Memes don't usually need a point, except to be funny, fun, and revealing about some aspect of the author. The Priviledge meme that I recently participated in (and subsequently took down) did have a point, or was a means to a researcher's conclusion, and I intended to research it after participating and post about said point.
I didn't find much except criticism. Priviledge isn't based on whether you have a TV or a new car, necessarily; different classes have myriad cues that don't come close to the Indiana State U prof's questions. Ivy-Leaguer Megan McArdle of The Atlantic observed that having a television in your room was seen as vulgar by ultra-priviledged private school classmates; having a more austere lifestyle was seen as a sign of class.
All that to say, that list was making me uncomfortable in its pointlessness. So what if I stayed in a hotel or flew in a commercial airliner before I was 16. Not fun or funny.
At least Radical Mama's point was to show a change between her sitch and her daughter's, and I didn't manage that. Not for me.
If any of you can find a fun point to it all, I'm listening!
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I get what Megan's saying, but I think the Indiana State U's professors were trying to ask their students to think about things they take for granted. Like, or example, not knowing how much the heating bill was. Or even not knowing that electricity isn't free and that people stress out about paying bills. It was an attempt to get people to look at their assumptions about what is normal, which is valid, I think. Because we're not all that far from, "If bread is too expensive, why don't they just eat cake?"
ReplyDeleteYou have a good point. Even so, for me as an adult who is on a budget, the meme didn't ring true. I'm all for college sophomores taking the quiz and learning about the wide world.
ReplyDeleteI know I had it fairly good growing up. My parents might have groused about neighbors who had a newer car or a bigger house, or made us return things we put on their credit cards when we went on teenaged shopping sprees. In perspective, it could have been much, much worse.
Priviledge. If you have it, you don't know what it means.
Also, when you were around 3 yrs old you went to CA on a plane saw Disneyland 3 times and the San Diego Zoo, LaJolla and Safari Land or whatever.
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