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I'm probably just an old fart or not getting it in some other way but I was thinking about this the other day. For whatever reason the status seeking culture re

I'm probably just an old fart or not getting it in some other way but I was thinking about this the other day. For whatever reason the status seeking culture really really annoys me. I feel it's "wrong". I'm not religious but I know the Bible has more than one passage about seeking status = bad so maybe that's where my thinking is influenced. So, seeing all the status seeking on Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, etc. and mostly feeling out of touch with that culture it got me wondering what changed. I think what changed is that before all these services, before the internet, the number of people seeking status I could be exposed to was pretty small. It was either certain celebrities, not all of them but a few stuck out as status seeking. Otherwise it would just be the occasional person I might meet at some meetup/trade-show/friend-of-friend/convention that really set my hairs on end and was happy was not part of my everyday life. Now though it seems it's practically the norm. Maybe the percentage of such status seeking people has not changed, I have no idea, but clearly all these services have made it possible for most of them to find an audience of at least 100 to 1000 people and for me to run across them one way or another. Instagram has lists of the top status seekers, as does TikTok, Youtube, Twitter, etc... I was having a coffee in Brentwood LA a couple of years ago and heard some teens arguing and bragging about who had more followers. This American Life had a segment on teen life with social media and the new rituals of likes. Anyway, I have no idea of all the status seeking I now see is just it coming out in the open from being hidden or if it's a new thing promoted by it being so easy now. I also have no idea if it's good or bad. My gut says "bad" but that could just be old man thinking.

sgillen 8y ago
I think I mostly agree with the authors premise that "We are all status seeking monkeys". It's just that the type of status people seek is different across populations: > Some people find status games distasteful. Despite this, everyone I know is engaged in multiple status games. Some people sneer at people hashtag spamming on Instagram, but then retweet praise on Twitter. Others roll their eyes at photo albums of expensive meals on Facebook but then submit research papers to prestigious journals in the hopes of being published. Parents show off photos of their children performances at recitals, people preen in the mirror while assessing their outfits, employees flex on their peers in meetings, entrepreneurs complain about 30 under 30 lists while wishing to be on them, reporters check the Techmeme leaderboards; life is nothing if not a nested series of status contests. I'm not sure if you agree with this or not, I think maybe what you are seeing is that social norms have shifted such that overt pursuing of status seems to be OK, whereas before people would pursue status while pretending not to really care. Perhaps also, as the author points out, people are now competing for status with a much larger audience (before it was just your circle of friends/acquaintance, now it's everyone on ${PLATFORM_OF_CHOICE}, maybe this has made the competition for those who are pursuing this form of status more fierce, or maybe being able to see all these people openly pursuing this form of status has normalized it.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  > submit research papers to prestigious journals is not status seeking. Even if I have zero interest in status, sharing knowledge and/or getting feedback can be the main and even only goal. The same is true of many things. You can have a blog where your goal is to share something or get feedback, not to get status. You can usually tell the difference or at least I think I can. You can be an entertainer (actor, musician, writer, animator ...) and actually have your goal as entertaining people, not gaining status. Even photos. I share 5000+ photos on Flickr. They are all marked as CC-BY. I'm doing it to contribute and share, not to get status. If they ever became popular maybe that would change. Mostly I use them for myself and once or twice a year someone tells me they used one and that makes me happy. I don't feel it's increased my status. I guess I don't agree with the author at all that effectively everything in life can be seen as status seeking
  - sgillen 8y ago
    I think the key word when talking about status wrt to research is “prestige”. Just about everyone submitting to Nature I’m sure legitimately wants to share their knowledge and get feedback. But I’m sure they’re also really hoping they get this Nature publication accepted and that it gets cited because that’s a form of social status that is very good for their career (and hey honestly for most people I’m sure it makes them feel important, accomplished, and respected, too, all of which I would argue are at least partially social status). I do agree with you that not everything is accurately described just by social status, but it does explain a surprising amount human behavior, at least for me.

sgillen 8y ago

I think I mostly agree with the authors premise that "We are all status seeking monkeys". It's just that the type of status people seek is different across populations: > Some people find status games distasteful. Despite this, everyone I know is engaged in multiple status games. Some people sneer at people hashtag spamming on Instagram, but then retweet praise on Twitter. Others roll their eyes at photo albums of expensive meals on Facebook but then submit research papers to prestigious journals in the hopes of being published. Parents show off photos of their children performances at recitals, people preen in the mirror while assessing their outfits, employees flex on their peers in meetings, entrepreneurs complain about 30 under 30 lists while wishing to be on them, reporters check the Techmeme leaderboards; life is nothing if not a nested series of status contests. I'm not sure if you agree with this or not, I think maybe what you are seeing is that social norms have shifted such that overt pursuing of status seems to be OK, whereas before people would pursue status while pretending not to really care. Perhaps also, as the author points out, people are now competing for status with a much larger audience (before it was just your circle of friends/acquaintance, now it's everyone on ${PLATFORM_OF_CHOICE}, maybe this has made the competition for those who are pursuing this form of status more fierce, or maybe being able to see all these people openly pursuing this form of status has normalized it.

tokyodude 8y ago
> submit research papers to prestigious journals is not status seeking. Even if I have zero interest in status, sharing knowledge and/or getting feedback can be the main and even only goal. The same is true of many things. You can have a blog where your goal is to share something or get feedback, not to get status. You can usually tell the difference or at least I think I can. You can be an entertainer (actor, musician, writer, animator ...) and actually have your goal as entertaining people, not gaining status. Even photos. I share 5000+ photos on Flickr. They are all marked as CC-BY. I'm doing it to contribute and share, not to get status. If they ever became popular maybe that would change. Mostly I use them for myself and once or twice a year someone tells me they used one and that makes me happy. I don't feel it's increased my status. I guess I don't agree with the author at all that effectively everything in life can be seen as status seeking
- sgillen 8y ago
  I think the key word when talking about status wrt to research is “prestige”. Just about everyone submitting to Nature I’m sure legitimately wants to share their knowledge and get feedback. But I’m sure they’re also really hoping they get this Nature publication accepted and that it gets cited because that’s a form of social status that is very good for their career (and hey honestly for most people I’m sure it makes them feel important, accomplished, and respected, too, all of which I would argue are at least partially social status). I do agree with you that not everything is accurately described just by social status, but it does explain a surprising amount human behavior, at least for me.