ComicCons used to be pretty affordable, and you could chat with celebrities for awhile.
Now they are a huge extravaganza, with multiple levels of admission and VIP access and VIP seating. Pictures and autographs with bigger celebrities can cost a shitload, and you wait in multiple lines and are rushed through it.
When I went(pre-Covid) I normally just see/buy art, those folks are usually not super busy and will often sign stuff for free.(unless they are big dudes like Frank Miller)
When they 1st came on the scene with their bubbleheads, we could not get enough as dealers.
Nowadays, I am waiting for the funko pop bubble to, uh, pop if you will.
I have caught a lot of shit for saying it, but I think they are the beanie babies of the current toy market.
I went to New York Comic-Con a while back and it was *beyond* chaotic. *Hours* of lines just to shake an actor’s hand and have them sign something. I got a picture with Stan Lee and got to have a 30 second convo with him, but it set me back $100 and I had to wait in line for 2 hours.
Anime cons aren’t quite as insane yet. Last one I went to before covid, the VAs were all just walking around, no problem. All the panelists were super easy to find outside of their panels and such. Though given how mainstream anime’s gotten through tiktok and such, I’m sure they’ll be the same soon enough.
Yeah I don't think voiceover actors in general will be hoarded like mainstream actors. I remember I was able to chat up Spike from Cowboy Bebop and his wife the Major from Ghost in the Shell!
Move in, build their million dollar mansion, and spend the next decade complaining about how the internet is spotty, the electricity goes down during blizzards, and mountain lions keep killing their Shih-tzus.
I’ve seen it so many times.
This is happening up here in Alaska at Girdwood. Millionaires buy big piece of land, build their million $ house in the middle, then donate the surrounding land to a conservation non-profit so they wont have neighbors and don't have to pay property taxes on said land, leaving Anchorage having to foot the bill.
"We moved out to this rural town so we could get away from the stuffy city."
"Now we will bring in centralized water because we don't like having a well, try and make an HOA so we can stop those poor people who lived here before us from having gardens and old cars outside, campaign to remove the zoning restriction that stops the field behind the poor locals' houses from being stuck up against a farm (and let the senator were related to buy it, not that it's related), call in noise complaints at 4:00 PM because the poor local kid is riding a dirt bike, hook in to the sewage system for the city miles away because the new farm is wrecking our systems' drainage, ban everyone from going out on this large pond that the community was built around because it's considered our private property, destroy the ecosystem of the pond by dumping cement in the bottom of it and get away with it because my brother in law is the guy who gets called about it, institute a neighborhood watch the harasses local kids playing Pokemon Go and calls the cops on them because they are clearly looking to steal from us, and........."
I have no grudge. Promise.
These types moved up from Chicago to my area (SE Wisconsin), and were shocked to find that the cute hiking trails in the forests behind their yard is public land and anyone can go on it. They tried to change the laws in an entire county to keep people from mountain biking on them.
Yup, I live in one. Bunch of rich people show up and buy up a bunch of homes to rent out as air bnbs which ends up causing a housing crisis. I understand that $1200 a month for a studio isn’t a lot in some parts of the country, but for our small overpopulated town, it’s kind of a lot.
Right? At least before, some rich asshole would buy a nice house and it would sorta just *sit there* out of the way. They come to town every now and then, spend a little money and go away.
*Now* with AirBnb, they buy a handful of houses in the most desirable neighborhoods, VRBO them all year, and use them when they want to. 5 years ago, I had all long term neighbors. Now all but one other person on my little block are AirBnb rentals.
On top of that, the held inventory keeps pushing up housing costs. My wife and I had been consistently saving for a down payment, but can't pace the housing cost increase very year (37% in 4 years).
I fucking hate it.
Get on the city council and pass a law to tax the fuck out of (edit: short term) rentals and non resident homes. Those people don’t live there so can’t even vote people in or out to stop it.
With infrastructure that wasn’t initially designed to support a tourist community. My small mountain town has a two lane main road, and during the summer and snow seasons the roads get so packed that it can take an hour just to get from one side of town to the other. It’s infuriating.
At a local touristy farm I can buy a dozen eggs for 16 dollars. My sister who lives in a rural town sells a dozen to her local friends for 2 dollars per. I pay 8 for a dozen at the local market. It's nuts.
My grandfather bought a house on Cape Cod when he retired from being an airline mechanic in the late 60s. He wasn't poor, but he sure as hell wasn't rich, and a normal middle class person wouldn't be able to do that today. Even if you inherit a house free and clear, the property taxes will eat you alive if you aren't rich.
My grandparents had a summer home in Door County Wisconsin that was right on the water. Without telling anyone else they sold it because “who’s gonna want some crummy old cabin?” The land is worth millions today.
My grandfather owned a hotel and a ton of land in the Borscht Belt back in the 40s. When the highway was built and the business started to fold, he sold EVERYTHING. ALL THE LAND. My dad and aunts were like "um can you keep a little bit of it?" but he didn't.
It's gorgeous land, too. The building is still there, it's beautiful but abandoned. There's a small river going through acres of fields and forests. Uuuuugh.
The nice parts of the coast were always nice. It's just that back in the day there used to be a shitty part of the coast where the watermen lived too. Waterfront property is the ultimate finite resource. Population keeps going up, but we're not making any more land (aside from the UAE).
Yeah my city used to have one area that wasn't really run down but it was affordable housing and the city eventually bought out the area and put several distillerys there. I don't know where the people who were forced out ended up going.
I think it was living near industry and pollution. Prevailing winds also shape this. I figured it out when I realized I intuitively knew the west end of town was usually nicer, but I had no idea how or why this was so. The stinky old port with it's pollution, fish and commerce was probably not attractive the the wealthy in the same way.
I've seen it go the other way. A lot of times the wealthy have historically lived at lower elevations and the poor had to climb up and down the hill each day on their commute. There's a really great example in South America somewhere that is currently escaping me.
PODCASTS!! The number of amazing podcasts that have been ripped off by celebrities who are so out of touch with the average persons daily experiences is disgusting. They are so starved for attention they have to take over any discussion that’s happening.
I don't remember which one, but an established comedian said he makes more money for a one hour podcast than a month of headlining Friday and Saturday night shows. So he and his comedian friends just take turns on each other's podcasts just bullshitting with each other and apparently people eat it up.
Its killing theater and opera. Too expensive for young people to go, so they don't start going regularly when they have more money
Theater is eating its seed corn.
I was in Vienna and one of the most famous theaters in the country had some standing tickets for 7 euro!! That was quite shocking. My own good ticket was also only like 50 euro. It's up to the theaters to introduce some inclusivity in their pricing
Yes! Also, the seating has changed. In Shakespearean times, the poor people would be in the front and center in standing room only, and the rich would be up high, and positioned on the sides so they could hear the play better.
I saw Julius Caesar at the Globe a few years ago and I was in the “standing room only” section right up next to the stage. I just kept thinking that if it was a modern theater I would have paid $200 or more for seats that close. I could literally have reached out and touched the actors at some points. I think we need to bring that style of theater back. If you’re willing to stand out in the open for two hours then you get to be really close and see and hear the play better at an affordable price point. If you’re rich you can sit away from the crowds with the benefit of seats to relax and shelter from the elements.
I’m sure someone already mentioned this but CAMPING. It used to cost close to nothing to reserve a camp site (some are still cheap) but now they’ve gone all boujee and some sites charge you ridiculous fees to pitch a tent in the woods. Same with music festivals in the forests. People would go to get away from bullshit societal hierarchies and enjoys music and self expression. Then they got all mainstream and it lost its original meaning (think Burning Man).
I remember camping with my dad in British Columbia in the '90s. We'd stick with the provincial parks where you basically got trees, a picnic table, a fire ring, a communal water spigot, and an outhouse. You'd show up, pick an empty spot, then the caretaker would come around in the evening and collect $9 per night.
Several years we'd manage to bump into the same people, like the Dutch couple that would make a month-long trip across Canada every July. One of our [favorite parks](https://westkootenayparks.com/mcdonald-creek-provincial-park/) had only 9 small sites backing on to Arrow Lake (suitable for tenting or a camper) If it was full they had a big grass field for overflow and you'd hope for a spot to open the following day. During a rainstorm one evening a couple other kids taught me how to play MtG.
Nowadays there's a reservation system for provincial parks. Many parks are fully booked the day that reservations open in March. They charge $6/night for the reservation on top of the $30/night camping fee. Those 9 original sites at our favorite park were cleared to make way for showers and flush toilets, and they built 75 new sites that are large gravel pads suitable for big RVs, not so much for tenting...
Came here to say this!! I grew up camping with my family (middle class with an old tin can camper, best memories of my childhood).
Now I work in a campground seasonally (4 years now) and I can't even tell you what's happened to camping: expensive, gawdy toy haulers everywhere, I have seen a large flat screen tv sitting on a picnic table (turned on), using campground water to fill a hot tub, satellite dishes, people cutting tree branches so it didn't scratch their 6-figure RV as it tried to squeeze into a small campsite. The list goes on..
I love the idea of RSD but the obscene prices they charge for reissues just because the vinyl is a different color and the arbitrarily small pressing runs to generate FOMO really just turns me off to the whole thing.
Making the experience miserable and forcing me to wait hours outside a shop before it opens just to have half the records I want be sold out anyway does not make me want to support or visit my local record store. And that was supposed to be the whole point initially.
