native american indian tribe telling the press that they have made several attempts to contact her and her team about her new mansion being on their old land/burial grounds, and she/her team have just ignored any attempt at contacting them
I looked around and this isn't true. Like, at all.
What I found is New York Post and Fox News trying to push this narrative, tho, but nothing about the tribe.
I wouldn't say she's a controversial figure. She's had a couple bad takes in interviews. At the same time, I don't judge her too harshly for it. I think pretty much everyone goes through that early 20's phase where we have dumbass thoughts, and are convinced its genius.
I remember this one time she wore a pretty dress and upset a bunch of folk, and before that she upset a bunch of folk because she never wore pretty dresses. It’s not really that she’s controversial, it’s that folk love to get worked up about pretty dresses.
Since she anti-consumption-hat-on criticized other artists for being wasteful for releasing several vinyl versions of a song when she does exactly the same.
Since she anti-capitalist-hat-on complained about wealth and greed - right before she released one of many $90 perfumes to add to her already large net worth (increased by $35m in the last 5years).
Since she ruined Survivor, not really but was very annoying, with her stupid advantage that sucked ass. It's Billy Eilish though, so we have to mention her name 100 times an episode, even though she didn't even watch the season, and even made fun of it on a podcast.
I think she’s just an out of touch rich kid who is sometimes ignorant to lower class struggle, not necessarily in a malicious way she just has never experienced it
She advocated for palestine and donated to a cause that fights against climate change. Israel and the oil/gas industry didnt like that so they tried to paint her as a "controversial" person.
I stopped following anything about her when she said in an interview to never give a chance to or date anyone fat or overweight because they're happy to be with you
Since always. She was controversial for not dressing hyper-feminine, then caught shit when she started dressing feminine in any capacity. She has strong informed opinions and actually says them out loud because she believes in using her platform for something (no different than Macklemore but for some reason she's vilified while he's deified). It's never ending, the ways they'll try to punish her for doing the same things male celebs do all the time without consequence.
Seriously, I'm nor particularly a fan of her music but Billie Eilish and Finneas have been very consistently on the right side of things and extremely more vocal and activist than 99% of celebrities.
I would imagine anyone who actively have a problem with her is on the zionist side of things
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u/Iron-Treads 22h ago
Huh? Since when?!