4 ms·

It's signalling class, not respect. People can be assholes in any clothes. It's a tool for getting a certain type of person to respect you.

• zozbot234 4y ago
  It was not signaling class historically. There's plenty of old photos showing lower-class folks who did wear suit-style clothes, and took pride in what that meant to them. It only devolved into signaling class when basic norms of mutual respect began to be widely connoted as a "middle-class/bourgeois" thing, which started in the mid-20th c. in much of the West and continued to the present day.
  • blep_ 4y ago
    Yes, because there are often incentives for lower-class people to signal higher class. That doesn't mean it's not signaling.