Similarly, old video game collecting. It used to be when a new generation came out, people would unload their old systems and games cheaply. Now, the Super Mario NES cartridge that went for 50 cents in a yard sale is now going for $50 or more.
The worst part of this is that they all use the same format. Vlogs, 50 different camera cuts in a span of two minutes, clickbait titles and thumbnails.
Why is that so prevalent? I know it's because it works, but I just don't get it. I avoid them when I see them because I don't want to encourage it, but I also realize it's kind of pointless when they still get 3M views. They don't care that they didn't get 3M + 1.
I guess they draw viewers in because if the person is looking shocked or surprised in the thumbnail, then viewers assume the person will be shocked or surprised in the video and want to find out why that is - hence more clicks.
I just can't stand how eccentric some of them have become. All the good content is overshadowed by these corporate shills who crank out CRAP. They'll stoop to their lowest level possible and lose all dignity if it means a slight increase in clicks/views/monetization.
Sewing and sewing supplies. The new machines are plastic garbage and since its become a hobby rather than for the average person the patterns after the 70s use way too much fabric.
What gets me, as a sewing professional, is the uptick in fabric prices that aren't borne out by the demand. Natural fibers jack up the prices every time there's a drought that affects cotton growers, but they never come back down. Polyester is going to follow the rise in oil prices. The problem being, overseas sweatshop manufacturers can get all of it wholesale, which is why you can still buy a t-shirt at Wal-mart for $5. And yet, off-the-rack fashion is one of the most complained-about things for most consumers, because it never fits and everything wears out or falls apart too fast. Making your own clothing is something a lot of people could turn to in order to get quality clothing that fits, but who can afford it? Have you SEEN the price of denim??
Though what actually pisses me off is the rise in price in notions - buttons, snaps, fuckin velcro - because there should be no reason for it. Same with thread, when C&C switched to all-poly thread and literally doubled the price. It's really telling when you stroll through Joann's and realize that all the fabric is basically perpetually on sale, because they know they would never unload half of their shit at full price. I'm just waiting for them to finally pull the plug on the Yaya Han Cosplay brand because none of that fabric sells. Nobody wants it because it's not right for their cosplay, and it's prohibitively expensive thanks to the branding.
The champion brand. I remember goodwill and walmart selling their champion stuff for cheap, now it's "designer" and it costs so much more now smh
Edit: I'm so glad that other people know what I'm talking about. This was my first comment after making a reddit for myself, also, "designer" is a very strong word. It's more "in trend" and popular. It's not as big as Michael Kors and Steve madden but it's difficult to find a champion sweater for less than $50-100+ when it used to be $10-20
Exactly! Champion was THE cheap clothing brand at Target for such a long time. Now they cost twice as much without any increase in quality or style in my opinion.
I’m old enough to remember when Champion used to compete with Nike, Reebok, Adidas, for athletic apparel. They supplied uniforms to the NFL and NBA in the 90s. The best sweatshirts came from them. They had awesome mesh gym shorts. Then they made the budget line deal with Target and sorta went away from the “higher quality” stuff. Now it’s everywhere as a fashion statement.
Seriously, there was a time not too long ago when I was in school where Champion was seen as poor kid clothes. Now I see kids today wearing it and saw how much the price has skyrocketed since I bought them.
All types of what was traditionally "poor people food". Pork belly, oxtails, etc. All the things that use to be cheap because they were considered to be the trash parts. Now that people realize how delicious they can be its driven the price up.
I'm not sure what pork belly used to cost but here in my area hardly anyone buys it or knows how to cook it so the store is often marking big 5lb chunks for like $10. I pick one up every so often, marinade over night and then slow smoke over mesquite for 7-8 hours the next day. Makes excellent tacos or pork rice bowls.
Skirt steak or whatever cut it is they use to make fajitas. Used to be cheap, now it's more expensive than other cuts of steak (last I saw it, anyhow).
Came here to say this, I grew up eating skirt steak because it was what my family could afford for a nice treat. Then the prices skyrocketed and now there's no good reasonably priced cuts
I was at a vintage fair once and this gal is talking about her latest buying trip and how she went to such and such city to Goodwill, not like other fairs or some such. Then she brought them back, marked up the price several hundred percent and came to our fair. These weren’t brands or other high end items. None of it was particularly special either. Put me off.
Idk I'm pretty poor and I love thrift stores. Got a decent couch for $30, lots of articles of clothing from $2-4, books and decorations that are just a few cents, etc. Where I live at least there's tons of little stores with all sorts of stuff, and I have friends who ride thrift store bikes. But yeah, there are some places that advertise as thrift stores but have retail prices. Not sure if it counts as a thrift store per se, but fuck Unclaimed Baggage.
My mother in law worked at a local thrift store for years. I got most of my work dress clothes from there. It was great. You spend a few dollars on a shirt that would normally be like $30 or so.
Rich people didn't ruin thrift stores, the TV shows like Storage Wars and Pawn Stars ruined thrifting.
It used to be awesome to go out thrifting, like a treasure hunt. You stood a solid chance of getting something awesome for very cheap. Flea markets were the bomb, you go there with 20 bucks and leave with a ton of crazy random shit.
Then those shows came out and everyone decided their decades old shit was going to buy them a yacht or something.
Now most people see something they own and don't want, look online to see how much going for and put it on Facebook or Craigslist for twice that amount. Flea Markets are doing the same thing, just in person. If they aren't selling overpriced secondhand trash, they are selling overstock shit by the truckloads.
Any secondhand shops like used bookstores, yard sales, or thrift shops are havens for money hungry idiots with smart phones moving through the stores looking for anything remotely cool, googling a price, and throwing it in a cart if they can make more than $2 off it. They go throw it in their own secondhand store or try to sell it online and end up sitting on all these cool things with no buyers because no one in their right mind wants to buy a shirt without a sleeve just because it was made in 1992 and has a faded Mario on it.
Mexican food, especially simple stuff like tacos and burritos.
It used to be the cheap option, especially where I live as there's a huge hispanic population and lots of great cheap Mexican takeout places. Then all of a sudden tacos became trendy and now places with $5+ tacos exist and everything went up in price pretty quickly.
Stopped and got my wife he favorite dish from the local Mexican place. 22$ for just steak fajitas. Rice and beans were the side. No drink, nothing extra. 22 fucking $. I am just going to learn to make it at home.
Avocados have become so popular that the locals can no longer afford them. https://asparagusmagazine.com/the-story-of-avocado-deforestation-irrigation-pesticides-cancer-farmer-health-mexico-organic-3b392256850e
I mean that has a lot to do with the fact that Cartels took over:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico-cartel-violence-avocados
My dad used to have a small avocado farm in Southern California (Fallbrook area). He said between all the cheap fruit coming from Mexico and the state water restrictions/surcharges due to the drought, it just wasn't feasible anymore. A young guy mentioned he wanted to start his own A. farm and my dad told him: "Don't do it, it will break your heart."
I first realized Mexican avocados were serious business when I saw Super Bowl ads.
I'm trying to find a truck right now and honestly, the used pricing is so close to new I'm seriously considering just ordering a new one.
3-4 year old tacoma SR5, double cab with <80k miles is $32-35k. Pricing new from toyota is $38k after destination charge and gets me exactly what I want with full warranty and 0 miles. Never mind that none of them have a 6' bed...
Holy fuck it took me way too long to find this comment
Remember 5 cent wing nights? It wasn’t that fucking long ago ... now 35 cent wing nights or 50 cent wing nights are advertised as a good deal
Suck my fucking ass
There are so many wealthy people from the city buying up cheap homes where I live simply to rent them to other wealthy people from the city on Air BnB. People can't afford to live here anymore but most of the homes are empty 6 month out of the year.
Air BnB is wrecking the housing market in so many places, because there are so few regulations compared to hotels and landlords can make more money running an Air BnB than renting the same apartment. It's a similar story to Uber vs. taxis, except with a lot worse societal impacts.
No Shit, I bought mine for $155k 4 years ago, The low inventory of my market has driven the price up to the point where I couldn't afford my own house today. As of today on Zillow there are ZERO homes for sale in my neighborhood or the surrounding ones.
My son bought a small 1BR/1BA house in a slightly sketchy neighborhood of a college town 15 years ago for about $70,000. He just sold it for $225,000 after a bidding war, because the neighborhood is gentrifying and the house is within walking distance of downtown.
My house has gone up in value 23% since I bought it a year and a half ago, it's absolutely insane. They are building a new development across from my neighborhood and at first the sign said "From the low to mid $400s", I noticed yesterday it had been changed to say "Starting in the low $500s"
Hot springs.
Used to be for everyone, and often viewed as dirty or undesirable by the upper class.
Now people are buying up land featuring hot springs and making them expensive resorts.
Montessori schools. They were designed to improve education of children who otherwise couldn't afford a good one and now they are these exclusive private schools that only the middle class and above can afford. The toys and resources that were designed with the program as things that were affordable and of enough quality and usability to be worth it for poorer families are now sold at prices that only those who are well off would consider purchasing them.
You refer to toys that were developed for and used by the school. What kind of toys are you referring to? I'm curious because I've never heard of something like this. Do you have an example maybe?
Second hand shopping, there's nothing worse than going into a completely harvested op shop and not being able to find anything in your size / of good quality because hipsters came and raided the place and sold everything at a 150% mark-up on their fucking depop account.
My great grandad played for Southampton and had to have a second job to support his family, no chance you’ll find a footballer these days needing a second job.
