Gonna start calling every mayo labor aristocrat "Henry"
Not sure how true this is. Most millenials who are "high earners" are, in my experience, tech workers. Those same tech workers tend to not buy luxury shit, opting more for gamer/weeb shit. Even then, I know a guy who makes well over 100k/yr in his mid-20s, and he refuses to upgrade his ten year old graphics card because he views current prices as a ripoff.
Millennials are children of the Great Recession, which like it or not profoundly colors our habits. The halcyon days for retailers of gen xers maxing out their credit cards on discretionary expenditures are over, in my view. Except maybe when it comes to car payments. Idk I could be wrong on this.
Edit: there’s also just less meat on the carcass, what would have previously been spent on luxury goods is now being spent on bloated housing costs and onerous student debt
Checks out. The people I know who are "doing well" are all focused on buying a place, which almost always means a 1BR apartment. As for car payments, they seem to buy their cars outright.
I have plenty of money yet I still feel guilty spending money eating out. I'd agree with you.
Yeah, as a tech worker basically all of the other "henry"s that I know are a step or two above r/malelivingspaces levels of asceticism, with maybe one slightly expensive hobby like mechanical keyboards, MTG, or keeping aquariums. Any major spending that they do is like... buying an apartment/house, paying off their student loans, or eating out semi-regularly. So uh, good luck to the capitalists I guess?
With inflation, 100k in 2022 has the same purchasing power as something like 45k in 1990. A lot of who capitalists target as being "high earners" are just more like the remnants of the quote-unquote middle class that's been utterly destroyed by neoliberalism over the last 30 years
a step or two above r/malelivingspaces levels of asceticism
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
No, you see, this is so Henrys can feel smug about how they're (totally) not Yuppies
But these terms are mostly invented by marketing companies for use by other marketing companies, not as a lifestyle identity aimed at consumers. Nobody identifies as a DINK.
Then again the generation names have leaked out of the marketing world, causing irreparable damage on public discourse in the process, so I guess maybe they're supposed to be general use now.
Errr ahem I uhhhh don't know what ur talking about
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
Am I still considered a Henry if I have no intention of ever being rich? CTHULHU (Class Traitor, Highly-paid Under Liberal Hegemony Usually) or HIPS (High-Income Praxis Sugarmommy) might be more accurate
ah yes, the decade-recurrent reinvention of the temporarily embarrassed millionaire
Post to !mutual_aid@hexbear.net, gladly will if I can do it without doxxing myself
does anybody else get new rich / old money vibes being delineated by luxury brands.
like, if you're a product manufacturer and your goal is to cake up as high as possible, you make your product and branding aimed at poor people or more likely "frugal" people / the everyman. you will never run out of people hoping to save a buck, especially when there's an economic downturn.
but luxury branding is all about exclusivity. never mind that the material and labor costs of the t-shirt or tie are only negligibly different between brands, and often the same conglomerate owns both brands and their supply chains. the identity of the luxury brand consumer is not just conspicuous, it's whatever other signaling (conscientious, refined, smart, cultured) that can be shoehorned in to elevate one as something above the rabble in some way besides the ability to pay (or, more likely, finance) 300-3000% more for something like a belt, a car, or a laptop.
but enough about the branding for consumers, the new rich/old money vibes i'm talking more about are for the actual brand owner. like the corporate workers of Yves St. Laurent or BMW compared to Walmart or Toyota. like it's less crass or exploitative to be a bullshit exec or heir of a luxury brand than it is an economy one. is it because there is more prestige to a luxury brand.... or are they just more talented at hoodwinking their clients and giving off the vibe is part of the grift?
practically speaking (straight up exchanging my labor time for money), i'd rather be an exec at walmart than like LV or whatever even if the pay, benefits and general office culture were equivalent.
