What really makes something antique?

Let me start us off here. Say I brought you to two different rooms. To preface the first, we walked into what we are going to call the home office. This room is out of a smaller home in a neighborhood in no way renown for wealth of any kind. All of the furniture in this room was bought second-hand to save a few extra dollars but the old wood elevates the office, even though it was cheap. the room is really… pretty, but really, second-hand furniture?

The second room we will call the study. The study is the first door on the right in a hallway, and while you look down the duration of the hall you can barely count the unsurmountable amount of doors leading to God knows what. The room is vintage and stocked with only antiques. This home has no neighborhood because it is engulfed by acres of land. The room is gawked at; vintage is so in.

With this comparison I want to lead you to a rather looked-over concept: when rich people do certain things, it is cool, maybe even classy, but when people struggling economically, let alone not in the highest social class engage in these very same endeavors, the perception easily flips to trashy. 

The perception of an act seems decided upon more so based on the perpetrator as opposed to the action itself.

What makes something trashy? The operation, or the person doing it.

Eating fast food

It’s truly funny when a celebrity or socialite endorses a fast food restaurant or discusses a low-end type restaurant as a regular. The response is always “they are just down to earth,” or “they have all that money and they still go to McDonald’s.” The same cannot be said for those who rely on these types of restaurants for sustenance and stability in food. When someone has no other option, the choice of fast food is accepted as lowbrow and shameful. The fact that someone may not choose fast food, but is forced into it is deemed an embarrassment throughout the community. When Emma Chamberlain visits multiple restaurants for a single video just to try fries, it is entertainment gold. Yet when someone who can’t afford a multitude of high-end dinners or maybe even groceries does it, then that is just gross I suppose.

Substance abuse

Now, while the topic of substance use is notoriously seen in a negative light for all, it’s interesting what wealth enables one to get away with. To the homeless man, one may say “he only wants money because he has an addiction. That’s why he is there in the first place.” It is choosing to completely look past anything else because that is the obvious influence to place the blame on this widespread problem. However, an addiction may just be a part of life, let alone a social entertainment for someone with wealth. After all, they have put in the work and they must be stressed. Engaging in substance use may just be part of a business deal. The label of a “drug addict” seems too often only to be worn by those we look down upon in society. While many who potentially could assume such a label and escape it are separated only by the fact they have a much larger savings account. 

Clothing

I honestly think the concept of a brand like Golden Goose is funny. I am just so confused as to why people are spending hundreds of dollars on shoes that are literally designed to look dirty. If I was to see a shoe that looks exactly like a classic Golden Goose minus the logo paired with an outfit where any brand was unrecognizable, I would wince. I don’t understand how we have excused these as fashion. Regardless of my fashion taste, I simply don’t understand why dirty clothes are in, but only when the dirt is fake. 

A home wedding

Why is it that getting married at home is the cheap way out unless you are wealthy, because then it is classic of course. It’s just funny because unless your home is a mansion, receiving an invite to a home wedding is regularly looked down upon. It seems a foolish ruling because really, for the sake of convenience, why would you judge anyone for where they host their wedding? The venue of one’s home saves money and is likely much better for many, yet the idea is pushed out of their mind based on the judgment they may receive. When money is no object, however, and the marriage of the season is a home wedding, well they are just so modest. 

Getting remarried multiple times

As a society, it is rather apparent that when a child comes from a broken home, the main blame may fall on the fact that they had multiple parents in and out of the picture. Yes, in many cases, this could very well be a reasonable assumption, however, it seems the upper 1% gets away with this quite often, and a troubled child may just be a bump in the road, an unavoidable issue. Having multiple kids with multiple people is just par for the course. Not to shame people in this situation, for there’s not much shameful about it, it’s just funny how things as common as relationships can be accepted differently based on your place on the affluence hierarchy. 

It is difficult to look past these evident biases and judgments we make commonly, and we may not even relate them to wealth. It seems what is classy for some is trashy for others, and it is difficult to understand where we draw this interpretation from, and this collection is a small compilation from a list that goes on much longer than I care to admit. While we live in a society atrociously far from a bias-free world, I can’t comprehend how we let the issue get so out of hand.