19 ms·

The Logic of Stupid Poor People (2013)

157 points by RodericDay 11y ago

RodericDay 11y ago
I sat in on an interview for a new administrative assistant once. My regional vice president was doing the hiring. A long line of mostly black and brown women applied because we were a cosmetology school. Trade schools at the margins of skilled labor in a gendered field are necessarily classed and raced. I found one candidate particularly charming. She was trying to get out of a salon because 10 hours on her feet cutting hair would average out to an hourly rate below minimum wage. A desk job with 40 set hours and medical benefits represented mobility for her. When she left my VP turned to me and said, “did you see that tank top she had on under her blouse?! OMG, you wear a silk shell, not a tank top!” Both of the women were black. The VP had constructed her job as senior management. She drove a brand new BMW because she, “should treat herself” and liked to tell us that ours was an image business. A girl wearing a cotton tank top as a shell was incompatible with BMW-driving VPs in the image business. Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols — silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags — become keys to unlock these gates. If I need a job that will save my lower back and move my baby from medicaid to an HMO, how much should I spend signaling to people like my former VP that I will not compromise her status by opening the door to me? That candidate maybe could not afford a proper shell. I will never know. But I do know that had she gone hungry for two days to pay for it or missed wages for a trip to the store to buy it, she may have been rewarded a job that could have lifted her above minimum wage. Shells aren’t designer handbags, perhaps. But a cosmetology school in a strip mall isn’t a job at Bank of America, either.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Kabukks 11y ago
  Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols — silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags — become keys to unlock these gates. Pierre Bourdieu's "La Distinction" is a great text that investigates this topic in depth. It's (among other things) about taste. How it's inherited through generations, how it's a gatekeeping tool for jobs and status. What you wear isn't the whole story btw. It's also how you wear it (as exemplified above ("Chavs" wearing Burberry)). One of Bourdieu's examples is art and how one speaks about it (using certain words, knowing the "right" works of art etc. Another example might be wine). I don't know if Bourdieu is widely read in the US, but he certainly influenced my thinking about class, class boundaries, and taste. Highly recommended.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    +1 for Bourdieu. I think everyone should read him. I thought he was particularly interesting on music. You might expect the upper classes to be opera buffs and experts on classical music. But in fact he found that the middle classes used a knowledge of classical music as evidence of aspiration. The upper classes sometimes used opera as a status marker, but were more likely to enjoy undemanding music, like easy listening and musicals - presumably because they felt they had nothing to prove. Interestingly, median prices for a stadium show by a mainstream act are higher than tickets for most seats at the Royal Opera House.
andrea_s 11y ago
This piece hinges on the premise that "not filthy rich" is the same as "poor", and goes on a tirade from there. Is it really that controversial to state that you shouldn't buy what you can't afford?
- johnloeber 11y ago
  I don't think you've read the article.
  - andrea_s 11y ago
    I've skimmed through it after the blatant straw man in the first paragraph, which prompted me to post. I might read it later if the resulting discussion on HN is interesting :-) edit: downvote away, but I doubt I'm alone in feeling turned off by this kind of clickbaity behavior
    - wutbrodo 11y ago
      I would assume the down votes are less about "avoiding clickbait" and more about "commenting on something you didn't read"
      - andrea_s 11y ago
        Perhaps - but to me, the article goes like this: [premise] society loves to hate on poor people and considers them stupid for buying luxury [tweet that states nothing of the sort, not even remotely] [thesis] so, given that I've never heard of this trope myself (perhaps it's a bit of a US thing?) I felt turned off and commented on that, nothing less, nothing more.
        gknoy 11y ago
        I read this article years ago, and it's worth re-reading... ergo, not clickbait. The author talks about how it __appears__ wasteful to buy expensive clothes when you're poor, but it's all about __signalling__ to others that you're someone that should not be ignored. It profoundly changed the way I thought about the "people buying expensive things they can't afford" idea when I read it. At the risk of quoting too much, this is the part that really was memorable for me, and is worth reading more than once in the original article: I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the social service agency. The elderly woman had been denied benefits .... The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way — lots of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate. I watched my mother put on her best ... outfit. It took half a day but ... my mother’s performance ... got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that ... we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging. It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work. It likely wouldn't work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try. Sure, there are stupid people that buy things they don't need. However, sometimes the things we think of as "luxury" are necessary for Getting Things Done. Hell, this is the reason I have a suit in my closet that I've worn rarely (job interviews). Expensive accessories and a Nice Outfit can help people ensure that they aren't discriminated against for being "low-class".
mc32 11y ago
A lot of what she says is true, but a lot of it is cultural and transcends borders. If you go up to frugal places in new england, putting on airs will not get you too far... but in other places, more flashy places, it helps. But this phenomenon is certainly not only American or essentially white. You can go to Japan and you can go to urban coastal china and contrast that with rural china. Or you can go to Nigeria and contrast Lagos with people not from Lagos. The signaling and the the appearances are not either uniquely american nor are they borne from mainstream american culture. It's pretty much semi-universal. On the other hand, poor people in China and Japan will try to look as presentable as possible while being quite frugal. This whole thing brings up a pet peeve of mine and that's the "cultural fit" meme one finds so pervasive in the valley. It's as if someone who has a Motorola 'culture' is a bad 'fit' for working at Cloudera, to make something up. None the less, you see people slurping up the corporate culture du jour as if a 'jobdesiac'. You could imagine how if essentially mainstream engineers can be categorized as bad cultural fits just from one company to the next, how slightly different cultures would have even more pronounced experiences due to discrepancy.
