A 'Middler'

After taking the "What Social Class Am I?" quiz, the results showed that I am a 'Middler'. This means that my personality reflects that of a person of the middle class. I actually think that I really agree with this result. I don't like to have a lot of things. Having physical things makes me feel really crowded, and I'd rather just not deal with that. I also watched a Ted Talk about those who have less physical stuff are statistically happier. That motivated me to stop impulse buying so much. I think it is true; I am happier after getting rid of so much of my stuff.

Even if I don't need the best of things, that doesn't mean I would feel comfortable just pitching a tent and roughing it. Although, I would really like to try that sometime. I think this quiz is more about what social class your personality reflects. One example was the question about how people in nicer cars tend to not stop for pedestrians. I know plenty of rich people that have more beat-up cars, but they choose to save their money instead of spending it on a nice sports car that they can show off to the world. I think because they have that mentality of not being show offs, it also makes them nicer, and much more likely to stop for pedestrians. It's a fascinating quiz, really, and I like how a person with a high class income can still have a "lower class" personality, and a person with a lower class incoming can maybe have an "upper class" personality.

I think about social class and how we get so caught up in it all the time. My personal experience is that people spend their money to impress other people. It isn't like products really make you happy (except for food), but what does make people happy is the satisfaction of knowing that other people like their clothes and/or envy them. Teenage girls go out and buy expensive clothes because they want to look all fancy to impress the boys. The one line that keeps being repeated in my head when I think of this is "it's all a show". All of it. Buying the biggest house one can afford (or can't afford) is not practical in any way, it's just a show.
This directly relates to The Great Gatsby because Gatsby has spent so much of his money on a house and on cars and on anything else that he thinks will impress Daisy. In the last section, Gatsby claimed that Daisy only married Tom because he himself was too poor. Now, he has been overcompensating by buying the best and making everything look good. It's all a show! It is all about impressing her and attempting to make her fall in love with him because now they are in the same class.

This also reminds me of the People Like Us documentary. The video said that people tend to stick with other people who are in the same social class. Although Gatsby and Daisy weren't originally in the same class, he forced himself into it so that they could be together.