Pushing limits and demonstrating that you can get away with things is a way to signal social standing. It's like poker. If you seem confident, people will infer

Pushing limits and demonstrating that you can get away with things is a way to signal social standing. It's like poker. If you seem confident, people will infer you are so secure because you have lots of resources and can afford not to care. And this becomes self fulfilling and after some time you will really have social capital and allies and can afford to be even more upfront given that protection. I think the key thing is to live and breathe the rhythm of social situations. When are high tides and when the lows. You mentioned humor. That's also very much connected to this. It matter when and how you say your upfront things. We all know the stereotype of the matter of fact but socially out of touch blunt weirdo who blurts out his opinions at wrong times with the wrong tone. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of the community. In a sense it requires great knowledge of the general sentiment to be able to ignore that sentiment. If you want high status you want people to say of you: "He's not afraid to show who he is, he stands up for what he believes, he is no-nonsense. Maybe he says controversial things but his heart is in the right place."