- detcader 11y ago
  What if "whiteness" is not a geographical/physical trait but a social construction? What if whiteness varies in the specifics of its processes around the world?
  - mc32 11y ago
    labeling it 'whiteness' muddies things here. This kind of thing arose independently of any culture. But yeah, social mechanism --a cultural shibboleth. Why do so many native english speakers insist _insist_ upon using French phraseology, even when the French phrase is quite cumbersome, if you understand French and there are native english counterparts? The same could be said about abusing buzzwords. Basically, the goal is to mimic the received and expected behavior of where you are. If I were in india, it would behoove me to adopt more local norms in conducting business. Acting white and american, would do white americans a disservice.
  - rhizome 11y ago
nchelluri 11y ago
Call me closed-minded, but with a title like that I'm not clicking, and I don't want to see this post on HackerNews. It's just mean. When I was a kid I was all "oh, I can separate the artist from their art", but as an old man... fuck that.
- ageek123 11y ago
  If you read the article, you'll see that the author actually agrees with you. They just picked a clickbait-y headline because that's What People Do These Days.
- some1else 11y ago
  I was hoping it will refer to how being poor and in debt can impact your cognitive abilies: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-poverty-brain-idUSBRE97S10W20130829 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-poverty-brain-i...
- mixologic 11y ago
  Quotation marks would serve to clarify the voice of the article, yet they would weaken the message of the article. The Logic of "Stupid Poor People" As an old man, I learned something by clicking on that.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
szermer 11y ago
By far the best article I read today. Thank you for sharing.
k__ 11y ago
I like how this article is written, but I don't think many of the "unneeded expensive buys" help to climb the ladder. I think most of it is to feel better. If you like your job and most of the other parts of your life, you spent less money to feel better. But if nobody gives you a good job and you don't have much time left for the rest of your life, you get the impression that you have to buy happiness. Can't blame those people. Did it myself for years.
patio11 11y ago
Somehow I think truth might be somewhere between "Poor people are making rational decisions to consume status goods in the hopes of improving their economic outcomes by convincing gatekeepers that they are, in fact, middle class" and "Poor people are spending $2,500 on handbags because poor people value handbags more than they value $2,500." Case in point: there is no conceivable narrative by which one's sofa gets one welfare benefits or a new job as a shift lead. Poor people apparently are quite aware of this. When asked (in the article referenced by a sibling thread), the young lady's answer to "Why did you buy a sofa?" answer was "Because I wanted a sofa."
- dghf 11y ago
  Can you link to the article in question? Wanting a sofa does not seem unreasonable (you have to sit on something), and I feel I'm missing something. Was it a particularly expensive sofa? Or by 'sofa', do you mean something other than 'couch', which is what I take it to mean?
  - patio11 11y ago
    c.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689979 pointing to here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/16/she-bought-a-sofa-on-installment-payments-now-its-straining-her-life/?src=longreads http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/16/s...
  - jasonkester 11y ago
    The idea is that one does not need a $1500 sofa if all one wants is something to sit on. As an example, I purchased my first sofa costing more than zero at age 43. But I've always had sofas everywhere I lived before that. Sofas that meet the definition of "something to sit on" can be had for roughly zero dollars and are plentiful at that price point. You would notice the difference if you put one side by side with a new one costing $1500, indicating that perhaps that difference in appearance is the real reason that somebody without $1500 to spare would choose to buy the latter in favor of the former.
- _nedR 11y ago
nostromo 11y ago
This article connects the virtue of appearing professional to overspending on luxury goods as if they are identical. I'm reminded of the "chav" subculture in Britain and their love of Burberry. (Extreme example: http://i.imgur.com/8QxFSh5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8QxFSh5.jpg) I don't get the feeling that they're trying to open doors to the British upper-class, but rather using it as a status-symbol within their own community. Personally I don't see anything wrong with that; everyone wants to look good for their peers. But I feel like the author is trying to make it more noble than it is.
- allendoerfer 11y ago
  I thought of the same thing. I do not think, that you buy status symbols to move to an upper class, I think they are uniforms to identify yourself within your own class and move to the top of it. Excessive manicure, hair extensions etc. are expensive but seem like a stupid investment. They (in my mind, subjectively) lower your social status, because they are uniforms of the lower class. Moving one class up, a big car is expensive, but you still will not be accepted in the (upper) middle class if you do not have a proper job or you wear a uniform of the lower class. The question arises whether your house is paid of or not and why you bought that car if it is not The farther up you rise in the Bildungsbürgertum [0], the more subtle the indicators get: Do you use foreign words, that indicate your French/Latin language education? Which instruments do your children play? Do your children play football (soccer) or tennis? The point of these status indicators is, that you can not fake them easily. You can not pay of your house if you do not have a proper paying job. You have to get a certain education to show of certain skills. If you have these things you already belong to the respective class. Edit: Wanted to add one more thing: My most favourite social status indicator is the number of children. It seems to me, that having more than 3 children is an indicator of either the lower class, because the marginal costs of an additional child are mostly paid by the state, or the upper class, because you they can handle the marginal costs on their own again. The middle class often does not want to pay these costs. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsb%C3%BCrgertum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsb%C3%BCrgertum
  - busyant 11y ago
wumbernang 11y ago
I was going to write a diatribe about how my sister-in-law manages to get a three bedroom semi in Berkshire in the UK, has a nice 60" television and an iphone 6 and hasn't worked a day since 1998 nor has her numerous partners, her physically disabled 15 year old son (who incidentally managed to scale a 7 foot tall wall because he couldn't be bothered to walk around the house to go and buy cigarettes), sitting there with her friends last week all they discussed was how to screw more things out of the state whilst bathing in a cloud of smoke in the garden and simultaneously annoying their neighbours with loud garage music.. ...but I'm sure the logic of this article explains that... Actually they're not stupid. They're ruthless in some areas and its hard for me to sit there a a relative and not explode violently at them. This post is somewhat an experiment however as reddit's UK population seems to think that this class of person doesn't exist and would happily downvote people off the internet for even suggesting it, labelling you as a tory supporter and general inhuman.
