<story><title>Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal</title><url>https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-imitating-high-status</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SoftTalker</author><text>Very senior&amp;#x2F;wealthy people can get away with whatever they want. It&amp;#x27;s why Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook (notice he still wore a suit while testifying to Congress though).&lt;p&gt;If a senior executive wore a $200 suit to work, nobody would say a word.</text></item><item><author>steveBK123</author><text>Yes this is very well put, you really hit the nail on the head here on the sort of reverse bell curve of signaling..&lt;p&gt;For the very wealthy.. 
If you show enough interest in something to make signaling purchases, it&amp;#x27;s expected to be &amp;quot;up to snuff&amp;quot; .. this can mean very very high expense or high esotericness.&lt;p&gt;So that might mean a $200k sports car, or it might mean some uncommon though inexpensive limited production vintage vehicle even though it may be of reasonable price, the time &amp;amp; effort you took to acquire &amp;amp; maintain it is a signal of taste.&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you&amp;#x27;d be better off signaling complete disinterest with a very vanilla middle of the road options.&lt;p&gt;On menswear I think to your example, you could say you&amp;#x27;d be better off not wearing a suit than in wearing a $200 Men&amp;#x27;s Wearhouse suit.  To that end, these days, the type of people you tend to see in suits are either security &amp;#x2F; front desk staff or very senior corporate executives.  Those in the middle have enough labor negotiating power to not be required to wear a suit, but probably not the desire&amp;#x2F;wealth to spend $2k on a properly tailored suit.</text></item><item><author>pclmulqdq</author><text>I think there&amp;#x27;s a bit of an idea now that you should be expressing yourself with your money, not expressing society&amp;#x27;s ideas.  Around cars and watches, this creates a little bit of a &amp;quot;dead zone&amp;quot; for prestigious professionals.&lt;p&gt;For example, if you aren&amp;#x27;t showing up in a $200k Maserati, your car had better be under $50k (maybe $70k with inflation).  Only posers who aren&amp;#x27;t really into cars but want to show off their wealth spend $120k on a car.&lt;p&gt;For watches, the same thing happens: if you&amp;#x27;re wearing a watch less than $50k, it had better be under $500.  Otherwise you probably don&amp;#x27;t care much about watches.&lt;p&gt;Clothing seems to be the same at many companies: you had better wear tailored suits and shirts or be less dressy than &amp;quot;business casual.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>steveBK123</author><text>&amp;quot;An example from Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland: If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This tidbit reminds me of a similar anecdote (that my experience aligns with) re: the modern upper class that wearing a $2k Rolex or driving a $70k BMW is frowned upon.  But instead they have eccentric &amp;quot;hobbies&amp;quot; requiring $10ks of of equipment, inclusive of &amp;quot;needing&amp;quot; $10k viking stove&amp;#x2F;range, and $10k subzero fridge&amp;#x2F;freezer in your kitchen because you are a &amp;quot;foodie&amp;quot; and doing a $500k home Reno because you have good architectural taste and style.  They probably still own a $70k Volvo (or now Tesla) anyway :-).  In these scenarios I think it&amp;#x27;s because the $2k watch or $70k car is too easily attained by lower classes that they are no longer considered signals by the upper classes.  However blowing $500k renovating a perfectly livable home, or $10k on an appliance you could spend as little as $1k on.. is not.&lt;p&gt;Another countersignal that the article points in the direction of is level of professional vs casual attire in the workplace.  My friends and I are far enough in our careers that personally I&amp;#x27;ve worn sneakers to work for the last 10 years, no business slacks, and sporadically tuck in my collared shirt.  The last round of job searching doing zoom interviews, I wore my hoodie for half the calls.  If I had done this while job searching out of college, during my internship, or at my first job.. I would not be where I am today.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Reebz</author><text>Zuckerberg wears $800 tshirts amongst other carefully selected pieces of his wardrobe. He isn’t rummaging through a local Target for a basic tee and jeans. I think this is a good example of countersignal interpretation!</text></comment>
<story><title>Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal</title><url>https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-imitating-high-status</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SoftTalker</author><text>Very senior&amp;#x2F;wealthy people can get away with whatever they want. It&amp;#x27;s why Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook (notice he still wore a suit while testifying to Congress though).&lt;p&gt;If a senior executive wore a $200 suit to work, nobody would say a word.</text></item><item><author>steveBK123</author><text>Yes this is very well put, you really hit the nail on the head here on the sort of reverse bell curve of signaling..&lt;p&gt;For the very wealthy.. 
