Class and culture clash in global culture of class

Part of our early socialisation as pickaninnies is that many of us want to belong to an in-group. It is pivotal to our understanding of self through experimenting with different social groups and norms. We walk out of our teen age with a better understanding of who we are.

Sometimes we don’t always walk out of the social groups,  but we become consumed by the expectations or the glamour of certain other cliques.. These can be even bigger social hierarchies that are beyond our control and affect the way we view ourselves – and no other group can be more overwhelming than the elites of society.

This overwhelming need has birthed subcultures and countercultures throughout the decades and in the midst of it all, people have become consumed by the power of affluence. That’s where our good friend Mr Smeg comes in.

Born Michael Bucwa, the social media star has become something of a comical pretty-boy who parades a Smeg kettle on his social media. What makes Bucwa a particular nuisance to many is the way he photographs the kettle everywhere; whether its outdoors, on a drive or in a restaurant – there is no place sacred for Mr Smeg’s ostentatious displays.

Other than the watches, shoes and car keys that make the occasional odd appearance, Bucwa has made a strange career for himself. Many who see the images are immediately put off by the showy wealth in a way that has become a critique of new money.

A gaudy display of a glow-up that is off-putting not only to the elites who have always protected their wealth but to those stuck in the middle as well. Every item that Mr Smeg shows off carries with it an untouchable aura of importance – they are symbols of wealth that should not be tarnished.

The Smeg kettle is no longer the unattainable object for elites such as the Kardashians, who were one of the first upper-class folk who owned them in sets.

Of late, Hollywood has had a quiet obsession with class issues. From the downtrodden folk in Us to the vile elites of Knives Out more and more movies are unpacking the different ways class affects us.

Even a movie such as Parasite reminds us of the struggles faced by people in different class groups, especially those who are the have-nots. In a need to see beyond our basements and bunker-filled lives, we become obsessed with rising into the spaces of a class above us.

We protect the esteem of elites in favour of looking down on people such as  Mr Smeg who parade brands as if they were jokes. And perhaps that is one thing to learn from Bucwa. There is nothing special about the people who own Smeg kettles just as much as there is nothing particularly worthy of the water that boils from it.

Bucwa’s brand of dry humour has run longer than a stick of biltong that has lost its flavour. Though people are laughing at him rather than with him, maybe the joke is on all of us for thinking that a man who held no kettle sacrosanct to be the joke in the first place.