Modern American elites have come to favour inconspicuous consumption
economist.com
economist.com
Every car I've owned has been cheaper than the previous and honestly these days I'm mostly public transit. But at the same time, I've become many times richer between each car purchase.
I love the non connection and unpreciousness of my possessions - how profoundly and easily replaceable they are and how detached I am from them.
At the end what is wealth other than excess of liberty and freedom. An ability to purchase luxury without much concern for the cost is at its highest form when someone can also dismiss most of the luxury as frivolous and not purchase it at all.
Either the author is really on to something, or you yourself are an agent of the author.
But "setting himself apart"? Or 'writing ironically'? I don't see it.
It is no great virtue to think that when you have wealth, but try living like that when you are poor and all of your meagre possessions were hard-earned.
Minimalism is an ostentatious luxury.
>> Minimalism is an ostentatious luxury.
Those are separate things. Minimalism would be the opposite of buying things that are easily replaceable. Surely you would buy things that don't need replaced often/can be repaired and are higher quality/more expensive.
Using plastic dishes, throwing them out after every meal, and buying new ones isn't minimalism. Spending money on 4 good quality ceramic plates which will last the next 10 years is.
Are there bad quality ceramic plates? Mine costed $1-$3 each and they're great.
Maybe shoes are a better example? Though identifying good quality is a lot of work in itself and may signal status I guess.
Don't get me wrong. When I was a grad student, I bought the cheapest vacuum, cheapest shoes and clothes. But I did know that better quality things did exist, and didn't hesitate to purchase them when I could finally afford to.
1: https://www.consumerreports.org/products/upright-vacuum/rati...
I believe what parent is referring to might be better termed "mental minimalism".
In that the optimization is for not having to think about physical goods. Good qualities here are durable, reasonably priced, reliable, simple, and effective.
To tease the thread apart from what separates the well-off doing this from the poor doing this, I'd say it's the "reasonably priced" criteria. An ideal good under this lifestyle is cheap enough that one isn't weighed down by worry over caring for their devices.
F.ex. If something happens to my refurb XPS 13 on the road, I wouldn't be annoyed. If I had a brand new MBP, I might be a bit more disappointed. Thus, with the former, I don't even have to worry about that eventuality, whether or not it ever happens.
No, using cheap plastic plates, which will easily last a decade (my mom I think, still uses ones my family got free as promotional items with cereal purchases ~30 years ago when I was a kid) and making them last is minimalism.
Ceramic plates break a lot more easily then cheap but durable plastic ones.
However, I can see no chain of logic suggesting that means you're forced to live less minimally than a wealthier person is able to.
Or living within your means?
Note, I'm not endorsing this idea, just trying to describe it.
[1] https://www.houselogic.com/save-money-add-value/save-on-util...
Care to explain? I've seen this line of thought a lot, but don't understand at all. Maybe minimalism attracts people who have grown up wealthy and realize that money doesn't solve all problems, but that's different. It's a luxury in the metaphorical sense that not having to worry about money is a luxury, but I don't think that is the same as or as ostentatious as purchasing luxury items.
Haha, that's not a phrase you often hear at a dinner table in Dublin :)
My grandmother lambasted that I only had 2 hands, and didn't need so many guns.
I only need more when some politician is trying to take them.
That sounds so strange from the other side of the Atlantic.
As far as an anthropological opportunity there are none better.
Rarely does a subject rise to faith and rarely are discussions anything but binary. A rare opportunity i always enjoy with my gun friends.
It's also just basic civil disobedience. If they want to ban encryption, you encrypt everything. If they want to ban guns, you buy more guns. If they want to ban pot, you have a smoke out on the capital grounds.
Car shopping these days is: "What can I pay cash for, and will likely last 3 years without unanticipated repairs?" A 10 year old Lexus is often still in it's prime.
Recently bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf EV with 19k miles for $8,500. I though that was a good deal. Compared to the old Toyota truck, it's essentially free to drive and should have near zero maintenance.
I don't expect to change your mind, just to present alternative views on utility and money. Personally, I love the fact that an excellent quality jeans (Calvin Klein) can be had for less than $100 in today's world. My point is that even luxury goods are not that unaffordable today, and maybe people should give more thought to their purchases than just the price.
