I never understood status symbols. Maybe I’m just too young, not rich enough, too utilitarian or something. What’s their point? Do you have any that you like to show off? If so, why?
From a post in that thread:
See, I can completely understand the “want toy now instead of saving for later” mentality, but iPads, iPhones, etc. are very useful devices. I never thought of them as status symbols. I certainly do spend more money than I save, but the things I tend to buy have significant utilitarian value or at most have aesthetic value to me. I can’t imagine a situation where I’d want to buy something just to show other people that I have it. Who would I even show it to? Why would they care?
I mean, a typical example is that you have the “nice car” stereotype which leads to young males getting laid, but I always thought that was just a pop-culture invention that doesn’t actually exist in real life. Are there actually men out there who buy cars just to be more attractive to the other sex, and women who would sleep with men on the basis of their car alone? Is that even really the point of a status symbol?
As an example that’s always confused me, an uncle of mine went through what looked like a mid-life crisis a few years back. He bought himself a fancy Lexus and then promptly proceeded to leave it in his garage for the next few years with the car cover on. He never really drove it except to move it out of the garage when somebody big needed to be moved. He needed a dedicated battery charger because the once a year he’d try to move it, the battery would be dead. The only people who would even see the thing are his immediate family members, who have to squeeze by it through the garage every time. There are stacks of newspapers, random cardboard boxes, etc. piled on top of it, just to further illustrate how little use it gets. What the hell?
And then a few years later, he bought himself a new Toyota truck. He doesn’t drive that either, but he’s out of garage space so he just leaves it parked by the curb all the time. In the decades that I’ve known him, I can’t remember a single time he needed to move anything that required a pickup truck.
The culture you were raised in and live in has different status symbols thats all, think about someone you have laughed at because of lack of educational or financial accomplishment. Or if not you yourself a family member or friend.
Are you a dude? What would be a total turn off to a woman, if you told her about it on a first date? Not graduating high school? Not owning a car at all? Living with your parents still? None of those say a damn thing about your personality or devotion as a lover, they are status symbols.
And no one really buys a status symbol that has NO value at all to them, remember they are part of the same culture as the people they are trying to impress. A vintage Mustang might be a status symbol, still feels really good to drive though doesn’t it?
I don’t buy into status symbols anymore, but it’s hard to believe that you were never young and impressionable. Examples: in 4th grade, I had to have hundreds of pogs and the coolest slammer (not because they made better toys than marbles or a ball and jacks, but because there was a strong correlation between “number of pogs” and “coolness”). In 5th grade I had to have a Starter jacket (not because it was warmer than a Walmart jacket, but because it was cool) and combat boots (not because they were better than tennis shoes, but because the coolest girls wore them). In 8th grade I had to have a Jansport backpack (not because the quality of a backpack mattered to me, but because the cool kids all had them).
Status symbols do not make sense on any *intellectual *level. But they have a lot to do with the social hierarchy. Given that humans are such social creatures, there’s nothing to boggle over here.
Err… I can’t remember me or anyone I’ve ever known having done this. People got teased or mocked for being obese, for having Tourette’s, or a variety of other inane things, but never for lack of education or finances. It’s so far out of my experience that the idea of somebody being laughed at for not having enough money or not having finished enough school is just… bizarre. Are you serious?
I’ve lived and worked with very rich people and quite poor people alike, and in none of my social circles has this ever happened.
Yes, I’m a dude, and maybe that has something to do with it because I don’t understand your examples at all. To me:
[ul]
[li]Not graduating high school = either you’re too dumb or you had a very disadvantaged childhood[/li]
[li]Not owning a car = you’re poor or live in a walking town[/li]
[li]Living with parents = immature or poor[/li][/ul]
Maybe this is “not a girl” syndrome acting up, but to me car ownership is totally irrelevant. As for living with parents and not graduating high school, they may or may not be turn-offs depending on context, but it’s hard to think of either as a “status symbol” within my normal cultural context (middle-class American) any more than “wears clothes and bathes regularly” would be a status symbol. I guess they seem more like very basic requirements rather than something that makes you above average, which status symbols imply.
