8 ms·
A New Kind of Conspicuous Consumption
- kelukelugames 12y agoA few years ago when being a foodie was all the rage, my friends would upload tons of pictures of exquisite meals from expensive restaurants. It inspired me to create a food blog on facebook. Every week I would upload something tacky and anti-yuppy. My posts included Choco Tacos, Wendy's hamburgers, and cups of ramen. Now I'm thinking of posting my experiences at the grocery story, Home Depot, etc.
- cpwright 12y agoI've found that my Facebook feed has more pictures of home-made food that isn't necessarily terribly expensive; but there is often some social signaling involved (organic, CSA, vegetarian, etc.). Basically any meal that rejects processed food is hip.
- pbiggar 12y agoYou may think you're doing the opposite of what they're doing, but actually you're doing the same thing. Conspicuous nonconsumption [0], as I call it, is all the rage in SF and among engineers. That's why everyone wears hoodies and tshirts: to show that they're different from MBAs and the suits and the bankers. But that's just another way to show your status: you are the member of an exclusive club that doesn't need suits to have high status. And so with your blog. You're identifying as part of a group that's too good for status symbols. You're explicitly saying "I'm not like you" and implicitly saying "I'm better than you because I don't need whatever things you find valuable". You're showing off your non-consumption for high status, in exactly the same way that they're showing off their consumption for high status. At the end of the day, you're both just showing off for high status! [1] [0] See also "stealth wealth" [1] No judgement here, btw: in tech, I think we all do this, me included.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y agoHoodies and t-shirts?! That's so 2012. What part of San Francisco are you in? All the cool startups in SoMa are enforcing a strict lumbersexual dress code these days.
- amirnathoo 12y agoThis comment is bleeding edge: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com%20lumbersexual https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com%...
- nether 12y agohttp://imgur.com/ZUyBZMt http://imgur.com/ZUyBZMt
- 7Figures2Commas 12y agoWhere's Waldo?
- andyidsinga 12y agosomebody sent me a post about the lumbersexual thing ( I think it was this one : http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/6235-the-lumbersexual-is-here-to-chop-down-metrosexuals http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/6235-the-lumbersexual-... ). Sort of bugs me that some basic clothing that's good for outdoors and daily life in the northwest gets co-opted into a fashion thing
- pndmnm 12y agoSigh. I grew up on the Olympic Peninsula (far western Washington) and this is basically my whole wardrobe. Moved to the bay area over the summer and now I feel gross wearing it. Hopefully fashion moves on soon and I can wear the clothes I have and like in peace.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
- vernie 12y agoThat's pretty tite.
- dreamfactory2 12y agoof course food pics/blogging are a facet of experientialism
- lotharbot 12y agoyears ago a friend of mine posted a forum thread about where he went for lunch, complete with macro-pictures of his drink. My response was to photograph my grocery trip, complete with commentary about how to select a frozen chicken, how I was better at pushing my grocery cart than someone else, and how nice it was to check out using a credit card. I was surprised by how well received my satire was.
- tambourine_man 12y agoI feel like an alien reading an article like this. The idea of "showing off" with vacations, weekend events or even professional accomplishments seems preposterous to me. How is this socially acceptable is beyond my comprehension. Likewise, I'm probably only interested in knowing where 10 or so people spent their vacation, and even then, only when the narrative is directed at me or a small number of friends. I can't understand how a public parade of general info and photos can be anything other than utterly shallow and boring. Needless to say, I don't get Facebook.
- joe_the_user 12y agoI feel alien reading this too and I have ~500 friends on Facebook. I don't see people doing anything like this. Maybe I'm selective but really next-to no friends share their consumption. I think the share-your-sunsets-and-dives-into-waterfalls is the movie version of Facebook. We wind up sharing cats, snark and sad moments.
- dilap 12y agocurious: how old are you? location? friend's locations? i'm 33, sf now oregon raised, and i'd say in general i see less fb usage by my friends, but those that still do use it, it's almost all positive, brag-ish sharing. people i know with kids, especially, it seems almost impossible to imagine sharing 'cats, snark, and sad moments'.
- joe_the_user 12y agoI'm even older but I happen to have a group of friends of all ages. Yeah, the people who don't use Facebook much do the "here's a picture of my ski trip thing" but they seem like such the minority. Anyway, I can at least tell you that once your kids actually grow up, you just might have time to once again waste time online.