Another example: I've been buying Hanes/Fruit of the Loom underwear all my life (I'm a guy). Recently I invested in luxury underwear. The difference is just staggering; the new ones are so much more comfortable and fit so snugly. I couldn't believe I had lived so much of my life in the discomfort of cheap underwear.
No. Levis are made on the same factory as Old Navy. A few of their lines are completely the same. Old Navy jeans can be had for $15/each in a store or $10 at discounters.
It is missing from the Old Navy ones. Buttons that are added are different.
That's the difference.
So is a 10 year old Toyota, which is a heckuva lot cheaper.
Don't worry, all securely in safes, except for the 1911 on my hip.
Being someone who is lower on the income scale, my stuff is by no means replaceable. At least not easily. To be blunt, it's easy to say that none of your possessions mean anything when they actually don't; when that shitty old car means about half a year of income for you, it means a lot, even if not sentimentally.
Frankly all that sounds to me like just a reverse-posturing for the wealthy; "I have so much and look how I live, I don't need things." Yeah that's very easy to say when you could have literally any and all the things you ever wanted, should you change your mind. I would query back how many people are living check-to-check to make that fortune possible? I don't mean this as an attack, but in my experience, pretty much everyone who has a lot of money in the bank also has a trail of people behind them with fresh footprints on their heads.
I understand that at a certain income level, you are at or near the bottom rung for certain things. This is always the case.
If you have $4,000 you can buy a functional, durable, used car and take care of it.
If you have $400,000 you can buy the same car and not worry about it if it breaks down. But now you can buy a small, well-built, home and take care of it.
If you have $4,000,000 you can buy the same home, hope for the best, but not be bothered if things happen. But now you can invest in a small, well-built company and take care of it.
And so on and so forth... every level has a new bottom rung. Even Bill Gates has a small, well-built, international organization (like a NATO or WHO).
At some point, however, you have the option to free yourself from bottom-rung consumption if you choose to do so.
I don't want to be rich. Being rich blows by many accounts. I want enough money in the bank where a bang in my car isn't enough to send me to the poorhouse and where a visit to the ER isn't going to render me homeless. Wanting financial security: the thing you have and are describing; is perfectly natural, except that it's nearly unattainable by I think the vast majority of the population. And don't sit there and tell me that it's all our fault for needing to finance shit when we barely make enough to live already.
I have found that when I spend my money on a few high quality products, I appreciate them more, I take better care of them, and I am happier overall than buying the cheapest thing that'll work. That doesn't mean buying "luxury" items, instead it involves looking for products with thoughtful design, durability and functionality.
For example, I don't buy cheap shoes, chairs or computer monitors.
But I don't think any of us are that way with everything. I don't, for instance, know the thread count of my pillow cover nor have I installed a custom computerized shower head in my bathroom. I also suppose, for example, there's superior version of the cutlery I have in my kitchens and the forks I've been using all these years are simply not the best.
I'll likely buy one of the more expensive options at target, but I don't go to a luxury store where the options are 20 times more expensive and have monograms of wealth on them, even if I could afford them just the same.
I've been to these stores, looked at the items, and then left thinking "how absurd and frivolous."
I really feel that worrying about such things is a form of voluntarily enslavement. I've been very close to people with drug addiction before and I've seen how the substance controls them like a puppet. I feel the same mechanics at play with consumption goods.
I'm open to buying nice things and taking care of them, but I try really hard not to value them in a way that the object controls me.
I can think of plenty of other "tawdry baubles" I'd call out before those. They're not even really things. Very odd choices.
"Tawdry little baubles" does not refer to the children themselves.
Not only cars/transportation. Housing. It's amazing how housing situation in the US is pretty much theft of the young and the poor.
I paid more for housing ( rent/utilities/etc ) as a poor college grad than I do now many years later. Property taxes/insurance/etc ( tax deductible unlike rent ) is much lower than rent.
Not only that, when you are wealthier/more stable, you can afford to plan ( food, groceries, etc ) and wait for deals that you just couldn't when you were poorer/younger.
Even bank accounts. When you were young/poor, the bank charged you "maintenance fee/account fee" because you didn't have enough money in the bank. Now the bank has a "rep" specifically assigned to me to offer me "plane ticket upgrades", special offers, higher interest accounts, "free trades" on IRAs, etc.
