Rest assured, I too find myself tedious when it comes to class... But here’s the thing: when you’re working class—especially in the creative industries—you’re faced with the performance of inclusion every single day. And it constantly challenges your ability to remain calm as you watch yet another forever-play of a middle-class person feigning understanding.
Case in point: when a company tries to “level the playing field” by offering opportunities to working-class people—but fails to grasp that travel costs money. Most working-class creatives don’t live in London. Most couldn’t afford to. And even if they could, these organisations rarely understand that most people in the UK don’t have savings.
More than one in four adults have less than £100 in savings, and the number of people living paycheck to paycheck is rising. But sure—I’ll just pull hundreds of quid out of my arse to access an “opportunity” designed for working-class people... What?!
They assume there’s a financial cushion—that people can just absorb the extra costs—because middle-class access to opportunity isn’t shaped by whether or not they can spare a train fare.
One unplanned emergency—your car breaking down, a wisdom tooth flaring up, your dog eating a goddamn snail—can derail your life for months. You push back bills. Rack up late fees. If you’re really on the edge, it’s the payday loan or nothing.
Meanwhile, society tells you it’s your fault—that you just aren’t trying hard enough—while the government upholds policies that literally manufacture poverty. And in a country that dismisses every study on how traumatising poverty is, you’re left feeling like you’re screaming into a void while social mobility collapses around you.
So when companies feign an understanding of class disadvantage—and then fail to grasp how fragile working-class life actually is—all they’re doing is cosplaying a morality they’ve never truly had to live with.