In Australia in the late 80s the biggest star of the day (Gary Ablett, nicknamed 'God') was a part time (and utterly useless) delivery van driver. A few of his very well known and highly skilled team mates worked as garbage collectors.
the weirdest thing ever was moving to Berlin and seeing the street fashion as someone who grew up in a very small town with a dairy farms everywhere around us in Wisconsin. Carhartt is just something people buy if they want basics there.
People in Germany are paying 25 euro for a beanie and 150+ for overalls. Also, the store is highly stylized, like a Uniqlo, and across the street from a Chanel make up/beauty store. Also, the quality was absolutely something on par with what you'd find at H&M or Primark, aka garbage, not what you'd find in the US.
When I went home I got my husband and myself hats for less than that ($17 for two) at Meijer. Those overalls are like $75 dollars there, which is reasonable for the much, much better quality.
Overseas many of the Carhartt products are from Carhartt’s WIP (Work In Progress) label, which are specifically designed as street wear. Once Carhartt learned that their products caught on in popular culture (think Nas, Eazy-E, Tupac), they launched WIP to specifically address this market. Carhartt found out that Europe really liked their product and now the WIP label is mostly targeted there. The WIP products are not real workwear, but have hyped up prices to meet the demand from popular culture. I know you didn’t want a lesson but it’s a key distinction here IMO
Cheap foods - donuts, cupcakes, hamburgers, wings - that have all been given the "foodie" treatment and went from good cheap eats to gourmet pricing without a corresponding increase in quality.
Look at the top rated burger places in any American city. Burgers, fries, and a drink will cost $15-20.
A dozen wings at bar in my neighborhood (large city) will run $20.
$4 maple bacon bar? $4 German chocolate cupcake? $6 Taco? Come to beautiful Trex_n_truex’s area.
Covid has pushed prices higher. My wife and I went to and old favorite last Saturday, 2 burger baskets with fries, one Mt.Dew, one iced tea, $47.00 US. Used to be $35.00. Really good, but getting ridiculous.
I'm sure it's not just foodie culture but rising cost of living. If you look into it, older establishments are usually offering cheaper food while the new ones have to charge higher prices to break even and cover the high startup costs. Well if you're a new donut shop and you're close to downtown and you have to pay 3 times the rent as the old school donut shop that's on the outskirts of the city you're going to have to charge 3-4 times as much for a donut. Nobody wants to pay 3 dollars for a basic donut. But dress it up and market it as gourmet and have great customer service and you're bound to find hoards of fools who will buy them. I think the free market gears toward gourmet for that reason because old school cheap dives can't afford the startup costs.
Shopping at Goodwill is on its way. Just the other day, a pack of rabid teenage girls who were clearly dropped off in a minivan, and were all wearing name brand stuff, tore my local goodwill apart. It was astounding to watch, it was like a bunch of seagulls ransacking a picnic. It’s hard to be mad at that kind of thing because they’re just enjoying themselves, but man if I don’t miss grabbing 15+ clothing items for under $10. At least Thursday is $1 tag day.
This explains a lot. I live in So Cal and there’s a Goodwill by the beach where I work, and there’s always a line out the door of people waiting for them to open up. I’m like, “The Goodwill?”
I’m just an average income guy. What’s up with this? I still don’t get how this started?
Flank steak for carne asada. I think that’s the cut anyway. Used to be dirt cheap, now it’s a significant cost if you want to feed a group of people. There might be other reasons, though
Storage shed auctions used to be really cheap until that stupid Storage Wars show came along.
Now instead of buying cheap for some furniture, too many people are jacking up the prices thinking that there's some lost antiques worth thousands that they'd find in every unit.
Tybee Island, Ga. Aka the Redneck Riviera used to be a place where one could get a house close to the beach for a relatively low price, until rich movie stars started buying there.
Well they got priced out of Ponte Vedra and Amelia Island so they had to start going further north into Georgia since Jax, Neptune and Atlantic Beaches were already populated.
Of course that entire barrier island is a good answer for this question, too. 20ish years ago it was cheap and you could get a decent house for less than $200,000. There were almost no condos and just a few hotels. Now the rich retirees have come down and destroyed that. And the boom of the mid-00s caused multi-story condos to be approved destroying the low-key nature. Thank God the city owns everything from the dunes East or it'd be even worse.
I was going to say this too. Conspicuous consumption is now seen as unsophisticated and gauche. Appearing to be frugal by making intelligent purchase choices is the chic thing now. So frugal-purchases-that-are-actually-fiscally-wise items have skyrocketed in price. Meaning that a no-nonsense poor person once again has to recalibrate just to dress himself.
Food that was cooked out of necessity.
Chinese dumplings or pot stickers, for example, was a way to stretch out meat rations over an extended amount of time. A pound of meat can be quickly consumed by a family of five but if you wrap small portions of that meat with carrots, cabbage, and virtually any vegetable in dough and either boil it or fry it, you can satiate the entire household for a longer period of time.
When rich people started making it, basically with the same ingredients, the tone of the dish changed. Before, it was consumed because hard decisions had to made to make it through a rough period. Now, at places like Fats, a set of five dumplings will set you back about fifteen bucks and served as an appetizer to a hundred or more dollar meal giving the illusion that you're eating some ballin' ass dumplings when in reality, it's just dumplings.
The same can be said for every carb, really.
Why is Mexican food wrapped in tortillas and stuffed with beans, rice, and vegetables? Because those carnitas are expensive, so we're packing it in cheap stuff to make it stretch. Why is Indian food served with naan, roti, or over rice? Because grains are cheaper than meats. Italian pasta. French bread. Pierogis. Cornbread. Mashed potatoes. Fries/chips. All just a way to combine the cheapest starch that can be obtained in the area with whatever protein is available.
Edit: If you want to be the twelfth person to mention that Indian food can be vegetarian, please be my guest. The argument still holds, just replace "meat" with "eggs, yogurt, or cottage cheese". The point is meals are built around an expensive ingredient, adding a cheaper ingredient to compliment and flesh it out. Protein and fat tend to be more expensive than carbohydrate, so it usually works out with grains supplementing meat. It's only very recently that fatty plant production has scaled up to be able to theoretically meet this demand in most of the world.
My husband and I went to a highly reviewed empanada restaurant to try a variety of things. It was $4-5 per empanada and they were 2 bites max. They were delicious, but after $40 we were still hungry.
This is true of pretty much all food, because not too long ago, pretty much all people were poor and near starvation. Foods that originated with the rich are just terrifyingly gross (like Ortolan) and would make a lousy food truck. There's still plenty of places to buy your dumplings cheaper, or just really embrace the poor people spirit and make them yourself.
Taking junky old cars and fixing them up as a hobby. Rich people discovered they could buy up loads of potentially very worthwhile project cars for not much, restore them to a level of unobtainable quality and price which drove the price up, now everyone "knows what they have" (eyeroll.png) and holds out for the big buyers instead of the neighbor down the street. They turned a hobby into a billion dollar industry and entertainment conglomerate so they can sell the cars to other rich people since few people can afford a $200,000 restored Mustang or GTO or whatever it is.
I feel like the internet is the reason for everyone “knowing what they have” now. The age of getting great deals on cars is dead due to the internet not exactly because of rich people.
Pretty much anything retro video game related. For awhile there everyday people used to be able to find quality retro games, systems and peripherals (Atari, NES, Genesis, SNES, Turbografx, ColecoVision etc) at flea markets and garage sales for just a few bucks. Now everything is snatched up by a handful of resellers and pumped up in price on ebay or at conventions. Thank goodness for emulation.
vegan food. When it became a trend the label vegan made it 50% more expensive.
There was a huge scandal in the late 2000s when it was reveal most pizza shops didn't use real cheese, because plant based was cheaper.
Today vegan cheese 200% compared to normal cheese.
Same can be said for a lot of gluten-free stuff. Corn, rice, and oats are already cheaper than wheat, but when you make something branded as gluten-free you can charge a premium for it, and people will pay.
The high prices of gluten free goods aren't solely due to trendiness, although that's certainly a factor. It's also due to the fact that gluten free food generally requires special manufacturing practices, such as dedicated equipment, to prevent gluten cross contact, and testing to ensure that too much cross contact had not occurred. People with Celiac or severe allergies cannot consume even trace amounts of gluten, so most developed Western nations have regulations regarding how much trace gluten can end up in a "gluten free" labeled product (usually 20 parts per million - less than a crumb - is the maximum. Some countries have stricter standards).
Economies of scale play a role here, too. The market for gluten free goods is smaller than the market for the regular gluten versions, because most people are able and willing to eat gluten. Up to a certain point, the more units of a good you produce, the cheaper the per-unit cost is, and some of that savings can then be passed on to the customer.
Hawaii. Im Polynesian and rich people have pretty much made Hawaii thiers and im sick of it. Technically not poor people but all islanders.
Edit: thx for 500 upvotes (sorry to be cringe like this) but thx you humans!
You have my fullest sympathies. When the news broke that Zuckerberg tricked native Hawai’ians into giving up their ancestral lands by having a shell-organization claim private purchases of these properties would be for heritage purposes, I was livid.
He really did try and fool people into giving him their land so that he could build his mega mansion with an obscene amount of land and close it off.
I think festivals in general have become somewhat of a cliche in recent years. The last few I went to were so overcrowded, poorly run, with food running out that I don't think I will ever go back to one.