I can only imagine what REAL wealthy people ( tens/hundreds of millions or even billionaires ) have. I know a bank I worked for had an entire floor ( "wealth management division" ) dedicated to help high net worth individuals. Wonder what perks those people got.
I don't really understand the desire that people have for status symbols and "keeping up with the Joneses" - but what really confounds me is the decisions virtually everyone else in my life makes when it comes to money.
It's like this is the conversation happening in my head: "Look, we're friends. I know what you do for a living, so I can guesstimate within a not-orders-of-magnitude margin of error what kind of money you make. You clearly can't afford this car/house/gadget without going into debt, and this is a luxury purchase. What the f* are you doing dude?", but I obviously don't say this because it's none of my business.
Some of my friends (and even extended family) seem to have some very naive views about the nature of money and wealth, and this is the part that really makes me uneasy.
It seems that going into high levels of debt and living month-to-month is, at least where I am in the world, the universally and culturally accepted lifestyle strategy. I genuinely can't understand it at all. Is there something everyone else knows that I don't?
I'm fortunate I guess in that I have a STRONG preference that my friends/family don't know my personal finances or think I earn less than I do (I don't need our income differential making good friendships weird), so it suits me not to have showy toys and trinkets. I also get a lot more satisfaction knowing I'm making progress each month on a small but growing safety net for my kids rather than a shiny SUV in the driveway.
Take the decision to buy that shiny SUV. People know that the age and quality of the car you drive is linked to your personality and financial success. If you buy yourself a Model X, 95% of people around you will perceive you differently: environmentally concerned, passionate early adopter, bad at ROI calculations. Driving a beater even though you could obviously afford more is another way of signaling your prudence and risk tolerance.
And why not? We are first and foremost social, tribal creatures. So I would say you're not an odd duck, there's just a different set of values you're trying to signal.
I agreed with most of your comment, but this sentence seems to imply that all decisions are purely or at least primarily for the purpose of signaling values to others. I don't think this is true. Humans may be very social and tribal creatures, but I don't think that means it's impossible to make decisions without caring what other people think, like who reads the "signals" generated from e.g. the prudent purchase of a used Honda or whatever.
These social signals form an entire nonverbal language and we are always speaking. Your used Honda is saying more than you realize. Making decisions without caring what other people think speaks volumes as well.
As a analogy, everything I do might generate some amount of sound. When I'm singing karaoke, the primary goal is to generate that sound. When I move my bookshelf by dragging it across the floor, the sound is incidental.
Likewise, I think it's perfectly possible for someone to actually to want to buy the Model X outside of signals it generates for the world, even though it generates a signal.
I'm guessing there's a certain amount of insecurity regarding one's social status that plays into the hands of advertisements that target these people.
Also, I don't want to sound elitist or anything, but anecdotally the people who worship fancy cars and toys also don't seem to have a keen intellectual curiosity. i.e. they don't read very much, aren't involved in many things outside of work etc. basically they don't have a lot going on for them.
Thinking that people are beneath you (or not intellectually curious) because they don't value the same things you do is pretty much the definition of elitism.
It's true that a large percentage of Americans live beyond their means, but it's also true that it's been that way for at least the last century and it's a necessary evil to have a prosperous economy. Easy credit has been the sole driver of the American economy for the past 50 years and its fueled the boom and bust cycles that we continue to see. You have to have people spending money in order to create jobs and expansion. You also need people saving money. Without either the economy won't grow for long.
I don't agree with your assertion about unsustainable consumption and debt is required for fueling a prosperous economy though. It might have been that way in the past decade or so, but we cannot continue with the same levels of debt forever, regardless of how much the economy desires it. I don't know what the solution is, perhaps expansion into space, industries that cater to a new market? But again, I don't think the right answer is duping people into believing that having nice cars is the answer to all of their problems.
Don't get me wrong, nice things are nice. Go figure. But I work in a mixed city with people from much higher and much lower than me on the economic latter. In my experience, owning a lot of nice things means that you're going to have a harder time befriending people who are significantly lower on the income latter. I don't expect this to be a problem for everyone, but for me and I suspect people like me, it's difficult because I just like going out and being social in meatspace. There's plenty I could do to overcome that when I meet new people, but I don't want to have to overcome walking in and looking like the rich guy. And I don't want to have to think about going to a concert at a bar in a poor neighborhood because I drove a nice car.