- laichzeit0 11y ago
  > This post is somewhat an experiment however as reddit's UK population seems to think that this class of person doesn't exist and would happily downvote people off the internet for even suggesting it, labelling you as a tory supporter and general inhuman. You know what, fuck 'em. You're not alone, and the vast majority of people are not vocal. The vocal people are always a small minority on either side of the spectrum. Fuck 'em.
  - wumbernang 11y ago
    Glad to hear that there are people who think the same.
- littletimmy 11y ago
  What so wrong about that? She doesn't want to work. Her choice. Get over your puritanical veneration for work. She is wise to have found a way to not work and spend her time in leisure.
  - wumbernang 11y ago
dschiptsov 11y ago
Intelligence (being well-read, habitual 'mapper') should come before appearance. All these bearded hipsters, imitating the same personage from the "Into The Wild" movie or each other, are so ridiculous, especially in India or Nepal, where they seemed to believe that they belong to some alien super-intelligent race or something. But when you are trying to talk to them, they cannot express anything interesting, but a small set of current memes and cultural codes. One such hipster once told me that he is from a different tribe of humanity, and commented two minutes later, that "the eachquake was nice, I learned a lot". And he isn't even acting - he is just that. Status symbols must be not vearable. It must be healthy looks and open-mindedness - the effects of possession of at least some intelligence (evolution do favour looks of healthy youth, not purchased status items marketed as such. Not being able to grasp this simple fact means one isn't qualified even for a hipster). BTW, real intelligence and real spirituality does not require any special attributes to make it self-evident. On the contrary, it is inversly correlated with appearance - the dreaded-and-tattooed hippues in rags marketed for tourists are the most primitive. Then come yogis, sages and babas. Breaded hipsters comes next. As for status symbols to impress waiters and clerks, well, they could be much subtle and cheaper that a ₹1 lakh bag. Usually, the matching set of clothing which reflects your personal taste - texture and quality of a fabric, matching colors, simplicity of being good-enough is enough.
erikb 11y ago
Really hard to read for me. I don't know the way the author expresses her ideas is hard to grasp. The basic idea of course is right: You need to fake status if you don't have it, if you want some of the benefits. But what is missing is some data. Because if we think that further, you can certainly overspend on that hope that one day someone let's you in on something because you have status. And probably many people do overspend on that (I'm thinking about the golden $10k Apple watch here as an example). There must be a way to evaluate how much is good and when it starts to hurt you. And I guess there should be a lot of science on that.
- danans 11y ago
  There is a comment below the original article which makes the point that even knowing the threshold is itself a form of privilege in the particular case of "dressing to impress".
  - erikb 11y ago
    Which comment do you mean? Ctrl-F for "threshold" and "dressing to impress" didn't yield anything. Skimming the first three comments didn't either. Also what's the point? I don't really agree with "knowing <X> = privilege" but let's say it's true. Then what? Does that change what should be the best decision? Does it change how we react on incomplete information? Knowing that there is a threshold at which returns start to diminish is a good point, because it tells you to look for clues of when to stop spending on status symbols. Having an expensive watch might help you, but the $60k watch might not improve your situations 10x of what a $6k watch would do. Now if we add that the knowledge of the threshold is privilege, what does it change? Of course the person who has that knowledge makes better decisions. But knowing that it is a privilege to know that threshold doesn't give any more change to the decision making process. Or at least I don't see it.
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      This is just semi-anecdotal, but for watches I don't think there's really a lower threshold when it comes to price. My watch is the $90 (sadly out-of-production) Casio MDV-102 [1] which is a real cult classic. I have it on a black and grey Nato strap ($10) and it does get me compliments from watch connoiseurs from time to time. But I guess there's a definite knack to recognizing cult classics though. [1] http://forums.watchuseek.com/f220/review-casio-mdv102-duro-200-super-illuminator-diver-472351.html http://forums.watchuseek.com/f220/review-casio-mdv102-duro-2...
laichzeit0 11y ago
Things don't even necessarily have to be expensive though. Someone that knows how to dress will be able to judge you in 5 seconds and clock you for what you're worth. The chest is too big, shoulder divots, sleeves not showing enough collar, why in god's name is it a 3 button, did you really match your pocket square to your tie, etc. Simple things will betray you, much like accent and non idiomatic English. You might not ever speak to this person, but they will have formed an opinion about you in 5 seconds and poof! an opportunity slips by. I know this seems "unfair" or maybe people will even say "yeah well if someone is so superficial maybe it's a good thing" these are all just ways of trying to rationalize an irrational world. Rather learn to play the game.
- auxym 11y ago
  Also, for those of you not used to wearing a jacket, please don't button up th last (lowest) button.
starmole 11y ago
This is painful to read because it is true. It is very hard to explain privilege. Almost all (good) privileged people have a very hard time of seeing it. But how to fix it? My Fair Lady style? Trickle down? Charity? So far the only thing that worked was Revolution.
giancarlostoro 11y ago
There certainly are many approaches to getting ahead if just enough. I suppose some rely on 'status symbols', while others talk their way up the ladder. I don't think this justifies some people's ridiculous purchases of status symbols while they still live in poverty however, especially those who don't use them to gain a leg up in their situation. I feel like that was not considered in the writing of this article, I could be wrong though, or have overlooked it.
dang 11y ago
Discussion from 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6647809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6647809.
PaulAJ 11y ago
