Everytime I see depictions of “normal” households in TV/Movies/ the house always look extra clean and their belongings are new.
And everytime I see depictions of poverty, its always a house that’s filled with junk, computers are like a decade old, no food in fridge, either no car or car is barely functional.
Well, I know the media always exaggerates things, but if I had to use the media as a reference, I feel like my childhood has been closer to the poverty depiction and also life felt so “ghetto” for me (for lack of a better word). Most of the furnature was just donated by relatives or my parents picked them up from the sidewalk that somebody threw out. I had a very shitty laptop, I had no phone for a majority of highschool and therefore not have friends, house is so filled with junk and messy because frugal parents love hoarding things that they never use. Didn’t even have access to a car (in a car-centric neighborhood btw) because my parents didn’t have one until like I was in highschool, and even then it was like very shitty and the AC didn’t work (that car has since been replaced).
Also my parents never got me any toys or entertainment, I only had a shitty laptop to pirate everything. I have never, and still have not, ever watched a movie in a movie theater (which I heard was supposedly something everyone have experienced?) like every movie I’ve ever watched (pirated) is either from the 15.6 inch 1336 x 768 resolution display on the laptop that I had, or from the phones that I later got varying from the 1080 x 720 resolution 5 inch display, to the later phone with 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 display.
My life is like 70% accurate to the sterotypical depiction of poverty except the empty fridge part, so I guess I lucked out on that.
I’m assuming this is just the standard working class childhood experience?
I think when someone is making a movie or TV show they don’t want to have anything that distracts from the story, so they only show clean lines, clear surfaces, and new enough items that their disrepair or dirtiness is not taking away from the story.
My experience was pretty poor compared to my peers, but I was actually homeless for a period so I think I was legitimately below the standard of the time. That said, rich people pay cleaners to make their house look good. They have good storage solutions, new items, and throw away and replace anything that looks bad.