112 - The Status Ladder 👑💯
Hey there, !
Long, windy road of a post for you this week - lucky I have a backlog because I’m swamped at the moment :D
A thought that has been sloshing around in my head for a while - thought I’d put my thoughts on paper about this weird thing we care about so much - status.
A lot of this has been distilled from this article from Eugene Wei - Status as a Service which I recommend as a long read if you have time, and though it might just be some Sociology 101, it helps me learn when I’m learning in public!
1. Defining status
Status is the accumulation of social capital. It’s not something that’s easily measurable, or definable even in this pithy phrase that I’ve started with, but it’s something we all kinda understand.
In general, we all want to be ‘high status’ in some way…whatever that means to you.
Core to the idea of status is that you can acquire social capital just like monetary capital - by acquiring or controlling a scarce resource - e.g. gold, knowledge, or in modern times, attention.
Kids today are latched on to online streams on Twitch with millions of subs, watching YouTube videos with millions of subscribers, or watching Tiktok’s with millions of likes. This is their way of recognising status, which inspires them to try to acquire that same status (fame, kind of?).
Depending on your life stage / society, there is status related to owning a house, having a family, buying fancy cars and playing with new gadgets. Knowing about wine, playing golf, being a CEO, living in a particular postcode, being famous; these are some signals of people who we used to ascribe ‘high status’.
Maybe not as much any more.
Regardless, though this ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ version of social capital is probably outdated, it’s an example of what happens when one pursues status for status’ sake - the outlay of monetary capital not only to satisfy your own desires, but also tell other people that you’ve achieved it as well.
TL;DR: there are lots of different ways that you might acquire status, and at different times in your life, it might mean something different.
2. Examples of status
So…if the old ways are outdated (by definition), what does status mean in a digital world? I’m not as interested in examples of status today, but I am extremely interested what people are pursuing on the forefront of youth because, well, those kinds of behaviours are likely to persist with their generation as they grow up.
Let’s think about social media.
These social media channels are classic examples of status - the more likes you get, the more attention you grab, the better you do regarding your social capital. Algorithms are there to help you succeed, suck more people in to engage with content, and thus contribute to improving your status.
If you remember when you were in high school and you thought Facebook was everything, then you know this feeling. Watching the likes go up and up on photos, comments, and statuses you share was legendary - and this attention is the scarce resource that confers status. A great innovation was being able to quantify exactly how much better your post was than another person - merely by the likes!
We do this in the schoolyard, working out who’s better than who, jockeying for status in the classroom or with our friends, making sure that we, well, have friends. No-one wants to be the social outcast; we’re wired to know our status relatively intuitively (but not necessarily how to correct it).
Kids these days have an abundance of content and the rise of ‘virtual reality’ means that a lot of people are charting their course in the brave new world of online media.
And with that brave new world comes new ways to earn status, like…gaming!
Tapping into the competitive spirit of games, status is conferred through an acquisition of skill - namely, being better at a game than everyone else. The proliferation of streaming has made it really really easy to see who has higher ‘status’ across games because they’re performing it in front of you (kind of like the AFL on TV - it’s right there to watch skilled players playing every week), and there are ranks to show who is better than who (bronze, silver, gold, diamond, platinum are common ranks in games).
There are multitudes of YouTube channels that post gaming content on the DAILY - literally imagine an AFL game, on TV, every day, that you can watch and be entertained by. Gladiators in the Coliseum, every day.
This status extends to what kids want to be when they grow up - in the past, it used to be things like being an astronaut, or a firefighter, or a doctor - occupations with status that were promoted in society. Nowadays, it’s about being a content creator - no matter what platform.
We used to tell kids to stop playing games; now those same gamers earn millions playing the games they love.
That enough status for ya?
The last new-world example I wanted to raise was crypto / NFTs. I’ve already put in this newsletter what I think about them, but I wanted to discuss more about community around them.
NFTs are built on hype, and have been variously referred to as ‘the new wave of digital ownership’, or alternatively, ‘jpg pyramid schemes’. Though they do not have a utility as of right now, roadmaps and future plans exist to sell the dream (example: Loot is an NFT that procedurally generates adventurer gear packs, and people are setting up shops to sell their loot, draw images of their loot, and develop games to actually use the items!).
Importantly for this post is the idea that the artificial scarcity of these NFTs confers status on the individual who owns it, because the rest of the community, who has bought into the narrative that the NFT is valuable, believes that to be the case. Often, this will lead to high valuations for NFT’s, with people paying a bunch of Ethereum (or other cryptocurrencies) to “prove” their value.
Status begetting value begetting status. Turning status into money…
I am inevitable - Capitalism, probably
It’s just the same as art, or money, or the shared fictions I talked about in another post; you have higher status because you own one of the rare NFTs, rather than one of those pleb kids who has no money, no assets and can’t even buy a COOL ROCK NFT. This gets shared on Discord communities, hype posts drive up the value (trying to capitalise on manufactured FOMO), thus bringing more people in to buy NFTs, make others jealous, increase their status, and start the whole cycle again.
3. Status games
This is where I want to introduce the term status games - identifying what game you’re playing in the world, and understand how you gain status from it.
Everything we do in the world can be reduced down to a ‘game’ - there are ‘rules’, there is a way to ‘win’, and there are ‘players’ that you’re competing against. If you go to work, you’re on a career status game. If you’re buying the newest tech and tricking out your house as a smart home - that’s another type of status game.
In each game, you can gain higher status by following the rules better, or achieving a better outcome (‘winning’ more). The more people that are playing the same status game, the more competitive it is, and thus the higher status you can gain from winning at the game.