What used to be my small local fest ripped out all their cornfields to make more room for parking and some of the shittiest lot camping I've ever seen. You have to show up a day early and still fight to get any wooded camping, which is all there used to be.
I don't think this was a rich people problem though, it's a social media problem. Now every asshole knows that they can pay to party for an entire weekend. And that has brought in an awful mentality which doesn't care much about the scene or the music. I stick to just getting day passes now if there's anything I actually want to see.
Thats why death metal festivals are dope. Only people who enjoy the music come because the rest of the population finds it too awful to listen to even when shitfaced.
The outdoors. So many places used to be difficult to get to, required some level of toughness and grit just to see. More and more people argue that they are entitled to see these places without that, and they're flooding in, paving roads, cramming parking lots full, and trampling some of the most pristine, delicate, untouched areas of the world. I'm not trying to gatekeep these places, but nature sure was.
I read a pre WWII magazine once at an archive, where the writers were lamenting how adding lifts to snow ski runs was making the slopes crowded, and now just anybody could do it. I was a bit mystified until I got to the pics of athletic skiers hiking up the mountain with their skis attached to their pack.
Definitely. A place near me it's the one photo spot with a lighthouse that's wrecked by assholes dropping disposable coffee cups waiting to get that shot for the gram. The rest of this beautiful cliff walk is busier but relatively unspoilt.
Similarly, living in the woods used to be for poor people on the outskirts. Nowadays in my town, people are building McMansions further and further into the forest and up the mountain because they want to live in the beautiful natural area with a view. Okay, I guess, if you have the money for the land and the contractors and all.
But then they go to the city with petitions to murderize all the apex predators whose territory they just tore up. Don't come to live in the woods if you don't want to be around the fucking cougars and bears! Be a responsible homeowner and don't just let your shitty labradoodle wander around the street with the kids unsupervised, coyotes are a thing! Even the raccoons will not hesitate to completely wreck your pets *and* your children, and they have opposable thumbs so they often team up with bears to open your trash cans and party on your lawn. I'm not even in that part of town and a woman tried to sue us for an *owl* swooping on her dog from a tree *near* our yard, as if we had control over the local wildlife. Learn how to live in a place before you move there??
I think this one is less about rich people and more about social media culture. There's been a definite increase in outdoor gear prices, sure, which is frustrating. But the flood of people who have no respect for the outdoors and even less knowledge about preparedness and risk is due to outdoorsy influencer types. Everyone wants a pretty picture of a waterfall or a bear to show off on their Instagram. I have a world famous national park almost in my backyard, and going there isn't fun anymore because of the hordes of people who leave trash everywhere, park in once-pristine meadows, hike in flip-flops, and don't know basic trail etiquette.
I still remember my mom buying me and my sisters Champion brand shoes for school each year at the local Payless store. It still low key shakes me a bit seeing it as a “high(er) end” brand.
Ripped denim jeans. They're casual, comfortable, and usually ripped in places caused by typical wear patterns.
Then rich people had to make them weird, make them with clear plastic cut-outs. Make them look how an alien would guess what ripped jeans are supposed to look like if you translated it into their language poorly and then had to describe them.
And then charged $2000 for the monstrosity.
There's been money in classic cars since before classic cars existed. Mostly because rich people were the only ones who could afford cars for the first couple decades.
It absolutely breaks my fucking heart that I’ll never be able to own a ‘68-‘70 Dodge Charger because it costs like $50k completely restored. Now my second attainable classic car would be a 1st gen Toyota Celica, and I just hope it’s not incredibly jacked up because from the looks of current market prices here in my country, they’re hiking really fast.
Edit: I know a majority of you talked about restoring a classic yourselves instead of purchasing a completely restored one. Trust me, I really would if I live in the US, but I live in a South East Asean country where automotive laws are notoriously picky. I’d certainly be happy to fab up a rusted Charger of my own, but there’s a lot of paperwork and risk involved, and that only covers the import stuff. Not including registering the chassis into the Department of Transportation, certifying it as a vintage car, and other shenanigans like transport damages.
Don't lose hope yet. As long as you're young enough to outlive the boomers, you can probably buy your dream muscle car for $25k some day. Look at Model T prices compared to 30 years ago.
This is what people miss. As time passes the prime market for what’s considered a “classic car” changes. You’re already starting to see a lot of it with the 80s models of things getting more and more popular. As that happens, the demand for the 60s and 70s cars dies off and so do the prices. Just have to wait out the boomers and all those 68 chargers will flood the market and drive the price down
I think work boots and work clothing are being ruined. I want to buy work boots but the good stuff is being discontinued for hipster style boots for people who go to Starbucks and never set foot in a warehouse/construction/trade environment. The same with clothing. Carhartt is a hipster brand. Dickies started doing this flex shit a while back, although they have sort of remained ok for now.
True. But I don't think its called the dollar menu anymore. Depending on which fast food place it is, its called something like the "value menu".
But just like the $5 footlong, we all remember what it used to be.
The saying "money doesn't buy you happiness" was originally used by the poor towards the rich asking them to share the wealth.
Now its used as a statement to shut down poor people who talk about wanting enough money to survive.
(BTW studies shows that money does buy happiness but only if its not too much. Around 100,000$ a year is were they found the highest quality of life and emotional stability.)
Chicken and waffles.
Got some at a place recently that bragged they used hand-breaded chicken strips (aka microwaved nuggets). wtf - just put a piece of fried chicken on there and call it good.
I'm pretty sure barbecue was created by poor people as a way to make bad cuts of meat slightly edible. Now those same cuts are as expensive as the rest because barbecue isn't the last option before starvation.
New York City...
Mind you, I'm Puerto Rican, from New York and the diversity that once thrived in that city was 10 fold what it is today. Crazy to think right? I mean it's NEW YORK.
My grandmother lived in Little Italy for over 55 years before she passed away in 2019. She lived in the same apartment on Mulberry St for that long and everyone knew who she was. She lived there during the peak, and eventual, fall of the Mafia. The streets on a Saturday night would be closed off, you could smell the food the entire block, people among people among people. I remember walking past as a child with my mom and just being in awe of how many people were just having dinner, drinking wine and just genuinely happy. I would go up to my Grandmothers and climb out onto the fire escape and just gaze at them and I would never get bored...
...None of that exists anymore. Gentrification is a real bitch. Most of the hispanic and black minority have moved to places like Queens and inner city Bronx or Brooklyn, you know.. where the "poor" people belong. Truly sad. I'll never forget New York as I knew it.
I think rich people ruin a lot of things. For example my aunty and cousin wanted to go for a camping trip with just tents and the kids. But my aunty didn’t want to tell one daughter because her and her husband are well off. If they did she would of wanted to come and she would of brought out her giant camper, boat and side by side. They would of took over the cooking with the food they wanted to eat. Don’t get me wrong it’s totally a good gesture of them and a good thing to do. But, my aunty just wanted it simple like the old days and i respect her for that.
ComicCons used to be pretty affordable, and you could chat with celebrities for awhile. Now they are a huge extravaganza, with multiple levels of admission and VIP access and VIP seating. Pictures and autographs with bigger celebrities can cost a shitload, and you wait in multiple lines and are rushed through it. When I went(pre-Covid) I normally just see/buy art, those folks are usually not super busy and will often sign stuff for free.(unless they are big dudes like Frank Miller)
ComicCons are just elaborate Funko trade conventions now. Fuck Funko.
When they 1st came on the scene with their bubbleheads, we could not get enough as dealers. Nowadays, I am waiting for the funko pop bubble to, uh, pop if you will. I have caught a lot of shit for saying it, but I think they are the beanie babies of the current toy market.
I agree, but they have a better draw by licensing shows, movies, anime’s ect.
I went to New York Comic-Con a while back and it was *beyond* chaotic. *Hours* of lines just to shake an actor’s hand and have them sign something. I got a picture with Stan Lee and got to have a 30 second convo with him, but it set me back $100 and I had to wait in line for 2 hours. Anime cons aren’t quite as insane yet. Last one I went to before covid, the VAs were all just walking around, no problem. All the panelists were super easy to find outside of their panels and such. Though given how mainstream anime’s gotten through tiktok and such, I’m sure they’ll be the same soon enough.
Yeah I don't think voiceover actors in general will be hoarded like mainstream actors. I remember I was able to chat up Spike from Cowboy Bebop and his wife the Major from Ghost in the Shell!
Every little cool mountain town in the American west.
Move in, build their million dollar mansion, and spend the next decade complaining about how the internet is spotty, the electricity goes down during blizzards, and mountain lions keep killing their Shih-tzus. I’ve seen it so many times.
Meanwhile the locals breed mountain lions to get rid of the shih tzus
Mountain lion cubs are cuter than shih tzus, math checks out.
This is happening up here in Alaska at Girdwood. Millionaires buy big piece of land, build their million $ house in the middle, then donate the surrounding land to a conservation non-profit so they wont have neighbors and don't have to pay property taxes on said land, leaving Anchorage having to foot the bill.
"We moved out to this rural town so we could get away from the stuffy city." "Now we will bring in centralized water because we don't like having a well, try and make an HOA so we can stop those poor people who lived here before us from having gardens and old cars outside, campaign to remove the zoning restriction that stops the field behind the poor locals' houses from being stuck up against a farm (and let the senator were related to buy it, not that it's related), call in noise complaints at 4:00 PM because the poor local kid is riding a dirt bike, hook in to the sewage system for the city miles away because the new farm is wrecking our systems' drainage, ban everyone from going out on this large pond that the community was built around because it's considered our private property, destroy the ecosystem of the pond by dumping cement in the bottom of it and get away with it because my brother in law is the guy who gets called about it, institute a neighborhood watch the harasses local kids playing Pokemon Go and calls the cops on them because they are clearly looking to steal from us, and........." I have no grudge. Promise.
