Gee, it makes people want stuff . . . and it’s often stuff they don’t need/can’t afford. But they see that their fave celebrities have one (or more) so they want to burnish their lives with one as well.
In the last 30 years or so, however, [Professor Juliet Schor] said, as people have become increasingly isolated from their neighbors, a barrage of magazines and television shows celebrating the toys and totems of the rich has fostered a whole new level of desire across class groups. A “horizontal desire,” coveting a neighbor’s goods, has been replaced by a “vertical desire,” coveting the goods of the rich and the powerful seen on television, Professor Schor said.
“The old system was keeping up with the Joneses,” she said. “The new system is keeping up with the Gateses.”
It’s not as easy as just buying stuff . . . .
“Class now is really like three-card monte,” [Professor Conley] said. “The moment the lower-status aspirant thinks he has located the nut under the shell, it has actually shifted, and he is too late. “
The bottomline seems to be how many people you have waiting on you, how much time you spend being served by others.
Perversely, it also signifies how much control you surrender to these providers. Do you really want to offer any advice to someone giving you an $800 haircut? Or do you assume they know what they’re doing? Likewise, Masa, a restaurant in New York that offers a $350 prix fixe meal: are you likely to make any requests about how the food should be prepared?
Who imagined being a high-roller would also entail being a hostage to these rarefied servitors?