Happy people don't have sex

[pensnest]

Father Christmas kindly brought me Swings Both Ways, and I have been listening to it with delight (and foxtrotting merrily up and down the kitchen) at the mixture of self-awareness and who-gives-a-fucked-up-ness of Robbie Williams. He swings rather well.

Er. Does anyone know if anybody has made a vid using any of the tracks from this album? It feels like territory that should be mined.

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I followed a link through to this very interesting look at the American class system, which looks at the difference between economic class and social class. Here in England, we are much more aware of the social class system. Its importance is fading somewhat, but it has been around too long not to be relevant, even these days.

Which is probably why I have always interpreted Nsync as being differentiated by their social class as well as other things. Chris is at the bottom, coming from a very lower class background. Justin is next up—Lynn has never struck me as anything other than a lower class mom, which probably plays into the ‘stage momma’ encouragement she’s always given him.

Joey is firmly in the middle, a well-off, comfortable, top-end-of-working class kid.

I’m not quite sure which way round JC and Lance go, though I would tend to put Lance at the upmost end of the heap, as a child of emphatically respectable middle-class parents. Look at him now, with his fancy cuisine and his art collection (okay, so he married an artist). I’m not sure what Roy and Karen do/did, but they definitely seem middle class to me, so I put JC just 'below' Lance.

Anyone else see them this way? Where do you put JC? Should Justin be higher on the scale?

And thanks to turlough for the awesome icon.

*

I suppose it comes as no surprise to see Richard Dawkins being a complete and utter dick. It's pretty much standard behaviour for him.

Comments

[chalcopyrite]

I have mentally applied the term "white trash" to Justin, but never to Chris. I certainly wouldn't put him any higher up in that ranking.

(Speaking as the kind of snob that comes of having a grandfather who bootstrapped his way up from cracker to intelligentsia...)

[pensnest]

Well, I'm kinda with you on that, although Chris has described himself as 'white trash' at least once - he was referring to Halloween costumes he wore as a kid...

I'm somewhat surprised by nopseud's discoveries, see below.

What's a cracker, in this context?

[chalcopyrite]

That is very interesting! (Re: nopseud's discoveries) I would not have guessed!

Cracker in this case is poor rural white, though it's more a Southern than Texas term. They might have had collars, but they didn't have shoes -- or at least they saved them for Sundays.

[sporky_rat]

Having grown up and known Lance's parents, I would say he's definitely top middle class for here (being Mississippi) but low middle class for the rest of America.

I was considered low middle class growing up, but compared to the rest of America, I'm not middle class, I'm below poverty level.

[pensnest]

Cool - you knew Lance's parents! Thanks for responding.

The LJ entry I linked to talks about the difference between 'social class' and 'economic class' and I think I'm talking more about 'social' here—because it translates more closely to the English class system. Here, someone whose parents were definitely white-collar, as Lance's were/are, would be middle class even if (as is quite probable) they earned way less than, say, a plumber married to a bus driver.

It's like... top-class sports men, football (soccer) players might earn enough to count as upper class in the US, but here, they'd most likely be working class by social class, where money is pretty much the least part of the definition.

[nopseud]

My stalker file to the rescue!

I think Lynn and Paul Harless were pretty comfortably off when Justin was growing up, and definitely not any kind of lower class. Since they married when Justin was five, that's going to be most of what he remembers. According to my notes, Paul is/was a Memphis banker, and he met Lynn at work. Supposedly he was the one who taught Justin to play golf, and is the reason why Justin likes the shirt & tie look. Paul's family is highly respectable -- his mother's obituary is very American-equivalent upper-echelons WI. Lynn herself I don't have any background family notes on.

ETA: I stalked some more, and found Lynn's father's obituary. He was a Captain in the Memphis Fire Department (and apparently musical, as he started the Memphis Fire Department Band). I guess that makes him pretty solidly successful blue-collar. Justin's grandma Sadie is still alive, and so thwarting my stalking efforts by not having an obit. :-)

ETA 3 (4? So sorry for spam!): Randall Timberlake was a Baptist church choir director, and his father was a Baptist minister. Various places say that Justin sang in the choir, which was presumably after he was three, so I guess his dad was still involved with him after the divorce.

Lance's parents were a lab manager and a teacher, but I also have a conflicting note that his dad worked in real estate, so maybe there's a career change, or just one of them is wrong.

JC's adopted mother I have listed as a writer & editor, and his dad as something in computing. Oh, God. I just checked his facebook to be sure, and now I remember. He's the one who reposts anti-Obama stuff. Aaaaaaaanyway, his job there is listed as 'President at JHT Enterprises LLC'.

ETA 2: I totally lacked stalking info for Joey's parents. The only thing I've been able to find now is his dad being described as a musician and acting coach.

I guess in terms of background I'd go...

JC (kinda depending on what stage in his career Roy was at when JC was growing up)
Justin (although you could move Justin up or down, depending on exactly which part of his childhood you thought was the most important)
Lance
Joey (because the Joey info is so sketchy)
Chris

Of course, Justin's total lack of any class at all was thoroughly demonstrated by the whole Janet Jackson debacle.