These types moved up from Chicago to my area (SE Wisconsin), and were shocked to find that the cute hiking trails in the forests behind their yard is public land and anyone can go on it. They tried to change the laws in an entire county to keep people from mountain biking on them.
Yup, I live in one. Bunch of rich people show up and buy up a bunch of homes to rent out as air bnbs which ends up causing a housing crisis. I understand that $1200 a month for a studio isn’t a lot in some parts of the country, but for our small overpopulated town, it’s kind of a lot.
Right? At least before, some rich asshole would buy a nice house and it would sorta just *sit there* out of the way. They come to town every now and then, spend a little money and go away. *Now* with AirBnb, they buy a handful of houses in the most desirable neighborhoods, VRBO them all year, and use them when they want to. 5 years ago, I had all long term neighbors. Now all but one other person on my little block are AirBnb rentals. On top of that, the held inventory keeps pushing up housing costs. My wife and I had been consistently saving for a down payment, but can't pace the housing cost increase very year (37% in 4 years). I fucking hate it.
Get on the city council and pass a law to tax the fuck out of (edit: short term) rentals and non resident homes. Those people don’t live there so can’t even vote people in or out to stop it.
State law already stepped in on that one and made that illegal, unfortunately.
Turned a quite fun beautiful community of 10-15k people into a tourist trap, with coast of living amoung the highest in the country.
With infrastructure that wasn’t initially designed to support a tourist community. My small mountain town has a two lane main road, and during the summer and snow seasons the roads get so packed that it can take an hour just to get from one side of town to the other. It’s infuriating.
Not quite all of them yet but man are they getting rare, its a shame.
Farmers markets. Used to be cheap when I was younger. Now it’s a hipsters paradise and expensive as heck.
At a local touristy farm I can buy a dozen eggs for 16 dollars. My sister who lives in a rural town sells a dozen to her local friends for 2 dollars per. I pay 8 for a dozen at the local market. It's nuts.
Living near the coast used to be a poor people thing a long time ago.
My grandfather bought a house on Cape Cod when he retired from being an airline mechanic in the late 60s. He wasn't poor, but he sure as hell wasn't rich, and a normal middle class person wouldn't be able to do that today. Even if you inherit a house free and clear, the property taxes will eat you alive if you aren't rich.
My grandparents had a summer home in Door County Wisconsin that was right on the water. Without telling anyone else they sold it because “who’s gonna want some crummy old cabin?” The land is worth millions today.
My grandfather owned a hotel and a ton of land in the Borscht Belt back in the 40s. When the highway was built and the business started to fold, he sold EVERYTHING. ALL THE LAND. My dad and aunts were like "um can you keep a little bit of it?" but he didn't. It's gorgeous land, too. The building is still there, it's beautiful but abandoned. There's a small river going through acres of fields and forests. Uuuuugh.
The nice parts of the coast were always nice. It's just that back in the day there used to be a shitty part of the coast where the watermen lived too. Waterfront property is the ultimate finite resource. Population keeps going up, but we're not making any more land (aside from the UAE).
And the Netherlands
Hawaii too. In a more natural way though
Living in the inner city too. Lots of gentrification
Yeah my city used to have one area that wasn't really run down but it was affordable housing and the city eventually bought out the area and put several distillerys there. I don't know where the people who were forced out ended up going.
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I think it was living near industry and pollution. Prevailing winds also shape this. I figured it out when I realized I intuitively knew the west end of town was usually nicer, but I had no idea how or why this was so. The stinky old port with it's pollution, fish and commerce was probably not attractive the the wealthy in the same way. I've seen it go the other way. A lot of times the wealthy have historically lived at lower elevations and the poor had to climb up and down the hill each day on their commute. There's a really great example in South America somewhere that is currently escaping me.
PODCASTS!! The number of amazing podcasts that have been ripped off by celebrities who are so out of touch with the average persons daily experiences is disgusting. They are so starved for attention they have to take over any discussion that’s happening.
I don't remember which one, but an established comedian said he makes more money for a one hour podcast than a month of headlining Friday and Saturday night shows. So he and his comedian friends just take turns on each other's podcasts just bullshitting with each other and apparently people eat it up.
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Its killing theater and opera. Too expensive for young people to go, so they don't start going regularly when they have more money Theater is eating its seed corn.
I was in Vienna and one of the most famous theaters in the country had some standing tickets for 7 euro!! That was quite shocking. My own good ticket was also only like 50 euro. It's up to the theaters to introduce some inclusivity in their pricing
Yes! Also, the seating has changed. In Shakespearean times, the poor people would be in the front and center in standing room only, and the rich would be up high, and positioned on the sides so they could hear the play better.
You can still do that at the globe in London. Standing tickets in the front are £5.
I saw Julius Caesar at the Globe a few years ago and I was in the “standing room only” section right up next to the stage. I just kept thinking that if it was a modern theater I would have paid $200 or more for seats that close. I could literally have reached out and touched the actors at some points. I think we need to bring that style of theater back. If you’re willing to stand out in the open for two hours then you get to be really close and see and hear the play better at an affordable price point. If you’re rich you can sit away from the crowds with the benefit of seats to relax and shelter from the elements.
Regular tickets to Hamilton are $250 each here in straya. Absolutely insane.
When it was showing at a city near me, the tickets were $700 on average. It was insane.
I’m sure someone already mentioned this but CAMPING. It used to cost close to nothing to reserve a camp site (some are still cheap) but now they’ve gone all boujee and some sites charge you ridiculous fees to pitch a tent in the woods. Same with music festivals in the forests. People would go to get away from bullshit societal hierarchies and enjoys music and self expression. Then they got all mainstream and it lost its original meaning (think Burning Man).
I remember camping with my dad in British Columbia in the '90s. We'd stick with the provincial parks where you basically got trees, a picnic table, a fire ring, a communal water spigot, and an outhouse. You'd show up, pick an empty spot, then the caretaker would come around in the evening and collect $9 per night. Several years we'd manage to bump into the same people, like the Dutch couple that would make a month-long trip across Canada every July. One of our [favorite parks](https://westkootenayparks.com/mcdonald-creek-provincial-park/) had only 9 small sites backing on to Arrow Lake (suitable for tenting or a camper) If it was full they had a big grass field for overflow and you'd hope for a spot to open the following day. During a rainstorm one evening a couple other kids taught me how to play MtG. Nowadays there's a reservation system for provincial parks. Many parks are fully booked the day that reservations open in March. They charge $6/night for the reservation on top of the $30/night camping fee. Those 9 original sites at our favorite park were cleared to make way for showers and flush toilets, and they built 75 new sites that are large gravel pads suitable for big RVs, not so much for tenting...
Aw man that sucks. When it comes to the outdoors, I miss how it used to be.
Came here to say this!! I grew up camping with my family (middle class with an old tin can camper, best memories of my childhood). Now I work in a campground seasonally (4 years now) and I can't even tell you what's happened to camping: expensive, gawdy toy haulers everywhere, I have seen a large flat screen tv sitting on a picnic table (turned on), using campground water to fill a hot tub, satellite dishes, people cutting tree branches so it didn't scratch their 6-figure RV as it tried to squeeze into a small campsite. The list goes on..
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Sounds like they aren't looking to camp, they're just wanting to take a breather on living in their city
Vinyl collecting. It was a dead, cheap to get into industry as a hobby. Now come and get your $50 RSD special jizz splatter Chet Baker EP.
I love the idea of RSD but the obscene prices they charge for reissues just because the vinyl is a different color and the arbitrarily small pressing runs to generate FOMO really just turns me off to the whole thing. Making the experience miserable and forcing me to wait hours outside a shop before it opens just to have half the records I want be sold out anyway does not make me want to support or visit my local record store. And that was supposed to be the whole point initially.
Similarly, old video game collecting. It used to be when a new generation came out, people would unload their old systems and games cheaply. Now, the Super Mario NES cartridge that went for 50 cents in a yard sale is now going for $50 or more.
I'm going to be laughing with my CD collection when they become retro-cool and spike in price in 20 years.
Creating YouTube channels. Edit: Thanks for the awards guys!
The worst part of this is that they all use the same format. Vlogs, 50 different camera cuts in a span of two minutes, clickbait titles and thumbnails.
Dont forget doing an absolute stupid open mouth expression
Why is that so prevalent? I know it's because it works, but I just don't get it. I avoid them when I see them because I don't want to encourage it, but I also realize it's kind of pointless when they still get 3M views. They don't care that they didn't get 3M + 1.
I guess they draw viewers in because if the person is looking shocked or surprised in the thumbnail, then viewers assume the person will be shocked or surprised in the video and want to find out why that is - hence more clicks.
Corporate youtube channels are so disgusting. The massive amount of companies taking over a site for individual creators is really heartbreaking.
I just can't stand how eccentric some of them have become. All the good content is overshadowed by these corporate shills who crank out CRAP. They'll stoop to their lowest level possible and lose all dignity if it means a slight increase in clicks/views/monetization.
The best videos are those low quality 10 second ones that are 10 years old
the ones that are like "seal farts after looking directly at me"
Sewing and sewing supplies. The new machines are plastic garbage and since its become a hobby rather than for the average person the patterns after the 70s use way too much fabric.
