The Problem with First World Problems.

Philosophy A couple of weeks ago, PBS Idea Channel considered the issue of when leisure becomes work. Here's the original video here after which someone inevitably posted the comment "First World Problems".  The presenter Mike Rugnetta, always diplomatic, had this to say on subject of just this type of comment in the following comment response video:

"There is a feeling that I get when I see comments like this that I have a very hard time articulating. So I'm going to try to say it and hopefully I will work it out as I say it.  And that is that I think when you describe something as being a first world problem, you implicitly or accidentally deny the humanity of people who live in the third world or not in the first.  Because what you're saying is that those people, the people who don't live in the First World, only have these massive infrastructural, economic, or societal problems and they don't have small, irritating personal gripes or troubles. And I think that everybody-- I think that it is part of the human condition that you have these things in your life that are just kind of irritating or that they are problems that you try to solve but maybe there's no solution and you just kind of live with them and mull them over. And I think that when you describe something as a first world problem, you imply that it is not part of the human condition, that it is part of a more privileged condition. And I have no specific idea or stake -- like, I don't know for sure that people in the Third World have anxiety about keeping up with any semblance of popular culture, whether or not it's the things that we were talking specifically or not. But I think to unilaterally and outrightly deny them that problem by calling this a First World problem is unfair. So I hope that makes sense. If it does make sense, that's how I feel. And if it doesn't make sense, I feel a different way."

Won't be using that phrase again then.