Are you saying that, to rich people, owning a ridiculously nice car is as basic a social requirement as bathing is to me? Or that to poorer people, things I take for granted (like a high school education) would be status symbols that they crave?
If so, I guess that kind of makes sense. I can imagine poorer people envying me for having shoes with soles, t-shirts without big holes, etc.
So would a status symbol be something I do or own not necessarily to overtly impress others, but just to fit in with my peers? Kinda like a social camouflage so I don’t stand out as a lesser being?
Well, I think this is the crux of it. I can understand things that can do their jobs better or with more fun, i.e. things that are faster, more controllable, can carry more, whatever, but not things that have no increased utilitarian value (or, as is often the case, less utilitarian value) like:
[ul]
[li]Humongous mansions for a married couple with no kids[/li][li]Trucks lowered so much they’re useless as trucks[/li][li]Monster trucks[/li][li]Hummers for people who never drive off-road[/li][li]$10,000 watches or jewelry that can’t tell time well or that dangle uncomfortably[/li][li]Uncomfortable $1000 designer clothes made out of exotic designs or materials[/li][/ul]
If I had a million dollars and were forced to buy stuff with it, I’d probably get a relatively fast, fuel-efficient car, some nice camera lenses, a reliable, light bicycle, eh, maybe a fast computer… but all of those things are useful or at least a hell lot of fun to me and I couldn’t care less whether anyone else saw me with them. I suspect that isn’t the case with things typically considered status symbols, or am I wrong?
In other words, I thought a status symbol was more than “an expensive toy that I enjoy but absolutely don’t need”, more like “an expensive item of little utilitarian value that primarily serves to impress others”. No?
Sadly, I’ve never heard of any of those things except Jansport backpacks, which were certainly all the rage at my school way back when. I did indeed feel less cool without one and I was literally scared to be seen wearing any other type of backpack.
Hmm. So is a status symbol just something I’d own or use to avoid embarrassment?
Well I’m not trying to be an ass here but like your one example about men purchasing showy cars just to get laid and women who would be attracted to a guy just because of a car he owns, both are common to the point of normality(a lot of people grow out of it). Its great that you aren’t materialistic or happen to come from a small social pocket where materialism isn’t rampant, but the fact is most everyone on earth has some level of materialism.
Hell in the USA I’d probably be at worst considered kind of bohemian by most due to my lack of materialism, then I moved to a country where basically I am mentally ill, or at least my lack of materialism signals something very wrong and amiss about me. Different cultures have different values. And if I wasn’t a foreigner(foreigners are odd anyway so a lot is let slide) I would basically be shunned socially and romantically, I’d be like a guy that shows up to a dress dinner not wearing shoes.
(People speculate western foreigners intentionally avoid status symbols to appear poor so as not to be targeted for crime, they cannot wrap their minds around the idea a person doesn’t care about material things.)
So that’s a real phenomenon? I seriously didn’t know. Forgive the… insularity, I suppose. I always thought that was just a fictional TV trope, kinda like women with humongous breasts (which I don’t see in real life much either).
That’s not really the point. I’m as materialistic as anyone, but I typically crave things that have function or beauty to me, not things that make other people admire me.
Though, as above, there are things things I get just to not be embarrassed around others. If that’s what a status symbol is, I guess I understand.
As an “older people,” I was trying to think of something I wanted as a child that I actually got. It was a white Dr. Kildare “doctor” shirt. (I know you have no idea what that is. Richard Chamberlain was the dreamy doctor on the TV series.) I got to wear it for a couple weeks, off and on. (Our bus looked like a transport for scrawny hospital personnel.) I’d come home from school and carefully drape it over a chair but it eventually got worn often enough that it had to be washed. Now, my mother did very little around the house and forbade me and my younger brother to do anything, either. (Because we would either screw it up or make a mess that she’d have to clean up later.) So it was with trepidation that I put it in the dirty clothes pile. And sure enough, that was it.