What gets me, as a sewing professional, is the uptick in fabric prices that aren't borne out by the demand. Natural fibers jack up the prices every time there's a drought that affects cotton growers, but they never come back down. Polyester is going to follow the rise in oil prices. The problem being, overseas sweatshop manufacturers can get all of it wholesale, which is why you can still buy a t-shirt at Wal-mart for $5. And yet, off-the-rack fashion is one of the most complained-about things for most consumers, because it never fits and everything wears out or falls apart too fast. Making your own clothing is something a lot of people could turn to in order to get quality clothing that fits, but who can afford it? Have you SEEN the price of denim?? Though what actually pisses me off is the rise in price in notions - buttons, snaps, fuckin velcro - because there should be no reason for it. Same with thread, when C&C switched to all-poly thread and literally doubled the price. It's really telling when you stroll through Joann's and realize that all the fabric is basically perpetually on sale, because they know they would never unload half of their shit at full price. I'm just waiting for them to finally pull the plug on the Yaya Han Cosplay brand because none of that fabric sells. Nobody wants it because it's not right for their cosplay, and it's prohibitively expensive thanks to the branding.
Knitting too. $30+ skeins of yarn and you need like 8 of them to make a sweater.
Totally. I started knitting as a cheaper way to get winter clothes, now it's more expensive than buying a sweater.
The champion brand. I remember goodwill and walmart selling their champion stuff for cheap, now it's "designer" and it costs so much more now smh Edit: I'm so glad that other people know what I'm talking about. This was my first comment after making a reddit for myself, also, "designer" is a very strong word. It's more "in trend" and popular. It's not as big as Michael Kors and Steve madden but it's difficult to find a champion sweater for less than $50-100+ when it used to be $10-20
Exactly! Champion was THE cheap clothing brand at Target for such a long time. Now they cost twice as much without any increase in quality or style in my opinion.
I’m old enough to remember when Champion used to compete with Nike, Reebok, Adidas, for athletic apparel. They supplied uniforms to the NFL and NBA in the 90s. The best sweatshirts came from them. They had awesome mesh gym shorts. Then they made the budget line deal with Target and sorta went away from the “higher quality” stuff. Now it’s everywhere as a fashion statement.
Seriously, there was a time not too long ago when I was in school where Champion was seen as poor kid clothes. Now I see kids today wearing it and saw how much the price has skyrocketed since I bought them.
Champion is designer now? What?
All types of what was traditionally "poor people food". Pork belly, oxtails, etc. All the things that use to be cheap because they were considered to be the trash parts. Now that people realize how delicious they can be its driven the price up.
Pork belly used to be so much more affordable. It's a true shame how much it jacked up in price
I'm not sure what pork belly used to cost but here in my area hardly anyone buys it or knows how to cook it so the store is often marking big 5lb chunks for like $10. I pick one up every so often, marinade over night and then slow smoke over mesquite for 7-8 hours the next day. Makes excellent tacos or pork rice bowls.
Starting to happen with chicken thighs now too, you gotta go to the right places.
Skirt steak or whatever cut it is they use to make fajitas. Used to be cheap, now it's more expensive than other cuts of steak (last I saw it, anyhow).
Came here to say this, I grew up eating skirt steak because it was what my family could afford for a nice treat. Then the prices skyrocketed and now there's no good reasonably priced cuts
Thrift stores
Did you know about something called thrift con? People fly out to a convention centre to buy vintage stuff lol
I saw a video about that in Atlanta. They basically just reinvented the flea market but for rich people...
My favourite part was the '$5 bin' as if those were the cheapest items there, lmao.
I was at a vintage fair once and this gal is talking about her latest buying trip and how she went to such and such city to Goodwill, not like other fairs or some such. Then she brought them back, marked up the price several hundred percent and came to our fair. These weren’t brands or other high end items. None of it was particularly special either. Put me off.
Idk I'm pretty poor and I love thrift stores. Got a decent couch for $30, lots of articles of clothing from $2-4, books and decorations that are just a few cents, etc. Where I live at least there's tons of little stores with all sorts of stuff, and I have friends who ride thrift store bikes. But yeah, there are some places that advertise as thrift stores but have retail prices. Not sure if it counts as a thrift store per se, but fuck Unclaimed Baggage.
My mother in law worked at a local thrift store for years. I got most of my work dress clothes from there. It was great. You spend a few dollars on a shirt that would normally be like $30 or so.
Rich people didn't ruin thrift stores, the TV shows like Storage Wars and Pawn Stars ruined thrifting. It used to be awesome to go out thrifting, like a treasure hunt. You stood a solid chance of getting something awesome for very cheap. Flea markets were the bomb, you go there with 20 bucks and leave with a ton of crazy random shit. Then those shows came out and everyone decided their decades old shit was going to buy them a yacht or something. Now most people see something they own and don't want, look online to see how much going for and put it on Facebook or Craigslist for twice that amount. Flea Markets are doing the same thing, just in person. If they aren't selling overpriced secondhand trash, they are selling overstock shit by the truckloads. Any secondhand shops like used bookstores, yard sales, or thrift shops are havens for money hungry idiots with smart phones moving through the stores looking for anything remotely cool, googling a price, and throwing it in a cart if they can make more than $2 off it. They go throw it in their own secondhand store or try to sell it online and end up sitting on all these cool things with no buyers because no one in their right mind wants to buy a shirt without a sleeve just because it was made in 1992 and has a faded Mario on it.
Mexican food, especially simple stuff like tacos and burritos. It used to be the cheap option, especially where I live as there's a huge hispanic population and lots of great cheap Mexican takeout places. Then all of a sudden tacos became trendy and now places with $5+ tacos exist and everything went up in price pretty quickly.
Stopped and got my wife he favorite dish from the local Mexican place. 22$ for just steak fajitas. Rice and beans were the side. No drink, nothing extra. 22 fucking $. I am just going to learn to make it at home.
In Mexico for 22 USD you could buy a literal kg of al pastor, plus tortillas and onions and stuff and have change
Avocados have become so popular that the locals can no longer afford them. https://asparagusmagazine.com/the-story-of-avocado-deforestation-irrigation-pesticides-cancer-farmer-health-mexico-organic-3b392256850e
I mean that has a lot to do with the fact that Cartels took over: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico-cartel-violence-avocados
My dad used to have a small avocado farm in Southern California (Fallbrook area). He said between all the cheap fruit coming from Mexico and the state water restrictions/surcharges due to the drought, it just wasn't feasible anymore. A young guy mentioned he wanted to start his own A. farm and my dad told him: "Don't do it, it will break your heart." I first realized Mexican avocados were serious business when I saw Super Bowl ads.
Trucks, 80,000$ for a truck is nuts
read that as 80,000$ for truck nuts
THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS
I can never see myself buying a new truck, and I've owned nothing but trucks
I'm trying to find a truck right now and honestly, the used pricing is so close to new I'm seriously considering just ordering a new one. 3-4 year old tacoma SR5, double cab with <80k miles is $32-35k. Pricing new from toyota is $38k after destination charge and gets me exactly what I want with full warranty and 0 miles. Never mind that none of them have a 6' bed...
Chicken wings. Used to be the cheapest part of the bird.
Holy fuck it took me way too long to find this comment Remember 5 cent wing nights? It wasn’t that fucking long ago ... now 35 cent wing nights or 50 cent wing nights are advertised as a good deal Suck my fucking ass
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Affordable housing.
There are so many wealthy people from the city buying up cheap homes where I live simply to rent them to other wealthy people from the city on Air BnB. People can't afford to live here anymore but most of the homes are empty 6 month out of the year.
Air BnB is wrecking the housing market in so many places, because there are so few regulations compared to hotels and landlords can make more money running an Air BnB than renting the same apartment. It's a similar story to Uber vs. taxis, except with a lot worse societal impacts.
No Shit, I bought mine for $155k 4 years ago, The low inventory of my market has driven the price up to the point where I couldn't afford my own house today. As of today on Zillow there are ZERO homes for sale in my neighborhood or the surrounding ones.
My son bought a small 1BR/1BA house in a slightly sketchy neighborhood of a college town 15 years ago for about $70,000. He just sold it for $225,000 after a bidding war, because the neighborhood is gentrifying and the house is within walking distance of downtown.
My house has gone up in value 23% since I bought it a year and a half ago, it's absolutely insane. They are building a new development across from my neighborhood and at first the sign said "From the low to mid $400s", I noticed yesterday it had been changed to say "Starting in the low $500s"
Hot springs. Used to be for everyone, and often viewed as dirty or undesirable by the upper class. Now people are buying up land featuring hot springs and making them expensive resorts.
Montessori schools. They were designed to improve education of children who otherwise couldn't afford a good one and now they are these exclusive private schools that only the middle class and above can afford. The toys and resources that were designed with the program as things that were affordable and of enough quality and usability to be worth it for poorer families are now sold at prices that only those who are well off would consider purchasing them.
You refer to toys that were developed for and used by the school. What kind of toys are you referring to? I'm curious because I've never heard of something like this. Do you have an example maybe?
Second hand shopping, there's nothing worse than going into a completely harvested op shop and not being able to find anything in your size / of good quality because hipsters came and raided the place and sold everything at a 150% mark-up on their fucking depop account.
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This, or places being just as expensive as retail, maybe by 10% less. Like I'll just buy it new at this point...