If you show enough interest in something to make signaling purchases, it&amp;#x27;s expected to be &amp;quot;up to snuff&amp;quot; .. this can mean very very high expense or high esotericness.&lt;p&gt;So that might mean a $200k sports car, or it might mean some uncommon though inexpensive limited production vintage vehicle even though it may be of reasonable price, the time &amp;amp; effort you took to acquire &amp;amp; maintain it is a signal of taste.&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you&amp;#x27;d be better off signaling complete disinterest with a very vanilla middle of the road options.&lt;p&gt;On menswear I think to your example, you could say you&amp;#x27;d be better off not wearing a suit than in wearing a $200 Men&amp;#x27;s Wearhouse suit.  To that end, these days, the type of people you tend to see in suits are either security &amp;#x2F; front desk staff or very senior corporate executives.  Those in the middle have enough labor negotiating power to not be required to wear a suit, but probably not the desire&amp;#x2F;wealth to spend $2k on a properly tailored suit.</text></item><item><author>pclmulqdq</author><text>I think there&amp;#x27;s a bit of an idea now that you should be expressing yourself with your money, not expressing society&amp;#x27;s ideas.  Around cars and watches, this creates a little bit of a &amp;quot;dead zone&amp;quot; for prestigious professionals.&lt;p&gt;For example, if you aren&amp;#x27;t showing up in a $200k Maserati, your car had better be under $50k (maybe $70k with inflation).  Only posers who aren&amp;#x27;t really into cars but want to show off their wealth spend $120k on a car.&lt;p&gt;For watches, the same thing happens: if you&amp;#x27;re wearing a watch less than $50k, it had better be under $500.  Otherwise you probably don&amp;#x27;t care much about watches.&lt;p&gt;Clothing seems to be the same at many companies: you had better wear tailored suits and shirts or be less dressy than &amp;quot;business casual.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>steveBK123</author><text>&amp;quot;An example from Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland: If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This tidbit reminds me of a similar anecdote (that my experience aligns with) re: the modern upper class that wearing a $2k Rolex or driving a $70k BMW is frowned upon.  But instead they have eccentric &amp;quot;hobbies&amp;quot; requiring $10ks of of equipment, inclusive of &amp;quot;needing&amp;quot; $10k viking stove&amp;#x2F;range, and $10k subzero fridge&amp;#x2F;freezer in your kitchen because you are a &amp;quot;foodie&amp;quot; and doing a $500k home Reno because you have good architectural taste and style.  They probably still own a $70k Volvo (or now Tesla) anyway :-).  In these scenarios I think it&amp;#x27;s because the $2k watch or $70k car is too easily attained by lower classes that they are no longer considered signals by the upper classes.  However blowing $500k renovating a perfectly livable home, or $10k on an appliance you could spend as little as $1k on.. is not.&lt;p&gt;Another countersignal that the article points in the direction of is level of professional vs casual attire in the workplace.  My friends and I are far enough in our careers that personally I&amp;#x27;ve worn sneakers to work for the last 10 years, no business slacks, and sporadically tuck in my collared shirt.  The last round of job searching doing zoom interviews, I wore my hoodie for half the calls.  If I had done this while job searching out of college, during my internship, or at my first job.. I would not be where I am today.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>seattle_spring</author><text>&amp;gt; Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook&lt;p&gt;Huh, custom tshirts and well fitting jeans counts as &amp;quot;looking like a total slob&amp;quot; now? Fwiw I&amp;#x27;d rather work with &amp;#x2F; for someone that dresses like that over formal any day of the week.</text></comment>