This is a continuation of sumptuary laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law), which were laws regulating what you could wear depending on your social class. The supposed logic behind these laws was always to stop stupid poor people from buying expensive clothes they couldn't afford, but the real reason was always to preserve existing signals of wealth and class.
- tsotha 11y ago
  Except that it's not a continuation of sumptuary laws because there's a huge difference between a law and individual decisions people make.
AstroChimpHam 11y ago
I grew up poor among other poor people, and it never struck me that anyone was buying expensive stuff because they thought that's what would lead them to a better job or some such. They were buying expensive stuff because they wanted it. There's this new feel-good ideal that it's not poor peoples' fault they're poor, but no one ever supplies data to back it up. Only well-written personal stories. I'm sure it's not a binary, but from personal experience where I grew up, the poor people in my family and around me were poor mostly because they were lazy, wanted expensive possessions, and refused to work the long-game to getting out of poverty. I'd love to see real data that points to this being the exception.
- zfghjk 11y ago
  There is a small irony in you asking other people for data to back up their arguments, and then making your argument "from personal experience".
  - FeepingCreature 11y ago
    But note that a single counterexample disproves a general law.
    - Thimothy 11y ago
      Not in social sciences. When you are dealing with people and cultures, trying to find a "law" that applies uniformly to everyone is naive. BTW, if you are really interested, here is an article (with links to actual scientific studies) on why being poor is hard: http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-research/the-cognitive-burden-of-poverty/ http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-rese...
    - mtbcoder 11y ago
      "Americans overestimate social class mobility" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115000062 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115...
  - 11y ago
zamalek 11y ago
A high school friend of mine wound up working as an "ATM Clark" - essentially the guy in charge of filling ATMs. The salary varies wildly based on how much overtime is done, his take-home salary was usually $2500/month (which lies in the richer portion of the middle class in South Africa). His colleague did no overtime and took home $500/month. This guy who only earned $500 spent $400 on a loan and insurance for a Golf GTi (one of the status symbol cars in South Africa). My friend who earned 5 times as much drove around in a derelict '92 VW Fox. So I've seen it first-hand, "stupid poor people spending stupid amounts of money on stupid things." In the same way me and my friend spent stupid amounts of money on our own type of stupid things. We bought smartphones (back in 2005, this was the WinMo days) so that we could tinker with them. Instead of getting a prestige symbols we got toys that we could play with. Whether or not something is stupid depends on who you ask. If you ask a poor person whether someone buying a nice car is stupid they will probably say "no." If you ask them whether buying a smartphone (pre-iPhone, remember) is a stupid idea they would definitely say "yes." I would guess it speaks about the underlying psychology of wealth: those with no monetary wealth seek approval from others (prestige symbols: cars, handbags, etc.) and those with much seek approval from themselves (toys: fast internet, flashy computers, etc.).
- PeterisP 11y ago
  This is also seen in many Eastern Europe places with flashy cars near crumbling post-WW2 soviet apartment buildings where obviously their (leased) car costs twice or more than any home there. Just because they show off their car for style or status.
cgio 11y ago
I loved this part from the article. That’s how generational wealth happens where I’m from: lose a leg, a part of your spine, die right and maybe you can lease-to-own a modular home. That was a very powerful sentence.
WalterBright 11y ago
People seem to constantly rediscover signaling with clothing. Recall "Dress for Success" which came out in the 1970's, for example. I know many people who refused to conform to clothing signaling norms, and it has never worked for any of them.
jokoon 11y ago
Unfortunately today, integrating in society means being liked and for that, you must blend in and look similar to other people. People feel much stronger when they can see they are part of the larger group, and like to confirm their norms as correct and will always unconsciously exclude minorities or people who are off. Animals do exactly the same thing: groups of dogs will never tolerate cats and vice versa. One cat can tolerate a dog, but never in groups. That's why law was invented, to put some order into the zoo and transform it into civilization. The real political issue is to make people have faith in society and leave their culture at home. The hardest difficulty for minorities is to not feel rejected, and to have faith in the law and the democratic system. There has been real historical progress towards legal statuses, but it's true that you can't really prevent people from behaving like social animals and make sure they behave like citizens first, social animal second. The real intellectual fight, is to systemically crush the idea that some cultures and ways of life are to be thanked for because they brought our society's greatness. I guess the US is a large country with very diverse cultures, and it can be very hard for the federal government to make the union hold into something thriving and prosperous. The saddest thing is when you hear people defending the founding fathers like they are the sole ideal of america: white catholic conquerors founded america and thus america should be at its image.
- areyousure 11y ago
  Re your last sentence: hardly any Founding father was Catholic.
  - douche 11y ago
    Characterizing the United States as a catholic country is a pretty big misrepresentation. Until the waves of immigration from Ireland and Italy in the mid 19th century, most Americans were protestant of one variety or the other. Part of the reason that Irish immigrants were initially considered "non-white" was because they were Catholics.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    I think that's his point, before the founding fathers there was another version of (white-european) America, discovered by "catholic conquerors" so people choose which story to tell themselves.
Shivetya 11y ago
My favorite poor decision, tattoos. I am not talking about the cutesy ankle tattoos, I am taking tattoos that require long sleeves to cover up or worse cannot be hidden. Unless your trying for a job where creativity is king I cannot find many instances where they are acceptable.
pdkl95 11y ago
A HN/tech-startup translate this kind of situation: would you reject someone - and maybe not bother looking as hard into their technical qualifications - if they showed up to the first interview in a "stuffy suit" that "obviously wouldn't be a good cultural fit"? Obviously, I'm stereotyping a bit, but that's kind of the point! Sometimes there are barriers to overcome and middlemen that need to be appeased, and working to overcome these problems is a demonstration of good problem solving skills, even if it looks "stupid" to an outside observer.

