The popular hashtag lets people lodge petty, elitist complaints while acknowledging the problems aren't a matter of life or death. Teju Cole rejects the logic:
Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn't disappear just because you're black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations.
Here's a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.
The Dish 