--- title: "What Will Be the Most Desirable Status Symbols in the Greater Depression?" type: "post" post_id: "21961" slug: "what-will-be-the-most-desirable-status-symbols-in-the-greater-depression" canonical: "https://axisofeasy.com/oftwominds/what-will-be-the-most-desirable-status-symbols-in-the-greater-depression/" markdown_url: "https://axisofeasy.com/oftwominds/what-will-be-the-most-desirable-status-symbols-in-the-greater-depression.md" json_url: "https://axisofeasy.com/oftwominds/what-will-be-the-most-desirable-status-symbols-in-the-greater-depression.json" txt_url: "https://axisofeasy.com/oftwominds/what-will-be-the-most-desirable-status-symbols-in-the-greater-depression.txt" published: "2020-07-07T04:52:00+00:00" modified: "2020-07-07T04:52:23+00:00" author: "Charles Hugh Smith" categories: - "Of Two Minds" tags: excerpt: "Virtue-signaling texts from your $100 million yacht no longer impress, they enrage.For the past five decades, celebrities and other wealthy folks have sought conventional status signifiers / symbols: a couple hundred thousand acres of ranchland, a..." site_name: "" publisher: "" language: "en-US" license: "" generator: "easyPress AI Discoverability" generator_version: "2.0.14" --- *Virtue-signaling texts from your $100 million yacht no longer impress, they enrage.* **For the past five decades, celebrities and other wealthy folks have sought conventional status signifiers / symbols:** a couple hundred thousand acres of ranchland, a luxe bug-out bunker in New Zealand, a private islet in the Caribbean, a winery, a mega-million dollar yacht, a hip bistro in Manhattan or Santa Monica, a sprawling mansion, and so on. The more civic-minded mega-millionaires donated enough dough to a university to get a building named after them (modesty is my middle name, etc.), funded a children’s hospital or donated some of their couple hundred thousand acres of land to the Nature Conservancy or equivalent mainstream environmental group. **Now that the bogus “prosperity” of past 20 years has imploded, the nation is slip-sliding into the Greater Depression**, and one consequence is that all these signifiers of obscene narcissism and ahem, privilege, will increasingly be viewed *with extreme prejudice*. (Look it up, along with the film *Apocalypse Now*.) **Put another way, all these signifiers of obscene narcissism will be, at a minimum, *declasse*,** veering perilously close to gauche embarrassment. **Those $100 plates at the celeb’s bistro and $90 bottles of wine at the celeb’s winery may be chump-change** to the top-5-percenter customers anxious to be seen in your establishment, but they’re a whole day’s pay or more to those with *real jobs in the real American economy*. **In the Great Depression, fantasy films about debonair, witty millionaires were viewed as escapist fare.** (For example, *The Thin Man* who-dunnits). In the far more brittle and polarized Greater Depression we’re entering, extremes of wealth and privilege will be more likely to spark outrage. **Once the tone-deaf celebs and super-wealthy awaken to this change in the zeitgeist, they will stage a land-rush into socially approved signifiers** that will be designed to win the praise of social-media influencers while subtly distancing the celebs and super-wealthy from merely wealthy wannabe’s. (Creating that class distinction is of course the entire point of status symbols: *only the truly wealthy can afford it.* **Merely donating cash or land and showing up once a year to fake participation will no longer cut it.** Celebs and the wealthy who want to score status points are going to have to actually get involved, not to run the world or generate philanthro-capitalist propaganda, but actually do something real that locals appreciate as genuine. **In other words, ditch the winery, private island and the named campus building and start running a homeless hotel, upscale soup kitchen, etc.**, where regular people will see you doing something useful, not once a year but regularly and with sincerity. **The ante will go up to set oneself apart from the run-of-the-mill narcissistic wealthy.** *Virtue-signaling* texts from your $100 million yacht no longer impress, they enrage. ![](https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016/lifestyle.jpg) ***Recent Podcasts:*** *[AxisOfEasy Salon #11: Revolutions, Power Plays and Authoritative Reality](https://axisofeasy.com/podcast/salon-11-revolutions-power-plays-and-authoritative-reality/) (1:06 hours)* *[**My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts**](https://www.oftwominds.com/pandemic-posts2020.html)****My recent books:*** ***Audiobook edition now available:** [Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082VLQBQ3/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B082VLQBQ3&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=87deea89ddfe8dbf52738aebbf7f7ef4) ($13) [(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1691549444/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1691549444&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=8c27a6ab0ba537361cdd772734d71978) [***Read the first section for free (PDF)***](https://www.oftwominds.com/Richer-Poorer-sample.pdf)***.**** **[Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KMKWQWZ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07KMKWQWZ&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=c75aa078c89424fde33f09985292e73a) ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ([ audiobook](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MH3LR64/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07MH3LR64&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=afb78438bd34d85bff7cb38f76456985)): [*Read the first section for free (PDF)*](https://www.oftwominds.com/Pathfinding-Our-Destiny-sample2.pdf)*.*** **[The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G7R9Y9B/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07G7R9Y9B&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=f2eedd137f2f10768d49846b931e6f21) $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); [read the first chapters for free (PDF)](https://www.oftwominds.com/TCP-sample2.pdf)** **[Money and Work Unchained](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077S8PJ5Y/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B077S8PJ5Y&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=d3a935e067cb9a216e52fce67fa627b6) $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print)* [*Read the first section for free (PDF).*](https://www.oftwominds.com/Money-Work-free.pdf)**If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by [becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com](https://www.patreon.com/charleshughsmith).* --- *NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.* ***Thank you, Alan H. ($50), for your superbly generous contribution to this site — I am greatly honored by your support and readership.*** ***Thank you, Robert S. ($5/month), for your monstrously generous pledge to this site — I am greatly honored by your support and readership.*** Go to my main site at www.oftwominds.com/blog.html for the full posts and archives. ![](http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/google/RzFQ/~4/63e8Tta1gnk)