Conspicuous consumption: Do you play the status game?
I read a good blog from Seth Godin this week. It's about conspicuous consumption, a term invented by Thorstein Veblen to define buying expensive stuff to impress others and gain social status.
Seth Godin explains:
It’s sort of a selfish potlatch, in which each person seeks to demonstrate status, at whatever the personal or societal cost, by out-consuming the others.
Social networks have amplified this desire, at the same time they simplified the execution. Now you can waste time and dignity instead of money. Who can you tear down? How much time can you waste? What’s it worth to you to have more followers than the others?
It’s a lousy game, because if you lose, you lose, and if you win, you also lose.
The only way to do well is to refuse to play."
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