Things like saving for my children, as the article discusses, make sense because they tie in with long term happiness imo. If I ever do have children it's not hard for me to imagine wanting to give them as much support as I can to ensure they succeed. I wouldn't want to see them struggle because of resources. But luxury goods don't affect me longterm happiness in the same way and often they feel to me as having a social opportunity cost. The difference in price between what I drive and a nice car could fund a lot of bar nights, concerts, parties at people's houses, etc. And that's just not a cost that's worth it from my perspective.
I found this group of people after I joined my local boxing gym. It totally grounded me. It takes an extraordinary amount of discipline and hard work to be a professional boxer. And yet most professional boxers I know are at the very low end of the income ladder.
Their friendship is real and genuine and I really love that and try to support them in every which way I can...
Mine is board games. I already have a ton, so I don't need people to have their own. We can meet at a public space, like a food court, not spend a dime, and all have a great time. We don't really care what everyone's economic status is, just how we interact with each other while playing the games.
Plenty also just have a cheap car because they don't see spending a ton on a car is worth it. Drive around some super fancy neighborhoods and you'll see plenty of minivans, normal pickup trucks, Hyundais, Hondas, etc. Part of it is also camouflage.
Without the tax break they'd surely buy a similar car with a combustion engine so it still makes sense if the purpose is to reduce pollution.
It meets all the criteria of the IRS EV tax credit. It's capable of 78 mpg while emitting only 79 g/km of CO2. Even the Prius only gets 58 mpg while emitting 111 g/km of CO2.
While I fundamentally agree that anyone buying a $845k car doesn't need a tax break - I also see that since it meets the rules as stated it should qualify.
The tax breaks here in Denmark were more substantial, before they were phased out. Normal cars have like a 170% tax on them that electric cars were exempt from.
As far as I know, they have planned phase-outs to some of this and I'd expect more of the same. After all, electric car ownership is already pretty high (I'm in Norway) and eventually they'll need the tax revenue. For now, though, I'm fully supportive of these sorts of incentives if for nothing else than smog reduction.
Nope. According to several sources[1][2], the top 10% earn ~40% of total income and pay ~70% of total taxes, while the top 25% earn ~70% and pay ~90%.
[1]https://www.mercatus.org/publication/tax-burden-among-varyin...
[2]https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...
Payroll tax, Social Security and sales taxes are not included.
However, even when you do that the top 20% pay most of the taxes.
Rather than frittering away that precious leisure time
on frivolities, [today’s rich] devote it to enriching
experiences, like attending the opera, [...] The modern
equivalent of Victorian worsted-stocking wearers are
hipsters
Plaid shirts, bushy beards, tattoos, piercings, single-speed bicycles and people in their 20s have not been in evidence.
Most rich patrons of the opera wouldn't know an "enriching experience" if it bit them in the ass.
It's about going out and showing off in wealthy circles.
I thought the median age wasn't as high as I expected it to be. And the median age was also slightly higher in the higher cheaper rows. (that's only anecdotal observation)
How much of this is driven by the heavy increase in postsecondary education costs, as well as a Masters degree being the new Bachelors degree for setting your child apart from the pack? (I know many parents who press their child to go for a Masters with this rather superficial reasoning)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/to-get-to-...
Richard Weissbourd, a child psychologist and Harvard lecturer who has studied the admissions process in the interest of reforming it, recalled speaking with wealthy parents who had bought an orphanage in Botswana so their children could have a project to write and talk about. He later became aware of other parents who had bought an AIDS clinic in a similarly poor country for the same reason.
If anything, all the online, open courseware has shown me that the Ivy Leauge coursework is no different than that of most state universities. My kids will have a choice of two in-state schools. If they can get into an Ivy League, that's fine, but they must fund the difference.
I will point out, being a person that did my undergrad at Boston University but took my preferred computer science classes at Harvard, the Ivy League actually teaches! Their professors take a personal interest in their students success. I originally took a Harvard assembly language class because it was not offered at B.U., and that one class opened my eyes to their vast difference between Ivy League and non. I went on to take the majority of my core classes at Harvard night and summer schools, as the same classes at B.U. were foreign grad students with bad accents lecturing to the board. The Harvard classes were exhilarating and exciting, with my head filled with possibilities after every class. And that was practically every class I took there. At ivy League, the professors are self actualizing on their students, and that is HUGE.
