Prole drift, short for proletarian

Proletariat

The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...

 drift, is a trend in which
products, styles or other aspects of culture previously considered to be upscale or upper class

Upper class

In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...

 become popular among working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 people. The term was coined by Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell is an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of genres, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America’s class system...

 in 1983 to describe the phenomenon of most aspects of high culture

High culture

High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...

 eventually joining the lowest common denominator.

Examples include sales of premium coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, Burberry clothing or Coach Inc. handbags to working class people. In the UK, BMW

BMW

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...

 cars (particularly the 3 series) have seen this phenomenon, in some instances the 3 series outselling more mainstream cars such as the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra. Another example in the UK is that of BlackBerry

BlackBerry

BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...

 mobile phones, these have become increasingly popular with young people after having previously been popular among business people.

See also

• Affluenza
  Affluenza
  Affluenza, from affluence and influenza, is a term used by critics of capitalism and consumerism. Sources define it as follows:Proponents of the term consider that the prizing of endless increases in material wealth may lead to feelings of worthlessness and dissatisfaction rather than experiences...
  
  
• Bling
• Casual (subculture)
• Chav
  Chav
  A chav is a term that is used in the United Kingdom to describe a stereotype of teenagers and young adults from an underclass background.-Etymology:...
  
  
• Dumbing down
  Dumbing down
  Dumbing down is a pejorative term for a perceived trend to lower the intellectual content of literature, education, news, and other aspects of culture...
  
  
• Innovator's dilemma
• Mod (subculture)