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Keeping up with the Joneses is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to "keep up with the Joneses" is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority. The phrase was coined by a 1910s comic strip of the same name. [1] [2] [3]
The phrase originates with the comic strip Keeping Up with the Joneses , created by Arthur R. "Pop" Momand in 1913. The strip ran until 1940 in The New York World and various other newspapers. The strip depicts the social climbing McGinis family, who struggle to "keep up" with their neighbors, the Joneses of the title. The Joneses were unseen characters throughout the strip's run, often spoken of but never shown. The idiom keeping up with the Joneses has remained popular long after the strip's end. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
The use of the name Jones to refer to metaphorical neighbors or friends in discussions of social comparison predates Momand's comic strip. In 1879, English writer E. J. Simmons wrote in Memoirs of a Station Master of the railroad station as a place for social exchange: "The Joneses, who don't associate with the Robinsons, meet there." [2] American humorist Mark Twain made an allusion to Smith and Jones families with regard to social custom in the essay "Corn Pone Opinions", written in 1901 but first published in 1923. "The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts. The Smiths like the new play; the Joneses go to see it, and they copy the Smith verdict." [7] Starting in 1908, D.W. Griffith directed a series of comedy shorts starring The Biograph Girl, Florence Lawrence, featuring the people next door, The Joneses.
An alternative explanation is that the Joneses of the saying refer to the wealthy family of Edith Wharton's father, the Joneses. [8] The Joneses were a prominent New York family with substantial interests in Chemical Bank as a result of marrying the daughters of the bank's founder, John Mason. [9] The Joneses and other rich New Yorkers began to build country villas in the Hudson Valley around Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck, which had belonged to the Livingstons, another prominent New York family to whom the Joneses were related. The houses became grander and grander. In 1853, Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones built a 24-room gothic villa called Wyndcliffe described by Henry Winthrop Sargent in 1859 as being very fine in the style of a Scottish castle, but by Edith Wharton, Elizabeth's niece, as a gloomy monstrosity. [10] The villa reportedly spurred more building, including a house by William B. Astor (married to a Jones cousin), a phenomenon later described as "keeping up with the Joneses". The phrase is also associated with another of Edith Wharton's aunts, Mary Mason Jones, who built a large mansion at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, then undeveloped. Wharton portrays her affectionately in The Age of Innocence as Mrs. Manson Mingott, "calmly waiting for fashion to flow north".
A slightly different version is that the phrase refers to the grand lifestyle of the Joneses who by the mid-century were numerous and wealthy, thanks to the Chemical Bank and Mason connection. It was their relation Mrs William Backhouse Astor, Jr who began the "patriarchs balls" around the end of the 19th century, the origin of "The Four Hundred", the list of the society elite who were invited. By then the Joneses were being eclipsed by the massive wealth of the Astors, Vanderbilts and others but the four hundred list published in 1892 contained many of the Joneses and their relations—old money still mattered.
The philosophy of "keeping up with the Joneses" has widespread effects on some societies. According to this philosophy, conspicuous consumption occurs when people care about their standard of living and its appearance in relation to their peers. [11]
According to Roger Mason,[ non sequitur ] "the demand for status goods, fueled by conspicuous consumption, has diverted many resources away from investment in the manufacture of more material goods and services in order to satisfy consumer preoccupations with their relative social standing and prestige". [12]
Social status once depended on one's family name; however, social mobility in the United States and the rise of consumerism there both gave rise to change. With the increasing availability of goods, people became more inclined to define themselves by what they possessed and the quest for higher status accelerated. Conspicuous consumption and materialism have been an insatiable juggernaut ever since. [13]
Inability to "keep up with the Joneses" might result in dissatisfaction, even for people whose status is high. This could possibly tie in to a concept/theory called the "hedonic treadmill." [14]
In the 1936 book The Next 100 Years, Clifford C. Furnas writes that the phenomenon of "'Keeping up with the Joneses' ... is descended from the spreading of the peacock's tail." [15]
In the United Kingdom, when Princess Margaret married the fashionable photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, Wallis Simpson allegedly said: "At least we're keeping up with the Armstrong-Joneses". [16]
Jones in the Fast Lane is a life simulation videogame developed and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1990. The game's name and goals are a play on the concept of keeping up with the Joneses.
The Temptations recorded the song "Don't Let The Joneses Get You Down" on their 1969 album Puzzle People. [17] The phrase is also referenced in the 1977 song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" by Waylon Jennings. The Canadian band Spirit of the West referenced the phrase in a song about disability in society with the title "(Putting Up With) The Joneses" on the 1990 album Save This House . The phrase is a line of the lyrics of the song "Life At The Top" by the band Bad English, included in their 1991 album Backlash . The phrase appears in the song "I Wanna Go Back" by Christian singer David Dunn on his 2017 album "Yellow Balloons".
The phrase is used as the title of a 2011–2014 Barbadian comedy-series [18] and also a 2016 American film Keeping Up with the Joneses . The reality television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians takes it name from this phrase, replacing "Joneses" with "Kardashians".