I would guess that the biggest increase comes not from post-secondary education, but K-12. Back when I was a kid no one talked about the relative merits of different K-12 schools. You went to your closest school and that was that. Now that market is hyper competitive, almost more so than for colleges. People spend a lot of time, money and effort to get their kids into the 'right' kindergarten and fret that if their kids don't get into a good school from literally day 1 they'll be set on a track for failure for the rest of their life.
Another factor is private tutoring and other academic extracurricular expenses that also seems to have skyrocketed.
Is it possible that your peer group now is wealthier than your peer group as a child?
I don't think that's it. While it's obviously true that the very elite have always cared about and spent a lot of money on their children's schooling if definitely feel like it's becoming more and more of thing even among 'normal' people. Much of this is probably connected to the fact that options to choose your own schools are becoming more and more available in ways they haven't been in the past.
Do you count their home(s)? Conspicuous consumption also looks like:
- having homes in particular neighborhoods
- certain kinds of upgrades to the homes (elaborate pools, media rooms)
- extra homes (Paris, Manhattan, in the mountains, on the beach)
I would guess that few vacation homes are bought for the return they generate. If you want to invest in real estate, you'd rather buy homes in large cities.
However, the implicit assumption there is that once we get beyond satisfying basic needs the demand will be driven up by conspicuous consumption.
Yet, the logic of conspicuous consumption may as well work the other way round: Where being fat was seen as a sign on high social status once today it's a sign of low social status. One can signal status be consuming less rather than more.
Actually, this doesn't mean that the fat person is consuming more - in fact, they might be consuming less in bulk. The contents of their consumption differ greatly though. While the well-to-do person might be eating a lot of fresh vegetables, lean meats, and plenty of whole grains, the poor person might dine entirely on cheap boxed food, TV dinners, and dollar-menu fast food while spending less per month on food.
The things on which the middle- and lower-classes spend conspicuously, usually intending to signal higher class, have long been markers of their less-than-upper-class standing. See: Fussell's early 1980s Class. His Middle class especially could be summed up in one sentence as, "those who spend to signal higher class, while entirely missing the point with every purchasing decision they make and instead signaling how very middle they are".
Being thin doesn't mean necessarily consuming less; see the millions spent on diet books, courses, coaches, etc.
Is anyone seeing this happening?
As a life-long hipster I must object to this. Hipsterdom has nothing to do with wanting to appear well off financially. It is a combination of a longing for authenticity and wishing to separate oneself from the hoi polloi, but through sophistication and coolness. The proportions may vary from hipster to hipster but in no case is it an attempt to imitate the wealthy.
The author's view is pretty spot on, while the individual reasoning might be different the overall group mentality does imitate a lot of the practices of the upper classes.
I never could find a "hipster" that managed to define what "longing for authenticity" actually means all in all it feels more like a slogan than a philosophy.
But spending way more than is appropriate for their income bracket on food, clothes, personal grooming and what one would call "sophisticated art" or antiques is a pretty common denominator.
This isn't that different from the middle class in Victorian England going crazy for upscale wool products at the time, and I'm pretty sure it you asked them they wouldn't say that they were imitating the wealthy either.
Yes, but in different ways. Punk rockers want to shock, nouveaux riches want to impress.
>This isn't that different from the middle class in Victorian England going crazy for upscale wool products at the time, and I'm pretty sure it you asked them they wouldn't say that they are immitating the wealthy either.
Worsted wool is not upscale, the idea was that it _looked_ like silk. In any case it is pretty obvious that hipsters don't try to imitate the rich. Many of the things they do have nothing at all to do with money, fixed gear hubs, facial hair, obscure bands, tight jeans etc. Even for things that cost a little bit of money, like sour dough bread, artisinal tomatoes and leather saddles, that is not the point, and it's not that expensive - any middle class person can afford them. The point is that you _know_ these obscure bands, you _care_ about how your bread is made. You're not showing off your wealth, you're showing off your sophistication.
But the main point is that most of the things that characterise hipsters they don't even have in common with the wealthy, and when they do I think the influence went the other way as often as not.
> I never could find a "hipster" that managed to define what "longing for authenticity" actually means all in all it feels more like a slogan than a philosophy.
It's simple, it's about buying things that have meaning, that were produced with more love and care than the average mass produced product.
>It's simple, it's about buying things that have meaning, that were produced with more love and care than the average mass produced product.
