Another real world example I saw recently was in programming competitions. There's a tradition of displaying a color for your username based on your ELO rating

Another real world example I saw recently was in programming competitions. There's a tradition of displaying a color for your username based on your ELO rating (for example people would brag about being Red or Yellow on topcoder). So people tend to stop competing forever after hitting the next level just to preserve their color! Graph distribution of ratings: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/52470 https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/52470