3 in 4 Americans typically eat fast food at least once a week, but the majority are eating it less due to rising prices, according to a LendingTree survey.
Growing up, the main stigma they fed us about fast food was (correctly) how unhealthy it is.
Over time, the main stigma shifted to how financially irresponsible it is to eat fast food. There are popular “financial literacy” channels on YouTube where the host just yells at people for having the audacity to eat Taco Bell.
When I was younger, I enjoyed watching this local TV show “Luxury Trap” (translated from the original Swedish “Lyxfällan”) as kind of a guilty pleasure. I am not gonna lie, I watched it for the “feel good factor” of “at least I am not as miserable as these people” - which is probably the reason most people watch it. The whole premise is that these self-proclaimed financial experts help people who are in deep debt to get back on their feet by helping them sell valuables and pay off the worst in short term, and set up a pay off plan for the long term, and then bam, all fixed. Along the way there is a lot of shaming the indebted people for their life choices, mainly stuff like buying fast food, snacks, and sometimes some bad spending habits or gambling problems. It’s a 30 minute formula that always gets happily resolved by the end, and is followed up ONCE after one month with a perfect “thank you I’m cured” response, the entire theater part is thinner than a white guy’s skin. It’s just milked for drama all the way through.
Every episode follows the exact same formula and after a while you start to understand that it’s all about just kicking down on the people who have deeper issues than just being slightly irresponsible with their snack money, having been ground down by the shitty life they are dealt, but it sells like crack, they are probably at something like season 30 now. Disgusting, really, even if I personally find fast food to be devil’s work
I really hate that show. It has done immense harm miseducating the public about what poverty is and what it looks like. The people on the show are never truly poor, they always have a reasonable income and some assets. Many of them are home owners. And they’re presented like absolute clowns whose only problem is being too stupid to do basic math.
The show never explores issues of mental health or economic marginalisation. The people on the show never have trouble finding gainful employment, if needed the show runners will set up interviews for them. People on the show never experience unforeseen expenses and it is never explored how hard frugality actually is in a society where everyone seems hellbent on making you spend money all the time.
No, poverty can be solved simply by selling your dumbass second caravan and stop eating fastfood every night.
Yeah, I just need to say your critique is spot on.
But even for the more well-off middle-class people shown in the show, it’s never as easy as just “wow thanks for telling me I should not be buying so many snacks, I am gonna be debt-free now!”, the shitty buying and debt patterns are usually some kind of a coping mechanism for a deeper problem
I think I marathoned the one you’re talking about for a couple months just to have something in the background while I worked (they’re relatively young and from Texas).
While he usually didn’t go as far to say that eating out was preventing people from buying homes, he always loved to talk about how everyone can save money even if it means 0 treats for years at a time. As if that isn’t completely unrealistic. Oh but sure, let’s put $100 in the budget for once a month therapy, otherwise the commenters will get mad - what do you mean that’s not enough to help you cope with 50-60 hours of work??? And then when someone does come to him already scrapping at the bottom and budgeting to the max (for example, he had a single guardian on there that had to adopt younger family members due to a dysfunctional sister) he just says sorry and then gives them extremely unhelpful advice like get a third job (he ALWAYS tells people to get side gigs and second jobs and this lady already had two jobs, eventually what got me to stop watching ugh) or to look up local resources like food banks for help (she already was).
I only watched as long as I did because he had wealthy shithead libertarians and toxic masculinity guys that would buy 60k trucks and teslas. Assholes that usually made more than enough money but always had mommy and/or employees do all the work for them so they never ended up learning any of the basics themselves. But whenever someone making $50k or less a year comes on… yikes.
Growing up, the main stigma they fed us about fast food was (correctly) how unhealthy it is.
Over time, the main stigma shifted to how financially irresponsible it is to eat fast food. There are popular “financial literacy” channels on YouTube where the host just yells at people for having the audacity to eat Taco Bell.
When I was younger, I enjoyed watching this local TV show “Luxury Trap” (translated from the original Swedish “Lyxfällan”) as kind of a guilty pleasure. I am not gonna lie, I watched it for the “feel good factor” of “at least I am not as miserable as these people” - which is probably the reason most people watch it. The whole premise is that these self-proclaimed financial experts help people who are in deep debt to get back on their feet by helping them sell valuables and pay off the worst in short term, and set up a pay off plan for the long term, and then bam, all fixed. Along the way there is a lot of shaming the indebted people for their life choices, mainly stuff like buying fast food, snacks, and sometimes some bad spending habits or gambling problems. It’s a 30 minute formula that always gets happily resolved by the end, and is followed up ONCE after one month with a perfect “thank you I’m cured” response, the entire theater part is thinner than a white guy’s skin. It’s just milked for drama all the way through.
Every episode follows the exact same formula and after a while you start to understand that it’s all about just kicking down on the people who have deeper issues than just being slightly irresponsible with their snack money, having been ground down by the shitty life they are dealt, but it sells like crack, they are probably at something like season 30 now. Disgusting, really, even if I personally find fast food to be devil’s work
I really hate that show. It has done immense harm miseducating the public about what poverty is and what it looks like. The people on the show are never truly poor, they always have a reasonable income and some assets. Many of them are home owners. And they’re presented like absolute clowns whose only problem is being too stupid to do basic math.
The show never explores issues of mental health or economic marginalisation. The people on the show never have trouble finding gainful employment, if needed the show runners will set up interviews for them. People on the show never experience unforeseen expenses and it is never explored how hard frugality actually is in a society where everyone seems hellbent on making you spend money all the time.
No, poverty can be solved simply by selling your dumbass second caravan and stop eating fastfood every night.
Yeah, I just need to say your critique is spot on.
But even for the more well-off middle-class people shown in the show, it’s never as easy as just “wow thanks for telling me I should not be buying so many snacks, I am gonna be debt-free now!”, the shitty buying and debt patterns are usually some kind of a coping mechanism for a deeper problem
They’re the most affordable restaurant in my entire city I think. Pretty much only accessible by car though.
yeah but if you invest wisely and eat ramen, you might be able to retire at 70
If you’re not dead from preventable disease you couldn’t afford to have examined
I’ll be dying at 50 as a dessicated corn-husk-man because all the sodium in my Ramen diet, thank you very much
I think I marathoned the one you’re talking about for a couple months just to have something in the background while I worked (they’re relatively young and from Texas).
While he usually didn’t go as far to say that eating out was preventing people from buying homes, he always loved to talk about how everyone can save money even if it means 0 treats for years at a time. As if that isn’t completely unrealistic. Oh but sure, let’s put $100 in the budget for once a month therapy, otherwise the commenters will get mad - what do you mean that’s not enough to help you cope with 50-60 hours of work??? And then when someone does come to him already scrapping at the bottom and budgeting to the max (for example, he had a single guardian on there that had to adopt younger family members due to a dysfunctional sister) he just says sorry and then gives them extremely unhelpful advice like get a third job (he ALWAYS tells people to get side gigs and second jobs and this lady already had two jobs, eventually what got me to stop watching ugh) or to look up local resources like food banks for help (she already was).
I only watched as long as I did because he had wealthy shithead libertarians and toxic masculinity guys that would buy 60k trucks and teslas. Assholes that usually made more than enough money but always had mommy and/or employees do all the work for them so they never ended up learning any of the basics themselves. But whenever someone making $50k or less a year comes on… yikes.