- eddy_chan 12y agoI feel this, 32M with kids. FB usage by actual friends that I cared about fell to zero and my feed was full of shallow experiential grandstanding. Deleted my FB account but copped a hiding from the silent majority for being 'hard to get in touch with' and feel a bit guilty about this but overall life is better without FB or any other form of social media. True experientialism is being there in the moment, not standing outside carefully curating the moment for others to gawk at. Edit: *experientialism not experimentalism
- djrobstep 12y agoThis article is consistent with my anecdotal experience, where I've noticed high importance placed on travel as a class credential. I grew up in a household that was low income enough that we never vacationed far from home. Now that I'm a white collar software developer on a solid middle class income mixing with middle class folks, mentioning that I've hardly traveled out of the country generates reactions of surprise, to the extent that I often feel I have to explain myself and my lack of overseas travel.
- O____________O 12y agoNow that I'm a white collar software developer on a solid middle class income mixing with middle class folks Are you in the Bay Area? The Bay Area is obsessed with travel. Not that there's anything wrong with that, since I do feel that travel is great, but many in the Bay Area have no idea what it's like to come from a background where it's not even considered a possibility. When I lived and worked in Arizona, the only "travel" anyone was interested in were weekend trips to Mexico, or maybe visiting an iconic American city (e.g. SF). If I'd brought up Thailand, they wouldn't even have known enough to make ladyboy jokes.
- metaphorical 12y ago"There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man’s self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not, that he is. And the third, simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be, that he is not." -- Francis Bacon
- Animats 12y agoRemember that on Facebook, "sharing" is spamming. If you're getting unwanted "sharing" from "close friends", demote them to "friends" to stop that.
- mc32 12y agoThis is one thing I don't get. Why do some people like to pretend to be anti-consumption while engaged in an economy based on consumption? Let's put it this way, if all the people, no matter what their income, just took their income, spent it on the basics and then saved or invested the remainder, we'd all pretty much end up poorer. No titans of industry (who would buy consumer goods in a if consumption was avoided), few service workers, few skilled jobs, fewer blue collar jobs. Mostly we'd have government employees and people in essential services (farmers, physicians, educators, etc). No work at Starbucks, or Amazon, or Google or Tesla. I mean, who would need to buy anything beside the basics from Amazon, and since commerce would be de-emphasized, no need for advertising (adwords) on google. I guess we could live pretty retro lives, living like we were all Amish or similar, but is that what would be best? Certainly disposable consumerism is arguably bad, but what if we all decided quality was paramount and instead of buying ten cheap things, we bought one expensive but durable thing costing the same as the ten cheap things? Anyway, our economic system, neo-liberal capitalism, (and others as well) depend on consumption, frugal wealthy people would impact the economy negatively. Look, I dislike Hollywood (it's cheap, base, and unimaginative, rarely is there "Art") for various reasons, but, at the same time, I understand that overpaid actors mean that lots of ancillary jobs in Hollywood exist due to their opulent, unfrugal, spednthrift lifestyles.
- sukilot 12y agoThe difference is whether consumption is relative equal across society, or is the masses serving elites, and if we are paying for each others good graces, or to burn polluting energy sources. A dollar spent paying someone to burn the plastic remains of your frappucino and then treat your diabetes, or a dollar spent on a blood diamond or chocolate farmed by a slave child, could be spent paying someone to pick up litter, or cure genetic disease, or teach you how to play music. Not all consumption is equally valuable.
- mc32 12y agoYes, of course things could be improved upon. What happens is people say "overconsumption" as if not consuming would somehow solve things. It would not. All things being equal, it would make things worse (except perhaps improve ecology, but it's debatable, since we might miss develping some superior technologies). Just one example. Everyone cooked at home. No restaurants. No cooks, chefs, sole proprietors, severs, etc. in the restaurant industry. There would be no restaurant industry. We could go on. Extending this, "getting rid of conspicuous consumption" might hide things, which, I understand, it makes us feel better, but solves nothing by itself.
- mistermann 12y agoAm I the only one that likes when people post their travel pictures on Facebook? I find it interesting and like to see all the beautiful places that I can't go to now that I'm married.