First World Problems

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Phoebe: Wow! This reminds me of the time when I was umm, living on the street and this guy offered to buy me food if I slept with him. Rachel: Well, h-how is this like that? Phoebe: Well, let’s see, it’s not. Really, like that. Because, you see that was an actual problem, and uh, yours is just like y’know a bunch of y’know high school crap that nobody really gives y’know… —Friends, addressing accusations of this trope In-Universe.

Some problems are universal and basic: death, disease, hunger, thirst, cold, poverty, physical pain. These are part of the human condition and could happen to anybody.

This trope is about problems that don't fit in that class, the problems of the prosperous—problems that are significant only if you've already got the basics of food, clothes, and shelter down. It's not that you can't get food; but they took your favorite sandwich off the menu at the food court, the best Philly cheese-steak in town, And That's Terrible. Maybe your mobile phone service is cheating you on its internet plan—which is a problem, yes, but when thirty years ago there was no such thing as mobile phone service, and ten years ago you couldn't get the internet that way, it seems minor. Or your $600 cell phone is broken - again, a bad thing, but when you can get cell phones for $20...

Mind you, there is a place for First World Problem in fiction. There has to be, as the First World demands situations that are relevant to them. Even people who are still struggling with more fundamental problems can, if they have time and access, get some enjoyment out of characters dealing with them - sometimes schadenfreude, sometimes for escapism. Clever writers can make something that looks like a First World Problem tie directly into something more fundamental.

Keep in mind that a key aspect of the Third World is not merely how the majority are impoverished: it's how vast numbers of the the impoverished live in proximity to a small number with outrageous wealth (think Mobutu Sese Seko for example). While in the US and the like, usually the differences aren't so extreme, whatever your politics it's likely you can at least imagine a few gated communities buffeted by a ghetto, and class conflict is a common theme in all fiction.

The Trope Namer is a Twitter hashtag. Twitter is an excellent platform for short moanings about daily life and our miserable existences by people who are generally well-enough off for this sort of problem, so this was a match made in heaven. The hashtag is still going strong.

Examples shall be limited to works that notably concern themselves with Third World themes. If we had to list all the episodes of television shows where the main conflict isn't starvation, we'd be here all day.

Notable Works that try to avert First World Thinking

Film

• City of God, taking place as it does in the ghettos of Rio De Janeiro, and how one of the few chances people have for escape is self-destructive crime. One of the turning points for the main character is how he simultaneously loses his virginity while taking the first hot shower he's ever had.

Literature

• Post-apocalyptic fiction in general, when they are deliberately averting Cozy Catastrophe. In situations where people already haven't all died of radiation sickness, the worlds shown are marked by limited resources, with any law in play enforced by brutal warlords.

Live Action TV

• Firefly: The technology is there if you can afford it, but Mal and his crew constantly have to deal with basic human needs like food and medicine, the corruption of the Alliance, settlements run by petty despots, and the constant threat of violence.
• The Wire: Taking place in the ghettos of Baltimore, one of the main themes of the series is how institutional dysfunction creates the Third World conditions of the inner city, feeds into criminal organizations, and inevitably aligns consumer culture with addiction culture.
• Invoked Trope by Phoebe on Friends of all places. At first, her mother's suicide and teenage homelessness were occasionally played for Black Comedy, but later became part of her Character Development.

Music

• "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" by "Weird Al" Yankovic. The entire song is really about Comedic Sociopathy, but the first verse combines it with this trope:

I was watching my TV one night when they broke in with a special report About some devastating earthquake in Peru There were thirty thousand crushed to death, even more were buried alive On the Richter scale it measured 8.2. And I said, "God, please answer me one question? Why'd they have to interrupt The Simpsons just for this?" What a drag, 'cause I was taping it and everything And now I'll have to wait for the rerun to see the part of the show I missed.