157 points by RodericDay 11y ago

I sat in on an interview for a new administrative assistant once. My regional vice president was doing the hiring. A long line of mostly black and brown women applied because we were a cosmetology school. Trade schools at the margins of skilled labor in a gendered field are necessarily classed and raced. I found one candidate particularly charming. She was trying to get out of a salon because 10 hours on her feet cutting hair would average out to an hourly rate below minimum wage. A desk job with 40 set hours and medical benefits represented mobility for her. When she left my VP turned to me and said, “did you see that tank top she had on under her blouse?! OMG, you wear a silk shell, not a tank top!” Both of the women were black. The VP had constructed her job as senior management. She drove a brand new BMW because she, “should treat herself” and liked to tell us that ours was an image business. A girl wearing a cotton tank top as a shell was incompatible with BMW-driving VPs in the image business. Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols — silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags — become keys to unlock these gates. If I need a job that will save my lower back and move my baby from medicaid to an HMO, how much should I spend signaling to people like my former VP that I will not compromise her status by opening the door to me? That candidate maybe could not afford a proper shell. I will never know. But I do know that had she gone hungry for two days to pay for it or missed wages for a trip to the store to buy it, she may have been rewarded a job that could have lifted her above minimum wage. Shells aren’t designer handbags, perhaps. But a cosmetology school in a strip mall isn’t a job at Bank of America, either.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Kabukks 11y ago
Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols — silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags — become keys to unlock these gates. Pierre Bourdieu's "La Distinction" is a great text that investigates this topic in depth. It's (among other things) about taste. How it's inherited through generations, how it's a gatekeeping tool for jobs and status. What you wear isn't the whole story btw. It's also how you wear it (as exemplified above ("Chavs" wearing Burberry)). One of Bourdieu's examples is art and how one speaks about it (using certain words, knowing the "right" works of art etc. Another example might be wine). I don't know if Bourdieu is widely read in the US, but he certainly influenced my thinking about class, class boundaries, and taste. Highly recommended.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  +1 for Bourdieu. I think everyone should read him. I thought he was particularly interesting on music. You might expect the upper classes to be opera buffs and experts on classical music. But in fact he found that the middle classes used a knowledge of classical music as evidence of aspiration. The upper classes sometimes used opera as a status marker, but were more likely to enjoy undemanding music, like easy listening and musicals - presumably because they felt they had nothing to prove. Interestingly, median prices for a stadium show by a mainstream act are higher than tickets for most seats at the Royal Opera House.

andrea_s 11y ago

This piece hinges on the premise that "not filthy rich" is the same as "poor", and goes on a tirade from there. Is it really that controversial to state that you shouldn't buy what you can't afford?

johnloeber 11y ago
I don't think you've read the article.
- andrea_s 11y ago
  I've skimmed through it after the blatant straw man in the first paragraph, which prompted me to post. I might read it later if the resulting discussion on HN is interesting :-) edit: downvote away, but I doubt I'm alone in feeling turned off by this kind of clickbaity behavior
  - wutbrodo 11y ago
    I would assume the down votes are less about "avoiding clickbait" and more about "commenting on something you didn't read"
    - andrea_s 11y ago
      Perhaps - but to me, the article goes like this: [premise] society loves to hate on poor people and considers them stupid for buying luxury [tweet that states nothing of the sort, not even remotely] [thesis] so, given that I've never heard of this trope myself (perhaps it's a bit of a US thing?) I felt turned off and commented on that, nothing less, nothing more.
      - gknoy 11y ago
        I read this article years ago, and it's worth re-reading... ergo, not clickbait. The author talks about how it __appears__ wasteful to buy expensive clothes when you're poor, but it's all about __signalling__ to others that you're someone that should not be ignored. It profoundly changed the way I thought about the "people buying expensive things they can't afford" idea when I read it. At the risk of quoting too much, this is the part that really was memorable for me, and is worth reading more than once in the original article: I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the social service agency. The elderly woman had been denied benefits .... The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way — lots of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate. I watched my mother put on her best ... outfit. It took half a day but ... my mother’s performance ... got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that ... we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging. It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work. It likely wouldn't work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try. Sure, there are stupid people that buy things they don't need. However, sometimes the things we think of as "luxury" are necessary for Getting Things Done. Hell, this is the reason I have a suit in my closet that I've worn rarely (job interviews). Expensive accessories and a Nice Outfit can help people ensure that they aren't discriminated against for being "low-class".

mc32 11y ago

A lot of what she says is true, but a lot of it is cultural and transcends borders. If you go up to frugal places in new england, putting on airs will not get you too far... but in other places, more flashy places, it helps. But this phenomenon is certainly not only American or essentially white. You can go to Japan and you can go to urban coastal china and contrast that with rural china. Or you can go to Nigeria and contrast Lagos with people not from Lagos. The signaling and the the appearances are not either uniquely american nor are they borne from mainstream american culture. It's pretty much semi-universal. On the other hand, poor people in China and Japan will try to look as presentable as possible while being quite frugal. This whole thing brings up a pet peeve of mine and that's the "cultural fit" meme one finds so pervasive in the valley. It's as if someone who has a Motorola 'culture' is a bad 'fit' for working at Cloudera, to make something up. None the less, you see people slurping up the corporate culture du jour as if a 'jobdesiac'. You could imagine how if essentially mainstream engineers can be categorized as bad cultural fits just from one company to the next, how slightly different cultures would have even more pronounced experiences due to discrepancy.