[pensnest]

My goodness, you have been industrious!

I suppose the golf thing is a giveaway, in that JT has obviously been playing it for long enough to be *really* good at it. Hmm. I must admit to quite a lot of surprise. I tend to think that 'stage mommas' are likely to be working class, with ambitions that go straight for fame and fortune rather than, say, education. But thinking about all the Pageant Moms I have seen on SYTTD, I'm plainly getting that wrong (even if it were true in the first place, which it probably isn't).

So Lynn comes from very respectable blue-collar stock and Justin's father was - oh, will someone kill me if I say, a con-artist? Hmm. Am I right in thinking that Lynn and Paul managed Justin's business for him? Assuming 'banker' means several steps above 'bank clerk', that might well put Justin at the uppermost end of the list.

I have a corresponding memory of two possible careers for Lance's father. Perhaps he did indeed do both.

I don't think I ever knew what JC's parents do, so thanks for that, though I could have done without the 'unthinking republican' bit. :-( I'd have guessed something similarly respectable for JC based on his penchant for fine wines and cuisine and his lack of flashy possessions.

Joey's dad had an 'old boyband' or something, at one time... I always seem to cast the Fatones as restaurant owners in my AUs.

And Chris, well. No getting away from that one.

Justin remains an anomaly, to me - I don't quite know what it is, but I'm surprised to see his family background so solidly middle-class. I expect I am judging him unkindly - I usually do!

[nopseud]

So very sorry for the comment spam! I kept finding more things, and rejigging my list.

Am I right in thinking that Lynn and Paul managed Justin's business for him?

Yep, they still do. Just-In Time Entertainment.

Assuming 'banker' means several steps above 'bank clerk', that might well put Justin at the uppermost end of the list.

According to more internet stalking at LinkedIn, Paul was Executive Vice President of Marketing Strategy at First Horizon National Corporation in Memphis, and he worked there from 1984-2009. He joined as a financial analyst (with a degree in Finance and Economics and an MBA, top 10% of his class both times), so he was never at bank clerk level.

Actually, Paul's LinkedIn profile is super interesting, since he stays so much more in the background than Lynn, so I've never known anything about him. Right out of university he did a couple of years as an economist for the US Army Corps of Engineers, writing studies about inland waterway navigation, which seems like a cool job. Although probably not as lucrative as banking :-) He was also a chess Master, with a rating of 2279, which the Googles suggest is pretty good, and was state champion a couple of times. Also in the bowling, pool and ping-pong teams.

(If you look at the 'Also Viewed' list on Paul's page, it's pretty obvious that almost everyone who goes there is, like me, internet stalking with an interest in Justin. Heh. I feel less creepy, or possibly just less alone in my creepiness.)

I think with Justin and Lynn, maybe their accents are colouring our judgment excessively? I remember someone telling me how jarring it was for Johnny Depp to have such a strong Southern accent in The Astronaut's Wife because in TV and movies Southern accents are often used for tagging a character as low class or uneducated, even though that's not so in real life.

Joey's dad had an 'old boyband' or something, at one time

I think he had a recording contract back in the 1960s, too.


It's all complicated by the fact that they're all celebs, which is kind of an extra class of its own. And most of them were pretty young when NSync started, so didn't get a chance to give us helpful class clues like going to college, even if they otherwise would have. Funnily enough, Chris, being the only one who really had time to do it, is the only one with any higher education (paid for by his dad IIRC, so he obviously had some money to offer). I have a vague memory of college being a consideration for JC, but then the NSync thing happened.

[pensnest]

I wonder what Paul thought of Justin's beauty pageant.

I really don't know about the accents, but you may be onto something. (Lance seems to have lost his Mississippi one, unless he chooses to use it and/or is actually with his family.)

Possibly it might be about Justin's physicality? I'm quite baffled by myself, now!

And yes, being celebrities (and also rich) does make quite a difference. Over on LJ I commented to Brandywine that I think people tend to have aspirations and desires related to where they start from, and if they get money they can just buy better versions (and more). So Joey has his cars and his Superman stuff... but I don't really know what Justin buys.

[nopseud]

I wonder what Paul thought of Justin's beauty pageant.

Whatever it was, I bet he very sensibly kept his mouth shut.


Justin largely seems to spend his money on stuff like land, property, clothing lines and interests in sports teams and restaurants. Which I suppose makes sense!

Oh! And sneakers! How can we forget the sneakers? ;-)

[turlough]

Oh! And sneakers! How can we forget the sneakers? ;-)

That was my first thought when I saw Pen's query :-D

[pensnest]

Well, dammit. There's Justin behaving all sensible. How irritating! At least he has a secret room with sneakers on display. (It's totally canon.)

[turlough]

Fascinating post & discussion! It's not something I've ever thought about before.

(It's such a fabulous video!)

[pensnest]

Being English, I suspect it's just part of the way I view the world. Hmm.

[turlough]

I would probably have thought more about it if they'd all been English! But I've never been able to get the hang of the American class system. It's easier to not think about it all :-)