As outlined above, attention, scarcity and skill are key things that can help a person achieve status in the digital world. The numbers and metrics are clear, and people use these to help numerically compare their worth, down to decimal points. Hell, the recent Twitch leak has created a new meta of ranking streamers by the amount of money they earnt in the last year (culminating in a great mashup of memes with Squid Game - with some streamers now referring to others by their rank number).
In real life, the status game is a bit different. Because it is not as easy for people to observe your achievements (since you might not be interacting with them much), you have to not only achieve the signposts and milestones that show you’ve done something hard (i.e. get a job, buy a house, or start a startup), but you then need to tell people that you’ve done that thing as well.
In the past, that could be done by rocking up to a party in the flashiest car, or ‘summering in the Hamptons’. Nowadays, we can do similar things with Instagram.
The problem in these domains is people who get too caught up in the status game, and make it their lives; making sure that the social capital they’ve gained is something they can defend and build upon.
On one hand, this can be good - helping you move up and up through the world as your status is more and more well known (thinking of things like LinkedIn). Other people can recognise that you’ve done the thing that everyone says is good / high status, and thus amplify your status and achievements.
Other times, it can become the source of defensiveness, of stagnation, and of dissatisfaction. You see this in people who quibble over getting verified on Twitter, or Reddit moderators that go apeshit over perceived transgressions of their subreddit rules. It’s taken really seriously by them, and to be honest, that makes sense! It’s their world, and the status game that they’re part of - and everyone wants to win.
4. So what?
Well, practically, you might think I’ll say ‘hey, so get out of that rat / status race and enjoy your life, be at peace with the world, love yourself, do what you like, don’t care about others’.
And to some extent…sure - they’re all admirable things to do.
But more importantly, I think it’s to identify if you are playing a status game. Even if you’re trying to ‘disconnect’ - are you trying to do it so that others think you’re good for getting out of the game? Is disconnection itself a high status move (as it shows you don’t need the game)? Or is it just a new game of ‘how different can I be from other people’?
If you’re trying to win the game, what’s the thing that you should be aiming for? What are the highest status people doing in that field? How can you be part of that? Should you exploit a smaller, adjacent niche and attack it from that angle? Can you find a better way to achieve the same thing?
Once you’ve identified the game you’re playing, then you would need to work out: is it the right one for you? What’s the end goal? Where are you trying to go? If I think about social media for example - what do you achieve by posting on it? Do you want people to know something about you? Are you spending time on it for a specific purpose?
On a more corporate / business-y note, it might help you decide how to shape products and services for growing niches: What is the thing that is conferring status in this section of the world? How can we build something that helps signal value and status to the rest of that niche?
One of my favourite examples is of Frederick the Great rebranding potatoes as a high status good by making it a royal food only, and then making a potato field that was guarded by guards specifically told not to guard it too well.
Royalty is a heck of a status to have.
5. The future
The other thing I am interested in is how people will hold on to the status they’ve attained online. Not everyone will be able to bring this to the real world, especially NFTs, so will the world move towards a direction of integrating more of the digital world with the physical meatspace?
As an example, I’m imagining photo frames that show off what NFTs you own, or holographic trophy cabinets full of what you’ve earnt…replacing those certificates you get for university degrees on your office walls.
Or maybe:
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The game world itself is projected in your house, and you can ‘equip’ the NFT Loot you have to move around the world. No more avatars - it’s literally you!
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Physical badges that can be linked to digital NFTs and are custom-built / printed for you, and only you.
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Achievements at school that aren’t trophies - they’re NFTs that cement your standing in the school record forever. You might actually have the school record they keep threatening you with.
Or, who knows? Maybe the NFT bubble will pop, and a bunch of people will look back and be like ‘why did we spend so much on jpgs’?
6. Closing
The hardest thing to do is to not care about what other people think - the source of that status and social capital I’ve spent a little too long talking about (thank you for making it here!).
As an example, I haven’t posted on social media for AGES. I thought it would be good to be out of the status game and reduce the amount of content an AI can scrape of me off the internet (right now or even in the future).
But you have to recognise that it’s inevitable that people will do it. It’s an inherent part of human nature to play these games - to varying levels of success - whether they like it or not.
Instead, I now review snacks on my Instagram. It’s not going to help me win the game, but if I’m going to play, I’ll play it my way :)
So then, what status game do you want to play?
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Suzuran Sushi - great sushi place in Camberwell. Lovely nigiri and sashimi for a great price - they do it a more traditional (?) Japanese way where the nigiri have some long tails which means you get a much nicer fish:rice ratio. Have tried their takeaway sushi platter and it was bangin’! Highly recommended :D
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The Quacks of Quedlinburg - now that lockdown’s over and I’m out and about again, more boardgame content! This one was a winner of the Kennerspiel de Jahres, a highly coveted boardgame award. It’s a game where you play as a brood of witches, creating potions by adding ingredients in varying amounts until you ‘bust’ by adding too much shit. Fantastically easy game to play and lots of variability included!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Willingness to look stupid - I like the overall concept and the copious examples of this that Dan Luu uses in this post. It’s something I learned at uni - looking stupid when you’re learning is probably the best time to look stupid, so that you’re cleverer later. Being attached to the ‘intelligence’ game will paradoxically make you less smart.
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What the Irish ate before potatoes - milky things, apparently. Milk, butter, oat cakes and curds. Weird article but that’s what you’re here for, baby :D
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The Hong Kong 5 hour bus snooze - for people who can’t get to sleep at home, but always fall asleep on the bus to work, an operator in HK has offered a 5-hour bus ride to help people get to sleep. Reminds me of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter!
“For some people, they may tend to associate public transport with their sleep. And that’s why they found it easier to fall asleep on the bus,” she said.”
me.