This was in the days before Perma-Press. Everything had to be ironed. Sometimes, when she finally got around to doing the ironing, we would have already outgrown the clothes. So I enjoyed my status symbol for a short time but the stress it caused me, waiting for it be ironed, digging it out and putting it back on top of the pile week after week…well, it wasn’t worth it. Maybe that’s one reason why I kind of got out of pining for the latest “in” thing. Besides, I like seeing if I can make something I’ve been wanting, or playing the Sale game to see how cheaply I can get it. I want things, too, a lot of things, but now I want them for what they can do, not for what they…say about me?
I’m as non-conformist as they come, but when I was a kid, I went through a short stint when I really wanted “cool” tennis shoes. My mother would only buy my shoes from K-Mart and Payless…and always when I wasn’t with her. She’d come home with all these packages, expecting me to be joyful about the most fugliest shoes in the world. I would always be polite and appear grateful, but I’d never wear them.
Finally, I pleaded for some Nikes. I don’t think I was a spoiled brat about it either, since I had never made materialistic demands before nor had made an issue over my parents’ cheapness. So my mother wanted to please. But she still wasn’t about to fork over major money. So she got me some low-end Nikes that were only a micro-step above what she’d usually buy. I wore them anyway, but I knew I was just being a poseur.
My excuse was that I wanted to feel cool, and shoes reflected an individual’s “coolness” to me. I am not like this at all now (I embrace my “anti-coolness”), but I can understand the sensibility…within reason, that is.
Not just to avoid embarrassment, but to project an image to others which, because we are human, people respond to.
I was never a big purse person. $20 at Target filled my purse needs. A few years ago I ended up changing my image. My daily purse is a classic Coach. My clothing has switched from bought at Target to bought at Nordstrom. And people treat me differently. Waitstaff and sales people. People at work I’m meeting in person for the first time. Parents of my kids friends.
Now, I could write this off as shallow, but honestly, it’s darn handy to end up at the better table in a restaurant instead of next to the kitchen. Or be able to get and keep the attention of the sales clerk when you want it.
I also find that dressing well leads to better treatment. Therefore, over the past few years, I have been making the effort to shop at higher end Goodwills.
Honestly, I’d been wondering the same thing but about diamond engagement rings. A friend, her friend, and I were on a trip. My friend and her friend were discussing what type of boyfriend her friend wanted. At one point, my friend said, “And he’ll give you a ring that’s even bigger than mine!” Is it supposed to show how much her husband loves her based on the size? Is there some other purpose that I just don’t get?
I’m sure I have something that would normally be considered a status symbol but can’t think of it at the moment.
Its a signal that you’ve chosen a stable and successful partner. It may not be an accurate signal, but that is one of the other purposes you are missing.
I will admit to occasionally deliberately schlubbing it up (even more than usual) when I know I’m going to spend a wad of cash in a store or restaurant, just because I hate the truth of this so much. My husband’s done it, too.
Sometimes it’s a matter of how much cognitive dissidence you want to create to challenge people’s assumptions. But sometimes it’s just easier to play the game. Im not taking a lot of time in my life right now to challenge stereotypes held by others on whether or not I can afford something. If a Coach purse is going to get me in and out of the store that much faster, its worth it.
The best explanation is in Thorsten Veblen’s classic book “The Theory of the Leisure Class”.
Where I live, the really rich “old money” has abandoned status symbols-they seem to have a thing for old moldy mansions (in exclusive towns). They wear their grandparent’s clothes, and drive old (usually American) cars. They send their kids to (mediocre) “prep” schools-where their kids eat crappy food and get second-rate educations-the important thing is that they stay within their “tribe”-they have no desire to mix with the lower classes.
Status symbols are for the middle class and the newly wealthy-they want to join the pper class tribes, and they think status symbols are the way to do so.
Right, in other words, you buy it because it appeals to you in a personal and subjective way. Just like anything you’d point at and say, “haha, status symbol!”
You think guys who buy expensive rims don’t like them, but do it just for status? No, The rims satisfy an aesthetic value to them. No different than an iPhone or other middle-class frivolity.
How much he loves you and what kind of “catch” he is are two very different things. My cousin married a firefighter who adores her, but certainly couldn’t afford the two carets her sister who married a cardiologist has on her hand.