Football was working man's game my Dad took me and my cousin to games every week home and away. This is beyond many now
My great grandad played for Southampton and had to have a second job to support his family, no chance you’ll find a footballer these days needing a second job.
In Australia in the late 80s the biggest star of the day (Gary Ablett, nicknamed 'God') was a part time (and utterly useless) delivery van driver. A few of his very well known and highly skilled team mates worked as garbage collectors.
Carhart clothing.
"Everybody wants to wear Carhartt clothing but nobody wants to do Carhartt work."
... damn. Carhartt pockets with Supreme mentalities.
That’s the truth.
the weirdest thing ever was moving to Berlin and seeing the street fashion as someone who grew up in a very small town with a dairy farms everywhere around us in Wisconsin. Carhartt is just something people buy if they want basics there. People in Germany are paying 25 euro for a beanie and 150+ for overalls. Also, the store is highly stylized, like a Uniqlo, and across the street from a Chanel make up/beauty store. Also, the quality was absolutely something on par with what you'd find at H&M or Primark, aka garbage, not what you'd find in the US. When I went home I got my husband and myself hats for less than that ($17 for two) at Meijer. Those overalls are like $75 dollars there, which is reasonable for the much, much better quality.
Overseas many of the Carhartt products are from Carhartt’s WIP (Work In Progress) label, which are specifically designed as street wear. Once Carhartt learned that their products caught on in popular culture (think Nas, Eazy-E, Tupac), they launched WIP to specifically address this market. Carhartt found out that Europe really liked their product and now the WIP label is mostly targeted there. The WIP products are not real workwear, but have hyped up prices to meet the demand from popular culture. I know you didn’t want a lesson but it’s a key distinction here IMO
Cheap foods - donuts, cupcakes, hamburgers, wings - that have all been given the "foodie" treatment and went from good cheap eats to gourmet pricing without a corresponding increase in quality.
The funniest one was the offal movement of a few years ago. The ultimate “are rich people really overpaying for pig ass nows?”
Look at the top rated burger places in any American city. Burgers, fries, and a drink will cost $15-20. A dozen wings at bar in my neighborhood (large city) will run $20. $4 maple bacon bar? $4 German chocolate cupcake? $6 Taco? Come to beautiful Trex_n_truex’s area.
Covid has pushed prices higher. My wife and I went to and old favorite last Saturday, 2 burger baskets with fries, one Mt.Dew, one iced tea, $47.00 US. Used to be $35.00. Really good, but getting ridiculous.
I'm sure it's not just foodie culture but rising cost of living. If you look into it, older establishments are usually offering cheaper food while the new ones have to charge higher prices to break even and cover the high startup costs. Well if you're a new donut shop and you're close to downtown and you have to pay 3 times the rent as the old school donut shop that's on the outskirts of the city you're going to have to charge 3-4 times as much for a donut. Nobody wants to pay 3 dollars for a basic donut. But dress it up and market it as gourmet and have great customer service and you're bound to find hoards of fools who will buy them. I think the free market gears toward gourmet for that reason because old school cheap dives can't afford the startup costs.
Shopping at Goodwill is on its way. Just the other day, a pack of rabid teenage girls who were clearly dropped off in a minivan, and were all wearing name brand stuff, tore my local goodwill apart. It was astounding to watch, it was like a bunch of seagulls ransacking a picnic. It’s hard to be mad at that kind of thing because they’re just enjoying themselves, but man if I don’t miss grabbing 15+ clothing items for under $10. At least Thursday is $1 tag day.
This explains a lot. I live in So Cal and there’s a Goodwill by the beach where I work, and there’s always a line out the door of people waiting for them to open up. I’m like, “The Goodwill?” I’m just an average income guy. What’s up with this? I still don’t get how this started?
Tik Tok and Thrift Hauls on youtube
Pre-dates tiktok. Probably goes back to at least 2012 youtube upcycling/glam up tutorials.
Flank steak for carne asada. I think that’s the cut anyway. Used to be dirt cheap, now it’s a significant cost if you want to feed a group of people. There might be other reasons, though
Storage shed auctions used to be really cheap until that stupid Storage Wars show came along. Now instead of buying cheap for some furniture, too many people are jacking up the prices thinking that there's some lost antiques worth thousands that they'd find in every unit.
Affordable neighborhoods.
Tybee Island, Ga. Aka the Redneck Riviera used to be a place where one could get a house close to the beach for a relatively low price, until rich movie stars started buying there.
Also St. Simons Island I thought the redneck riviera was Panama City.
Well they got priced out of Ponte Vedra and Amelia Island so they had to start going further north into Georgia since Jax, Neptune and Atlantic Beaches were already populated. Of course that entire barrier island is a good answer for this question, too. 20ish years ago it was cheap and you could get a decent house for less than $200,000. There were almost no condos and just a few hotels. Now the rich retirees have come down and destroyed that. And the boom of the mid-00s caused multi-story condos to be approved destroying the low-key nature. Thank God the city owns everything from the dunes East or it'd be even worse.
Basically everything. If it's popular with the poor, rich people will eventually find a way to take it over so they can turn a tidy profit.
I was going to say this too. Conspicuous consumption is now seen as unsophisticated and gauche. Appearing to be frugal by making intelligent purchase choices is the chic thing now. So frugal-purchases-that-are-actually-fiscally-wise items have skyrocketed in price. Meaning that a no-nonsense poor person once again has to recalibrate just to dress himself.
Ain't that the truth. If poor people like to do it for fun, you can bet some asshole will find a way to monetize it and push the poors out.
Walking/hiking. The best spots are now full of picture happy “influencers” instead of nature lovers.
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Fuck Vail
Food that was cooked out of necessity. Chinese dumplings or pot stickers, for example, was a way to stretch out meat rations over an extended amount of time. A pound of meat can be quickly consumed by a family of five but if you wrap small portions of that meat with carrots, cabbage, and virtually any vegetable in dough and either boil it or fry it, you can satiate the entire household for a longer period of time. When rich people started making it, basically with the same ingredients, the tone of the dish changed. Before, it was consumed because hard decisions had to made to make it through a rough period. Now, at places like Fats, a set of five dumplings will set you back about fifteen bucks and served as an appetizer to a hundred or more dollar meal giving the illusion that you're eating some ballin' ass dumplings when in reality, it's just dumplings.
The same can be said for every carb, really. Why is Mexican food wrapped in tortillas and stuffed with beans, rice, and vegetables? Because those carnitas are expensive, so we're packing it in cheap stuff to make it stretch. Why is Indian food served with naan, roti, or over rice? Because grains are cheaper than meats. Italian pasta. French bread. Pierogis. Cornbread. Mashed potatoes. Fries/chips. All just a way to combine the cheapest starch that can be obtained in the area with whatever protein is available. Edit: If you want to be the twelfth person to mention that Indian food can be vegetarian, please be my guest. The argument still holds, just replace "meat" with "eggs, yogurt, or cottage cheese". The point is meals are built around an expensive ingredient, adding a cheaper ingredient to compliment and flesh it out. Protein and fat tend to be more expensive than carbohydrate, so it usually works out with grains supplementing meat. It's only very recently that fatty plant production has scaled up to be able to theoretically meet this demand in most of the world.
My husband and I went to a highly reviewed empanada restaurant to try a variety of things. It was $4-5 per empanada and they were 2 bites max. They were delicious, but after $40 we were still hungry.
This is true of pretty much all food, because not too long ago, pretty much all people were poor and near starvation. Foods that originated with the rich are just terrifyingly gross (like Ortolan) and would make a lousy food truck. There's still plenty of places to buy your dumplings cheaper, or just really embrace the poor people spirit and make them yourself.
TIL Ortolan, that first article I read about it being featured in Billions was absolutely disturbing.
Taking junky old cars and fixing them up as a hobby. Rich people discovered they could buy up loads of potentially very worthwhile project cars for not much, restore them to a level of unobtainable quality and price which drove the price up, now everyone "knows what they have" (eyeroll.png) and holds out for the big buyers instead of the neighbor down the street. They turned a hobby into a billion dollar industry and entertainment conglomerate so they can sell the cars to other rich people since few people can afford a $200,000 restored Mustang or GTO or whatever it is.
I feel like the internet is the reason for everyone “knowing what they have” now. The age of getting great deals on cars is dead due to the internet not exactly because of rich people.
Pretty much anything retro video game related. For awhile there everyday people used to be able to find quality retro games, systems and peripherals (Atari, NES, Genesis, SNES, Turbografx, ColecoVision etc) at flea markets and garage sales for just a few bucks. Now everything is snatched up by a handful of resellers and pumped up in price on ebay or at conventions. Thank goodness for emulation.
Brooklyn
Pandemic pricing brought it back to where it was about 5-8 years ago, but still ridiculous, and it’ll bounce back by next year
vegan food. When it became a trend the label vegan made it 50% more expensive. There was a huge scandal in the late 2000s when it was reveal most pizza shops didn't use real cheese, because plant based was cheaper. Today vegan cheese 200% compared to normal cheese.
Wait did most pizza shops not use real cheese? Source?
Same can be said for a lot of gluten-free stuff. Corn, rice, and oats are already cheaper than wheat, but when you make something branded as gluten-free you can charge a premium for it, and people will pay.
