Vindication for the cheap white refrigerator! Those fancy appliances break — and are so expensive to fix.

Fancy home appliances with digital displays and high-tech parts are breaking down faster and more often than their humble cheap alternatives.

• Basic cheap white refrigerators, often in rental apartments, have been maligned unfairly.
• New and fancy appliances have electronic parts that break down more easily.
• Maybe the humble white fridge deserves our respect.

In a scene in "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," Nene Leakes goes to visit castmate Kenya Moore, who at the time is living at a long-term hotel.

Leakes looks around the place, barely hiding her disgust. "I was shocked, honey. I was in tears, almost. And they have a white refrigerator," Leakes says later in a taped confessional. "I was like, 'uh-huh, ooh, not a white refrigerator.'"

The sound became a viral TikTok sound, often for people showing off their own homes with a white fridge. Being budget-friendly, the white fridge is something of a "landlord special," like painting over an electrical outlet.

But the humble white fridge deserves our respect. Unlike fancier stainless steel refrigerators with digital buttons and ice makers, a white fridge is built to last.

The Wall Street Journal reports that lately, some homeowners are complaining that their fancy home appliances — washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, fridges — are breaking down faster than the cheaper older models, which lasted decades.

The main culprit is the fancy electronic panels and other high-tech parts, which are more prone to breaking. According to the WSJ:

Mansoor Soomro, a professor at Teesside University, a technical college in Middlesbrough, England, says home appliances are breaking down more often. He says that manufacturers used to rely mostly on straightforward mechanical parts (think an on/off switch that triggers a single lever). In the past decade or so, they've transitioned to relying more on sophisticated electrical and computerized parts (say, a touch screen that displays a dozen different sensor-controlled wash options).    

A top-loader washing machine with a knob may look less sleek than one with a digital display, but you may get more years out of it. Similarly, a fridge custom-designed to blend into your walls may end up with a busted ice maker.

And do you really need a fridge with a 32" screen that lets you watch TikTok on it?

Plus, those stainless steel fridges? Fingerprint city. Justice for the white fridge!