Like what? virtually every "hipster" product is the same mass produced consumer "garbage" with an added Apple commercial twist to it. The clothes are made in the same place, the coffee is rebranded, your special mustache oil is made by some pharmaceutical company in the philippines and the list goes on and on. You were effectively sold not a product but the idea or feeling behind the product, there is nothing wrong with that as long as you are honest about what you are buying. The few that aren't are effectively "luxury" brands, food items that used to be the staple hold of high end restaurants and personal chefs are now sold as "artisan foods" mostly since now there are people who will pay 150$ for some wassabi or 40$ for nice large salt crystals. Beyond that you have some silly brands that somehow convinced you that buying a 20$ jar to drink from because it was handmade is better or more authentic than buying a 20 cents jar made in a factory.
If you want authenticity there's the Amish lifestyle, you don't need to go that far today you can homestead and live pretty much of the grid in many parts of the US (less of that in the rest of the World, GL doing that in Europe), you don't want that, it's fine most of us would like to enjoy the comforts that modern life in a developed nation (especially with the average salary of the average HN reader) can afford. But at least be honest with yourself, most of it is about effectively living the lifestyle of those who would never have to worry about their personal and familial finance but unlike them it doesn't holds true for most of us, even those of us with SV tech giant salary and vesting equity.
I've been around the "microbrew"->"craft beer" scene since the 1990s. "Craft beer" is now seen as hipster. Funny, I think some of what the original angles of the microbrewery movement were about applies to some of the core of the hipster stuff. The original motivation of American microbreweries was basically brewers and drinkers who were tired of an American beer monoculture, where you could have any beer you like as long as it was a pilsner. (There is, of course, a tie-in to the article's theme: some of this, perhaps, is indeed driven by the "enriching experiences" in the article: people who traveled to, say, Britain or Belgium, liked what they had there, and wanted to drink and/or replicate it.) From the beginning, too, there was a tie-in to the "local" angle, in that a local brewery would have a better chance of adding a "unique culinary stamp" to the area, compared to a large corporation with products tailored for national audiences.
So as far as that "longing for authenticity" goes, I guess it's more the localism angle I more think of. It's less about being better / worse made, and more about the possibly unique aspects of community oriented products. In practice, is a lot of the products marketed to this group bogus? Sure. Are there a lot of me-too fads that kind of make the "unique" desire seem hypocritical? Of course. On the other hand, local flavor and custom has been known for eons; people are often genuinely proud of what their town / state / nation is famous for, way before "hipsters" was a thing. So at least this angle, I can see.
Yes, but the use in the article is specifically to imitate silk, and that's what we're discussing.
>Like what? virtually every "hipster" product is the same mass produced consumer "garbage" with an added Apple commercial twist to it
As I write elsewhere, I'm not actually a hipster but my tastes could be described as very hipster. I don't know who told you about my habits but they must have deceived you. The only clothing I buy that is advertised at all is 501s, and I buy the precisely because they are common, as a kind of hyper-hipsterism. Other than that I mostly wear cashmere and wool sweaters from small unknown Italian makers.
Most of my shoes are handmade and bespoke from Budapest and my first suit was bespoke from a Savile Row tailor, I got it with my last savings while at university, to prepare me for getting a job. This may seem extravagant but long term it's very good value for money. The shoes cost less than 2 pairs of sneakers but last 20 years easily, the suit will probably last forever and cost about 3 weeks of wages at my first job. Most of all they look amazing and the feeling of wearing something that is essentially the pinnacle of human sartorial achievement is priceless. I'm sure the confidence that brings helped me land my first job, so they paid for themselves straight away.
And because I buy extremely high quality stuff my annual clothing budget is actually smaller than for most. The name of the game is long term thinking.
>Beyond that you have some silly brands that somehow convinced you that buying a 20$ jar to drink from because it was handmade is better or more authentic than buying a 20 cents jar made in a factory.
Not at all. Nobody needed to convince me that handmade is better, especially not some "brand". I've always preferred things that were made with skill and care, it's just my nature. For example, when it was time to change the floor in my house I bought traditional solid hard floor boards from a guy I found that had an estate with an oak forest and a two-man saw mill. I drove there and picked them up myself, then went home and laid the floor. It took me two weeks but it was well worth it, every time I saw that floor I was reminded of my work and that man's forest. I got a polished piece of decorative stone for my cast iron wood stove from the same man's forest by the way, seeing that slab next to its wooden brethren every day was priceless. Those boards cost about twice as much as mid-tier veneer floor boards, but they will outlast the house.