detcader 11y ago
What if "whiteness" is not a geographical/physical trait but a social construction? What if whiteness varies in the specifics of its processes around the world?
- mc32 11y ago
  labeling it 'whiteness' muddies things here. This kind of thing arose independently of any culture. But yeah, social mechanism --a cultural shibboleth. Why do so many native english speakers insist _insist_ upon using French phraseology, even when the French phrase is quite cumbersome, if you understand French and there are native english counterparts? The same could be said about abusing buzzwords. Basically, the goal is to mimic the received and expected behavior of where you are. If I were in india, it would behoove me to adopt more local norms in conducting business. Acting white and american, would do white americans a disservice.
- rhizome 11y ago

nchelluri 11y ago

Call me closed-minded, but with a title like that I'm not clicking, and I don't want to see this post on HackerNews. It's just mean. When I was a kid I was all "oh, I can separate the artist from their art", but as an old man... fuck that.

ageek123 11y ago
If you read the article, you'll see that the author actually agrees with you. They just picked a clickbait-y headline because that's What People Do These Days.
some1else 11y ago
I was hoping it will refer to how being poor and in debt can impact your cognitive abilies: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-poverty-brain-idUSBRE97S10W20130829 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-poverty-brain-i...
mixologic 11y ago
Quotation marks would serve to clarify the voice of the article, yet they would weaken the message of the article. The Logic of "Stupid Poor People" As an old man, I learned something by clicking on that.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

szermer 11y ago

By far the best article I read today. Thank you for sharing.

k__ 11y ago

I like how this article is written, but I don't think many of the "unneeded expensive buys" help to climb the ladder. I think most of it is to feel better. If you like your job and most of the other parts of your life, you spent less money to feel better. But if nobody gives you a good job and you don't have much time left for the rest of your life, you get the impression that you have to buy happiness. Can't blame those people. Did it myself for years.

patio11 11y ago

Somehow I think truth might be somewhere between "Poor people are making rational decisions to consume status goods in the hopes of improving their economic outcomes by convincing gatekeepers that they are, in fact, middle class" and "Poor people are spending $2,500 on handbags because poor people value handbags more than they value $2,500." Case in point: there is no conceivable narrative by which one's sofa gets one welfare benefits or a new job as a shift lead. Poor people apparently are quite aware of this. When asked (in the article referenced by a sibling thread), the young lady's answer to "Why did you buy a sofa?" answer was "Because I wanted a sofa."

dghf 11y ago
Can you link to the article in question? Wanting a sofa does not seem unreasonable (you have to sit on something), and I feel I'm missing something. Was it a particularly expensive sofa? Or by 'sofa', do you mean something other than 'couch', which is what I take it to mean?
- patio11 11y ago
  c.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689979 pointing to here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/16/she-bought-a-sofa-on-installment-payments-now-its-straining-her-life/?src=longreads http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/16/s...
- jasonkester 11y ago
  The idea is that one does not need a $1500 sofa if all one wants is something to sit on. As an example, I purchased my first sofa costing more than zero at age 43. But I've always had sofas everywhere I lived before that. Sofas that meet the definition of "something to sit on" can be had for roughly zero dollars and are plentiful at that price point. You would notice the difference if you put one side by side with a new one costing $1500, indicating that perhaps that difference in appearance is the real reason that somebody without $1500 to spare would choose to buy the latter in favor of the former.
_nedR 11y ago

nostromo 11y ago

This article connects the virtue of appearing professional to overspending on luxury goods as if they are identical. I'm reminded of the "chav" subculture in Britain and their love of Burberry. (Extreme example: http://i.imgur.com/8QxFSh5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8QxFSh5.jpg) I don't get the feeling that they're trying to open doors to the British upper-class, but rather using it as a status-symbol within their own community. Personally I don't see anything wrong with that; everyone wants to look good for their peers. But I feel like the author is trying to make it more noble than it is.

allendoerfer 11y ago
I thought of the same thing. I do not think, that you buy status symbols to move to an upper class, I think they are uniforms to identify yourself within your own class and move to the top of it. Excessive manicure, hair extensions etc. are expensive but seem like a stupid investment. They (in my mind, subjectively) lower your social status, because they are uniforms of the lower class. Moving one class up, a big car is expensive, but you still will not be accepted in the (upper) middle class if you do not have a proper job or you wear a uniform of the lower class. The question arises whether your house is paid of or not and why you bought that car if it is not The farther up you rise in the Bildungsbürgertum [0], the more subtle the indicators get: Do you use foreign words, that indicate your French/Latin language education? Which instruments do your children play? Do your children play football (soccer) or tennis? The point of these status indicators is, that you can not fake them easily. You can not pay of your house if you do not have a proper paying job. You have to get a certain education to show of certain skills. If you have these things you already belong to the respective class. Edit: Wanted to add one more thing: My most favourite social status indicator is the number of children. It seems to me, that having more than 3 children is an indicator of either the lower class, because the marginal costs of an additional child are mostly paid by the state, or the upper class, because you they can handle the marginal costs on their own again. The middle class often does not want to pay these costs. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsb%C3%BCrgertum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsb%C3%BCrgertum
- busyant 11y ago

wumbernang 11y ago

I was going to write a diatribe about how my sister-in-law manages to get a three bedroom semi in Berkshire in the UK, has a nice 60" television and an iphone 6 and hasn't worked a day since 1998 nor has her numerous partners, her physically disabled 15 year old son (who incidentally managed to scale a 7 foot tall wall because he couldn't be bothered to walk around the house to go and buy cigarettes), sitting there with her friends last week all they discussed was how to screw more things out of the state whilst bathing in a cloud of smoke in the garden and simultaneously annoying their neighbours with loud garage music.. ...but I'm sure the logic of this article explains that... Actually they're not stupid. They're ruthless in some areas and its hard for me to sit there a a relative and not explode violently at them. This post is somewhat an experiment however as reddit's UK population seems to think that this class of person doesn't exist and would happily downvote people off the internet for even suggesting it, labelling you as a tory supporter and general inhuman.