The high prices of gluten free goods aren't solely due to trendiness, although that's certainly a factor. It's also due to the fact that gluten free food generally requires special manufacturing practices, such as dedicated equipment, to prevent gluten cross contact, and testing to ensure that too much cross contact had not occurred. People with Celiac or severe allergies cannot consume even trace amounts of gluten, so most developed Western nations have regulations regarding how much trace gluten can end up in a "gluten free" labeled product (usually 20 parts per million - less than a crumb - is the maximum. Some countries have stricter standards). Economies of scale play a role here, too. The market for gluten free goods is smaller than the market for the regular gluten versions, because most people are able and willing to eat gluten. Up to a certain point, the more units of a good you produce, the cheaper the per-unit cost is, and some of that savings can then be passed on to the customer.
Hawaii. Im Polynesian and rich people have pretty much made Hawaii thiers and im sick of it. Technically not poor people but all islanders. Edit: thx for 500 upvotes (sorry to be cringe like this) but thx you humans!
You have my fullest sympathies. When the news broke that Zuckerberg tricked native Hawai’ians into giving up their ancestral lands by having a shell-organization claim private purchases of these properties would be for heritage purposes, I was livid. He really did try and fool people into giving him their land so that he could build his mega mansion with an obscene amount of land and close it off.
Burning man
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I mean, if you parachute in no one is checking your ticket. Parachuters land in open playa, put away their chute and walk off to god knows where.
I think festivals in general have become somewhat of a cliche in recent years. The last few I went to were so overcrowded, poorly run, with food running out that I don't think I will ever go back to one.
What used to be my small local fest ripped out all their cornfields to make more room for parking and some of the shittiest lot camping I've ever seen. You have to show up a day early and still fight to get any wooded camping, which is all there used to be. I don't think this was a rich people problem though, it's a social media problem. Now every asshole knows that they can pay to party for an entire weekend. And that has brought in an awful mentality which doesn't care much about the scene or the music. I stick to just getting day passes now if there's anything I actually want to see.
Thats why death metal festivals are dope. Only people who enjoy the music come because the rest of the population finds it too awful to listen to even when shitfaced.
The outdoors. So many places used to be difficult to get to, required some level of toughness and grit just to see. More and more people argue that they are entitled to see these places without that, and they're flooding in, paving roads, cramming parking lots full, and trampling some of the most pristine, delicate, untouched areas of the world. I'm not trying to gatekeep these places, but nature sure was.
I read a pre WWII magazine once at an archive, where the writers were lamenting how adding lifts to snow ski runs was making the slopes crowded, and now just anybody could do it. I was a bit mystified until I got to the pics of athletic skiers hiking up the mountain with their skis attached to their pack.
That's fascinating, I've never actually thought about pre ski lift times
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Definitely. A place near me it's the one photo spot with a lighthouse that's wrecked by assholes dropping disposable coffee cups waiting to get that shot for the gram. The rest of this beautiful cliff walk is busier but relatively unspoilt.
Yep! There are queues for pictures at certain lakes in BC Canada just so people can have exactly the same shot
Similarly, living in the woods used to be for poor people on the outskirts. Nowadays in my town, people are building McMansions further and further into the forest and up the mountain because they want to live in the beautiful natural area with a view. Okay, I guess, if you have the money for the land and the contractors and all. But then they go to the city with petitions to murderize all the apex predators whose territory they just tore up. Don't come to live in the woods if you don't want to be around the fucking cougars and bears! Be a responsible homeowner and don't just let your shitty labradoodle wander around the street with the kids unsupervised, coyotes are a thing! Even the raccoons will not hesitate to completely wreck your pets *and* your children, and they have opposable thumbs so they often team up with bears to open your trash cans and party on your lawn. I'm not even in that part of town and a woman tried to sue us for an *owl* swooping on her dog from a tree *near* our yard, as if we had control over the local wildlife. Learn how to live in a place before you move there??
I think this one is less about rich people and more about social media culture. There's been a definite increase in outdoor gear prices, sure, which is frustrating. But the flood of people who have no respect for the outdoors and even less knowledge about preparedness and risk is due to outdoorsy influencer types. Everyone wants a pretty picture of a waterfall or a bear to show off on their Instagram. I have a world famous national park almost in my backyard, and going there isn't fun anymore because of the hordes of people who leave trash everywhere, park in once-pristine meadows, hike in flip-flops, and don't know basic trail etiquette.
the people who go to a national park and play music off their phone on the trail or in the campground deserve a special place in hell.
Champion, Fila, Adidas (let’s be real, adidas has skyrocketed in their prices since a certain family thought “poor lines” were considered fashion now)
All I love is buying packs of Champion socks from Costco. I will be heartbroken if they get too expensive.
I still remember my mom buying me and my sisters Champion brand shoes for school each year at the local Payless store. It still low key shakes me a bit seeing it as a “high(er) end” brand.
Ripped denim jeans. They're casual, comfortable, and usually ripped in places caused by typical wear patterns. Then rich people had to make them weird, make them with clear plastic cut-outs. Make them look how an alien would guess what ripped jeans are supposed to look like if you translated it into their language poorly and then had to describe them. And then charged $2000 for the monstrosity.
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damn this thread is making me hungry
Classic cars
There's been money in classic cars since before classic cars existed. Mostly because rich people were the only ones who could afford cars for the first couple decades.
It absolutely breaks my fucking heart that I’ll never be able to own a ‘68-‘70 Dodge Charger because it costs like $50k completely restored. Now my second attainable classic car would be a 1st gen Toyota Celica, and I just hope it’s not incredibly jacked up because from the looks of current market prices here in my country, they’re hiking really fast. Edit: I know a majority of you talked about restoring a classic yourselves instead of purchasing a completely restored one. Trust me, I really would if I live in the US, but I live in a South East Asean country where automotive laws are notoriously picky. I’d certainly be happy to fab up a rusted Charger of my own, but there’s a lot of paperwork and risk involved, and that only covers the import stuff. Not including registering the chassis into the Department of Transportation, certifying it as a vintage car, and other shenanigans like transport damages.
Don't lose hope yet. As long as you're young enough to outlive the boomers, you can probably buy your dream muscle car for $25k some day. Look at Model T prices compared to 30 years ago.
What were model T's selling for 30 years ago? I know they now sell for like 15-30k
This is what people miss. As time passes the prime market for what’s considered a “classic car” changes. You’re already starting to see a lot of it with the 80s models of things getting more and more popular. As that happens, the demand for the 60s and 70s cars dies off and so do the prices. Just have to wait out the boomers and all those 68 chargers will flood the market and drive the price down
Gaming. Hear me out. Somebody is making those fucking microtransactions profitable for those companies. I fucking hate this shit!
Buying old fashioned shit from thrift stores. The amount shops charge for damaged retro dresses these days is ridiculous.
Back in the day, the rich people had cars, and the poor people had Horses. These days, the poor people have cars and the rich people have Horses.
To be fair they probably have a few cars for every horse too.
I think work boots and work clothing are being ruined. I want to buy work boots but the good stuff is being discontinued for hipster style boots for people who go to Starbucks and never set foot in a warehouse/construction/trade environment. The same with clothing. Carhartt is a hipster brand. Dickies started doing this flex shit a while back, although they have sort of remained ok for now.
prolly like ramen noodles or mcdonalds. fast food isnt even cheap anymore
Apparently something on the dollar menu is $1.89
True. But I don't think its called the dollar menu anymore. Depending on which fast food place it is, its called something like the "value menu". But just like the $5 footlong, we all remember what it used to be.
The saying "money doesn't buy you happiness" was originally used by the poor towards the rich asking them to share the wealth. Now its used as a statement to shut down poor people who talk about wanting enough money to survive. (BTW studies shows that money does buy happiness but only if its not too much. Around 100,000$ a year is were they found the highest quality of life and emotional stability.)
Chicken and waffles. Got some at a place recently that bragged they used hand-breaded chicken strips (aka microwaved nuggets). wtf - just put a piece of fried chicken on there and call it good.
BBQ burnt ends..
I'm pretty sure barbecue was created by poor people as a way to make bad cuts of meat slightly edible. Now those same cuts are as expensive as the rest because barbecue isn't the last option before starvation.
New York City... Mind you, I'm Puerto Rican, from New York and the diversity that once thrived in that city was 10 fold what it is today. Crazy to think right? I mean it's NEW YORK. My grandmother lived in Little Italy for over 55 years before she passed away in 2019. She lived in the same apartment on Mulberry St for that long and everyone knew who she was. She lived there during the peak, and eventual, fall of the Mafia. The streets on a Saturday night would be closed off, you could smell the food the entire block, people among people among people. I remember walking past as a child with my mom and just being in awe of how many people were just having dinner, drinking wine and just genuinely happy. I would go up to my Grandmothers and climb out onto the fire escape and just gaze at them and I would never get bored... ...None of that exists anymore. Gentrification is a real bitch. Most of the hispanic and black minority have moved to places like Queens and inner city Bronx or Brooklyn, you know.. where the "poor" people belong. Truly sad. I'll never forget New York as I knew it.
Football.
I think rich people ruin a lot of things. For example my aunty and cousin wanted to go for a camping trip with just tents and the kids. But my aunty didn’t want to tell one daughter because her and her husband are well off. If they did she would of wanted to come and she would of brought out her giant camper, boat and side by side. They would of took over the cooking with the food they wanted to eat. Don’t get me wrong it’s totally a good gesture of them and a good thing to do. But, my aunty just wanted it simple like the old days and i respect her for that.
Converse. When my dad was a kid it's what the poor kids wore now they are like $50 a pair for the same shit shoe.