Photo: TikTok
"It's the off-brand live, laugh, love."
By John Sundholm — Written on Apr 17, 2023
Have you ever wondered how your friends grew up? Sometimes we run across habits or attitudes that make us suspicious that our friends might come from a slightly different world than us—especially if we grew up without very much money.
One woman on TikTok has come up with three easy ways to test your friends to see if they're the type who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and people who grew up poor are shocked by how accurate it is.
The TikToker says her simple '3 L's test' will reveal if your friends were rich kids.
Bri, a TikToker known as @brain_grainz on the app, grew up in a home with very little money, and says the experience has given her a radar for sussing out rich kids that is pretty much fail-proof.
Responding to another TikToker's prompt to "tell me you grew up poor without telling me you grew up poor," Bri shared her method for demystifying your friends' backgrounds.
She says a friend's attitude toward the first 'L,' leftovers, can reveal whether they were a rich kid.
According to Bri, one of the quickest ways to learn how to tell if your friends were rich kids is by observing what they do when you suggest getting take-out. "You're going to invite them over and you're going to say, I don't think I have anything to cook, we have to order out," she says.
If the friend grew up poor, "they're going to come back in 20 minutes with a four-course Gordon Ramsay-style meal made out of three condiments and a loaf of bread," Bri said, calling such meals "classic poor-kid resourcefulness."
People who grew up never having to worry about food often tend not to want to bother. Why eat something old and played-out when you can just order something brand-new and delicious from DoorDash, right?
But ask nearly anyone who grew up in a low-income household and they will indeed have a rare talent for making do with what they got in all kinds of contexts, not just food. And, Bri says, "poor-kid resourcefulness" can even help you make friends in new situations like going away to school. "My friends loved that party trick in college," she joked about her ability to create a meal out of nothing.
The second easy way how to tell if your friends were rich kids is to ask them to help you move.
All of us dread being asked to help a friend move. Moving is such an unpleasant activity that a woman all but broke Twitter a few months ago by asserting that adults should never ask for moving help, telling people to "hire movers, save a friendship."
Rich kid alert! Obviously, not everyone has that kind of money, and that's where Bri's second "L," for how to tell if your friends were rich kids, "lifting," comes in. "You're going to text your group chat, and you're going to ask your friends if they can come help you move," she instructs. The poor kids will immediately show themselves. "If you have a poor kid friend, they're going to be the first to volunteer."
Not only are they willing, but your poor-kid friends' lifelong avoidance of paying for movers also makes them experts at the task of moving.
"They will lift a fridge on their back up three flights of stairs because we have super-human strength and endurance, but only for moving." Bri went on to quip, "If poor kids could be a Transformer, easily, they would be a U-Haul truck." Sounds like that lady on Twitter really missed out!
The third method for figuring out if your friends were rich kids is to observe how they handle alcohol.
Bri's third "L" stands for "liquor." She says watching how your friends drink will show you if they were rich kids because "if you have a poor kid friend, they will [always] get drunker faster than you." So does poverty give you a lower tolerance for alcohol or something? What's the deal here?
According to Bri, it all comes down to the fact that for poor kids, "their parents didn't believe in doctors" since healthcare is so expensive.
"And so they have built up extra lives, kind of like a cat," Bri jokes. "For every extra life, they can drink one more shot than you." U-Haul Transformer, nine lives at the bar—what can't poor kids do, right?
But science says Bri just might be on to something. A study by the Center for Poverty & Inequality Research at the University of California Davis found that growing up in poverty really does create psychological resilience in kids, provided they were brought up in a supportive and loving home environment. That resilience can even help offset the myriad negative impacts of poverty on a child's life, from academic difficulties to increased risk of heart disease.
Bri's fellow TikTokers who grew up without much certainly agreed. One called out her "immune system that can handle fu-king anything" after not being able to afford doctors growing up, while another highlighted her talent for making "mashed potato bowls" out of the scraps from a chicken dinner.
And as for moving? People who grew up poor have a talent that goes far beyond mere "lifting."
As one user put it, "you forgot to mention we can transport all the large furniture with a roll of duct tape, kitchen rags, and a single ford fiesta." Take that, rich kids.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.