laichzeit0 11y ago
> This post is somewhat an experiment however as reddit's UK population seems to think that this class of person doesn't exist and would happily downvote people off the internet for even suggesting it, labelling you as a tory supporter and general inhuman. You know what, fuck 'em. You're not alone, and the vast majority of people are not vocal. The vocal people are always a small minority on either side of the spectrum. Fuck 'em.
- wumbernang 11y ago
  Glad to hear that there are people who think the same.
littletimmy 11y ago
What so wrong about that? She doesn't want to work. Her choice. Get over your puritanical veneration for work. She is wise to have found a way to not work and spend her time in leisure.
- wumbernang 11y ago

dschiptsov 11y ago

Intelligence (being well-read, habitual 'mapper') should come before appearance. All these bearded hipsters, imitating the same personage from the "Into The Wild" movie or each other, are so ridiculous, especially in India or Nepal, where they seemed to believe that they belong to some alien super-intelligent race or something. But when you are trying to talk to them, they cannot express anything interesting, but a small set of current memes and cultural codes. One such hipster once told me that he is from a different tribe of humanity, and commented two minutes later, that "the eachquake was nice, I learned a lot". And he isn't even acting - he is just that. Status symbols must be not vearable. It must be healthy looks and open-mindedness - the effects of possession of at least some intelligence (evolution do favour looks of healthy youth, not purchased status items marketed as such. Not being able to grasp this simple fact means one isn't qualified even for a hipster). BTW, real intelligence and real spirituality does not require any special attributes to make it self-evident. On the contrary, it is inversly correlated with appearance - the dreaded-and-tattooed hippues in rags marketed for tourists are the most primitive. Then come yogis, sages and babas. Breaded hipsters comes next. As for status symbols to impress waiters and clerks, well, they could be much subtle and cheaper that a ₹1 lakh bag. Usually, the matching set of clothing which reflects your personal taste - texture and quality of a fabric, matching colors, simplicity of being good-enough is enough.

erikb 11y ago

Really hard to read for me. I don't know the way the author expresses her ideas is hard to grasp. The basic idea of course is right: You need to fake status if you don't have it, if you want some of the benefits. But what is missing is some data. Because if we think that further, you can certainly overspend on that hope that one day someone let's you in on something because you have status. And probably many people do overspend on that (I'm thinking about the golden $10k Apple watch here as an example). There must be a way to evaluate how much is good and when it starts to hurt you. And I guess there should be a lot of science on that.

danans 11y ago
There is a comment below the original article which makes the point that even knowing the threshold is itself a form of privilege in the particular case of "dressing to impress".
- erikb 11y ago
  Which comment do you mean? Ctrl-F for "threshold" and "dressing to impress" didn't yield anything. Skimming the first three comments didn't either. Also what's the point? I don't really agree with "knowing <X> = privilege" but let's say it's true. Then what? Does that change what should be the best decision? Does it change how we react on incomplete information? Knowing that there is a threshold at which returns start to diminish is a good point, because it tells you to look for clues of when to stop spending on status symbols. Having an expensive watch might help you, but the $60k watch might not improve your situations 10x of what a $6k watch would do. Now if we add that the knowledge of the threshold is privilege, what does it change? Of course the person who has that knowledge makes better decisions. But knowing that it is a privilege to know that threshold doesn't give any more change to the decision making process. Or at least I don't see it.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    This is just semi-anecdotal, but for watches I don't think there's really a lower threshold when it comes to price. My watch is the $90 (sadly out-of-production) Casio MDV-102 [1] which is a real cult classic. I have it on a black and grey Nato strap ($10) and it does get me compliments from watch connoiseurs from time to time. But I guess there's a definite knack to recognizing cult classics though. [1] http://forums.watchuseek.com/f220/review-casio-mdv102-duro-200-super-illuminator-diver-472351.html http://forums.watchuseek.com/f220/review-casio-mdv102-duro-2...

laichzeit0 11y ago

Things don't even necessarily have to be expensive though. Someone that knows how to dress will be able to judge you in 5 seconds and clock you for what you're worth. The chest is too big, shoulder divots, sleeves not showing enough collar, why in god's name is it a 3 button, did you really match your pocket square to your tie, etc. Simple things will betray you, much like accent and non idiomatic English. You might not ever speak to this person, but they will have formed an opinion about you in 5 seconds and poof! an opportunity slips by. I know this seems "unfair" or maybe people will even say "yeah well if someone is so superficial maybe it's a good thing" these are all just ways of trying to rationalize an irrational world. Rather learn to play the game.

auxym 11y ago
Also, for those of you not used to wearing a jacket, please don't button up th last (lowest) button.

starmole 11y ago

This is painful to read because it is true. It is very hard to explain privilege. Almost all (good) privileged people have a very hard time of seeing it. But how to fix it? My Fair Lady style? Trickle down? Charity? So far the only thing that worked was Revolution.

giancarlostoro 11y ago

There certainly are many approaches to getting ahead if just enough. I suppose some rely on 'status symbols', while others talk their way up the ladder. I don't think this justifies some people's ridiculous purchases of status symbols while they still live in poverty however, especially those who don't use them to gain a leg up in their situation. I feel like that was not considered in the writing of this article, I could be wrong though, or have overlooked it.

dang 11y ago

Discussion from 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6647809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6647809.

