Published on July 28, 2025 3:35 PM GMT

Class discrimination is very real, and it is often useful to be able to feign a higher class than one was born into. Some of these class markers are obvious: graduating from an expensive private school, having lots of wealth but not flaunting it, knowing other wealthy/high-status people, etc.

However, some class markers are much less obvious. Given that the vast majority of most people's social lives are spent with people of roughly the same class, it can be very difficult to learn these markers.

I was reminded of this recently, when I befriended someone of a lower-class background than mine but who had recently come into more money. Talking to her, I was struck by just how obvious it was that she had not grown up middle class.

I want to know what markers likely make my upper middle class background obvious to some, but that I never think about because of my relatively homogenous social circles, and more generally class markers that might be hard to notice because of one's background.

Since "upper middle class" can mean a lot of things, here are some facts which may give you a better idea of my background:

Growing up, my family's household income was ~70th percentile in our city.I went to a public school, but a fairly good one (maybe 95th percentile for the US).I have a safety net from my family, but I don't have a trust fund or inheritance which makes work optional.