The drum line of the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps is referred to as "Jonz" with the same intent...that all other drums lines need to keep up with their performance and innovation.
Edith Wharton was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray realistically the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Among her other well known works are The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories.
Thorstein Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism.
Consumerism is a social and economic order in which the goals of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those that are necessary for survival or for traditional displays of status. Consumerism has historically existed in many societies, with modern consumerism originating in Western Europe before the Industrial Revolution and becoming widespread around 1900. In 1899, a book on consumerism published by Thorstein Veblen, called The Theory of the Leisure Class, examined the widespread values and economic institutions emerging along with the widespread "leisure time" at the beginning of the 20th century. In it, Veblen "views the activities and spending habits of this leisure class in terms of conspicuous and vicarious consumption and waste. Both relate to the display of status and not to functionality or usefulness."
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption to explain the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury commodities specifically as a public display of economic power—the income and the accumulated wealth—of the buyer. To the conspicuous consumer, the public display of discretionary income is an economic means of either attaining or of maintaining a given social status.
Caroline Webster "Lina" SchermerhornAstor was a prominent American socialite of the second half of the 19th century who led the Four Hundred. Famous for being referred to later in life as "the Mrs. Astor" or simply "Mrs. Astor", she was the wife of yachtsman William Backhouse Astor Jr. They had five children, including Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, who perished on the RMS Titanic. Through her marriage, she was a prominent member of the Astor family and matriarch of the male line of American Astors.
A Veblen good is a type of luxury good, named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.
The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by American author Edith Wharton. It was her eighth novel, and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. Though the committee had initially agreed to give the award to Sinclair Lewis for Main Street, the judges, in rejecting his book on political grounds, "established Wharton as the American 'First Lady of Letters'". The story is set in the 1870s, in upper-class, "Gilded Age" New York City. Wharton wrote the book in her 50s, after she was already established as a major author in high demand by publishers.
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899), by Thorstein Veblen, is a treatise of economics and sociology, and a critique of conspicuous consumption as a function of social class and of consumerism, which are social activities derived from the social stratification of people and the division of labor; the social institutions of the feudal period that have continued to the modern era.
Bringing Up Father is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000.
Snob is a pejorative term for a person who believes there is a correlation between social status and human worth. Snob also refers to a person who feels superiority over those from lower social classes, education levels, or other social areas. The word snobbery came into use for the first time in England during the 1820s.
A socialite is a person usually from a wealthy or aristocratic background who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having traditional employment.
The House of Mirth is a 1905 novel by American author Edith Wharton. It tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City's high society around the end of the 19th century. The House of Mirth traces Lily's slow two-year social descent from privilege to a lonely existence on the margins of society. In the words of one scholar, Wharton uses Lily as an attack on "an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class."
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Take Barney Google, for Instance, is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck. Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a large international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song, and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google " with lyrics by Billy Rose, as well as the 1923 record "Come On, Spark Plug!"
Positional goods are goods valued only by how they are distributed among the population, not by how many of them there are available in total. The source of greater worth of positional goods is their desirability as a status symbol, which usually results in them greatly exceeding the value of comparable goods.
The term "trash culture" entered into common use in the West from the 1980s to indicate artistic or entertainment expressions considered to be of a low cultural profile but able to stimulate and attract the audiences. It refers to books, movies, TV shows, etc. characterized by poor taste, vulgar themes, and subjects chosen to attract the audience through shoddy, low-quality, and culturally impoverished content. In this sense, trash culture is defined as the validation of the voyeuristic sight of the middle class which approaches the popular culture as style of consumption.
Famous Funnies is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955. Published by Eastern Color Printing, Famous Funnies is considered by popular culture historians as the first true American comic book, following seminal precursors.
Hyperconsumerism, hyper-consumerism, hyperconsumption or hyper-consumption is the consumption of goods beyond ones necessities and the associated significant pressure to consume those goods, exerted by social media and other outlets as those goods are perceived to shape one's identity. Frenchy Lunning defines it curtly as "a consumerism for the sake of consuming."
"Keeping up with the Joneses" is an English idiom for trying to match the lifestyle of one's neighbors.
Keeping Up with the Joneses was an American gag-a-day comic strip by Pop Momand that ran from March 31, 1913, to April 16, 1938. It depicts the McGinis family, Aloysius, Clarice, their daughter Julie, and their housekeeper Bella Donna, who struggle to "keep up" with the lifestyle of their neighbors, the unseen Joneses. The comic coined the well-known catchphrase "keeping up with the Joneses", referring to people's tendency to judge their own social standing according to that of their neighbors.
Associated Newspapers, Inc. was a print syndication service of columns and comic strips that was in operation from 1912 to c. 1966. The syndicate was originally a cooperative of four newspapers: The New York Globe, the Chicago Daily News, The Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Bulletin. Associated Newspapers was led by Henry Herbert McClure (1874-1938), a cousin of S. S. McClure, founder of the McClure Syndicate, the first American newspaper syndicate. In 1930, Associated Newspapers was acquired by and became a subsidiary of the Bell Syndicate. The syndicate's most successful, long-running strip was Gladys Parker's Mopsy.