PaulAJ 11y ago

This is a continuation of sumptuary laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law), which were laws regulating what you could wear depending on your social class. The supposed logic behind these laws was always to stop stupid poor people from buying expensive clothes they couldn't afford, but the real reason was always to preserve existing signals of wealth and class.

tsotha 11y ago
Except that it's not a continuation of sumptuary laws because there's a huge difference between a law and individual decisions people make.

AstroChimpHam 11y ago

I grew up poor among other poor people, and it never struck me that anyone was buying expensive stuff because they thought that's what would lead them to a better job or some such. They were buying expensive stuff because they wanted it. There's this new feel-good ideal that it's not poor peoples' fault they're poor, but no one ever supplies data to back it up. Only well-written personal stories. I'm sure it's not a binary, but from personal experience where I grew up, the poor people in my family and around me were poor mostly because they were lazy, wanted expensive possessions, and refused to work the long-game to getting out of poverty. I'd love to see real data that points to this being the exception.

zfghjk 11y ago
There is a small irony in you asking other people for data to back up their arguments, and then making your argument "from personal experience".
- FeepingCreature 11y ago
  But note that a single counterexample disproves a general law.
  - Thimothy 11y ago
    Not in social sciences. When you are dealing with people and cultures, trying to find a "law" that applies uniformly to everyone is naive. BTW, if you are really interested, here is an article (with links to actual scientific studies) on why being poor is hard: http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-research/the-cognitive-burden-of-poverty/ http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-rese...
  - mtbcoder 11y ago
    "Americans overestimate social class mobility" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115000062 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115...
- 11y ago

zamalek 11y ago

A high school friend of mine wound up working as an "ATM Clark" - essentially the guy in charge of filling ATMs. The salary varies wildly based on how much overtime is done, his take-home salary was usually $2500/month (which lies in the richer portion of the middle class in South Africa). His colleague did no overtime and took home $500/month. This guy who only earned $500 spent $400 on a loan and insurance for a Golf GTi (one of the status symbol cars in South Africa). My friend who earned 5 times as much drove around in a derelict '92 VW Fox. So I've seen it first-hand, "stupid poor people spending stupid amounts of money on stupid things." In the same way me and my friend spent stupid amounts of money on our own type of stupid things. We bought smartphones (back in 2005, this was the WinMo days) so that we could tinker with them. Instead of getting a prestige symbols we got toys that we could play with. Whether or not something is stupid depends on who you ask. If you ask a poor person whether someone buying a nice car is stupid they will probably say "no." If you ask them whether buying a smartphone (pre-iPhone, remember) is a stupid idea they would definitely say "yes." I would guess it speaks about the underlying psychology of wealth: those with no monetary wealth seek approval from others (prestige symbols: cars, handbags, etc.) and those with much seek approval from themselves (toys: fast internet, flashy computers, etc.).

PeterisP 11y ago
This is also seen in many Eastern Europe places with flashy cars near crumbling post-WW2 soviet apartment buildings where obviously their (leased) car costs twice or more than any home there. Just because they show off their car for style or status.

cgio 11y ago

I loved this part from the article. That’s how generational wealth happens where I’m from: lose a leg, a part of your spine, die right and maybe you can lease-to-own a modular home. That was a very powerful sentence.

WalterBright 11y ago

People seem to constantly rediscover signaling with clothing. Recall "Dress for Success" which came out in the 1970's, for example. I know many people who refused to conform to clothing signaling norms, and it has never worked for any of them.

jokoon 11y ago

Unfortunately today, integrating in society means being liked and for that, you must blend in and look similar to other people. People feel much stronger when they can see they are part of the larger group, and like to confirm their norms as correct and will always unconsciously exclude minorities or people who are off. Animals do exactly the same thing: groups of dogs will never tolerate cats and vice versa. One cat can tolerate a dog, but never in groups. That's why law was invented, to put some order into the zoo and transform it into civilization. The real political issue is to make people have faith in society and leave their culture at home. The hardest difficulty for minorities is to not feel rejected, and to have faith in the law and the democratic system. There has been real historical progress towards legal statuses, but it's true that you can't really prevent people from behaving like social animals and make sure they behave like citizens first, social animal second. The real intellectual fight, is to systemically crush the idea that some cultures and ways of life are to be thanked for because they brought our society's greatness. I guess the US is a large country with very diverse cultures, and it can be very hard for the federal government to make the union hold into something thriving and prosperous. The saddest thing is when you hear people defending the founding fathers like they are the sole ideal of america: white catholic conquerors founded america and thus america should be at its image.

areyousure 11y ago
Re your last sentence: hardly any Founding father was Catholic.
- douche 11y ago
  Characterizing the United States as a catholic country is a pretty big misrepresentation. Until the waves of immigration from Ireland and Italy in the mid 19th century, most Americans were protestant of one variety or the other. Part of the reason that Irish immigrants were initially considered "non-white" was because they were Catholics.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  I think that's his point, before the founding fathers there was another version of (white-european) America, discovered by "catholic conquerors" so people choose which story to tell themselves.

Shivetya 11y ago

My favorite poor decision, tattoos. I am not talking about the cutesy ankle tattoos, I am taking tattoos that require long sleeves to cover up or worse cannot be hidden. Unless your trying for a job where creativity is king I cannot find many instances where they are acceptable.

pdkl95 11y ago

A HN/tech-startup translate this kind of situation: would you reject someone - and maybe not bother looking as hard into their technical qualifications - if they showed up to the first interview in a "stuffy suit" that "obviously wouldn't be a good cultural fit"? Obviously, I'm stereotyping a bit, but that's kind of the point! Sometimes there are barriers to overcome and middlemen that need to be appeased, and working to overcome these problems is a demonstration of good problem solving skills, even if it looks "stupid" to an outside observer.