To anyone whose response to any complaint is to blithely shoot it down with ‘#firstworldproblems’:

First of all, the notion that there are no problems of the first world that need challenging is flawed. The collapse of the banks is, in fact, a first world problem. But even on the smaller scale, if you level that jibe at someone complaining about their internet connection, if you mean to suggest they shouldn’t complain because their problem pales in comparison to, for example, famine, where do you stop with that thinking? Because it reduces to the idea that nobody can complain if there exists anyone worse off than they are. If you think that’s how it should be, you’re wrong. That would be a hopelessly sick world incapable of handling problems.

But most people are actually smarter than that, and what they’re really doing when they post that dismissive tag is calling someone out for entitlement and self-centrism. If someone complains about their internet, the #firstworldproblems post-ee is really saying ‘Your complaint about your internet takes for granted that you have internet at all, much less a computer of your own, the finances to afford line rental, et cetera…’ The problem is: That’s not true.

Of course it’s true of some people, there are in fact far too many entitled whiners in the world, but it isn’t a necessary corollary of any complaint. Believing that to be the case is to fundamentally misunderstand how people work. People complain when they think they’re not getting what they deserve, yes, but far more frequently people complain simply as a release valve. Venting a frustration lessens that frustration. It’s quite possible to be frustrated when your internet connection won’t work without that meaning you take for granted your access to same. If your response to anyone’s complaints is to stifle them with a put-down, you’re forcing people to internalise all their frustrations, and that isn’t healthy.

In fact, when the #firstworldproblems tag first showed up, what I mostly saw it used for was by people expressing frustrations, who would append it to their complaint in order to indicate self-deprecatingly that they weren’t taking their situation for granted, and they just need to express their frustration.

Besides which, even if someone is actually whining on, you’re not actually helping anyone with a snarky one-liner. If their post offends you enough you have to react, take the time to actually write a response. If all you have interest in doing is dropping in a sarcastic meme, you have no actual interest in helping the situation at all.

Because, ultimately, there is no helpful content, whatsoever, to that response. If you direct it at someone ‘deserved’ you do so in lieu of actually saying something of relevance about the issue with their post. If you direct it at the vast majority of people you’re just sanctimoniously running down people’s need to externalise sources of stress. And in absolutely any case, who are you helping? Are you assisting in any way the people with ‘#thirdworldproblems’? No, not remotely. The fact of the matter is you’re not helping anyone.

ETA: Also I forgot to mention, frequently in these situations it is you, the responder is oblivious. If someone complains about their internet connection, are you sure they’re actually complaining purely out of entitlement to better service? Perhaps their complaint is actually expressing frustration that their ISP is able to flaunt the terms of their service - and if you’re shooting down complaints like this, you’re enabling this unfair practise to continue because you’re directly inhibiting any movement against it.

Or perhaps what they’re really saying is ‘I’m stuck at home, I can’t afford to go out, I haven’t got any friends living nearby, I’m lonely and now my internet connection is breaking down and cutting off my one connection with the outside world.’ And your helpful response is ‘#firstworldproblems’.