>If you want authenticity there's the Amish lifestyle
Yes there is, and I think it's absolutely amazing. If I didn't have a family that doesn't entirely share my views (heating the house solely with wood is about the limit of household hipsterdom) there's a real chance I'd be living in Amish country, at a monastery or some mountain top. That's definitely were things were heading. I don't think you quite appreciate how hipster my taste actually is, you must have been gravely misinformed. One last example: while studying I lived in a cottage without indoor plumbing or heating, on an island outside Stockholm. I used a row boat to get to town.
So no, to be honest it's not really about "living the lifestyle of those who would never have to worry about their personal and familial finance".
> through sophistication and coolness
In order for cool to exist, there must be un-cool, which is everyone else.
So you're completely right in that hipsters aren't trying to show that they're richer than others. Just that they're better. In that sense, hipsters and the conspicuously wealthy are united.
The author claimed that hipsters do what they do to mimic the wealthy, which is not true. The fact that they, as any human being, strive for some kind of status and exclusivity, is a different question altogether.
Being a good maintainer or creating useful projects gives you status in the open source community. Rendering or arguing sound, legally difficult decisions confers status if you're a judge. These communities are fundamentally open: anyone who can do those things can join and raise their status in those communities.
On other hand, the conspicuously wealthy and hipsters tend towards the extreme end of the status-seeking, with a lot of emphasis on exclusivity. The source of the status is very closely aligned with the status itself.
The conspicuously rich country-club set make a little community for themselves just based on the fact that they can prove to each other how rich they are. And the defining trait of a hipster is being able to show how cool they are, which means that status itself is the key to entry in the community.
Please note that I'm not trying to beat up on you -- we need status-driven people in the world, else few would ever want to become a politician or a leader. But I do think that hipsters as a community take status drive much further than most other groups, sometimes to comical effect.
If anything being "normal" allows you to appreciate more forms of cool, even if it's just by gawking.
But with "longing for authenticity" I was mostly referring to hipster consumption, most of it can be characterised this way, from fixed gear bikes to hand roasted pour over coffee.
Of course the whole thing can tend to devolve into obscurity for the sake of obscurity, and it also is hijacked by consumerism like everything else, but it's pretty clear that a strong common factor is "genuineness".
Additionally, sophistication and coolness are subjective. Who are you trying to appear sophisticated and cool to?
I've found that I'm much happier being "me" and not caring what other people think. Ironically, people find this attitude pretty cool.
- doesn't it seem a bit ironic that in your desire to distinguish yourself, you identify with an external cultural movement?
No, not really. I don't identify with a movement; I do however have certain tastes and behaviors (as do some of my friends), which other people have labeled as "hipster". The thing is, my tastes and preferences are genuine. I don't like like obscure underground hip-hop because I want to be perceived as hipster, I like it because it's fucking awesome.
- Seems like if you really wanted to be different, you would focus on just being "you" and ignore what other people are doing.
I do do that. But its not a simple process of just deciding to be "me" one day because I don't know what that "me" actually is. Personal growth is a process of transformation, and sometimes you try new things and realize you don't care much for them, and other times they become a part of who you really are.
- Additionally, sophistication and coolness are subjective. Who are you trying to appear sophisticated and cool to?
Eh, sure, but its more complicated than that. I want this guy to think I'm cool:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Kerouac_...
Not these guys:
http://www.trbimg.com/img-57e58c72/turbine/la-et-mn-capsule-...
- I've found that I'm much happier being "me" and not caring what other people think.
Sure, I agree. But "me" just happens to be things which most people associate with hipsterdom.
- Ironically, people find this attitude pretty cool.
I don't think it's ironic - being yourself is cool, and I'm happy for you.
In general though I don't think subcultures are very ironic. Most people want to belong to something, even if they don't like (aspects of) the majority culture. If there is a group with similar sensibilities to you then why not join them and protest mass consumerism or whatever together? Even if it means adapting your style a bit.
Human beings don't exist in vacuums, almost everything we do is in relation to other people and their opinions and culture.
As an aside, is a hipster like quantum measurement? Once something/someone/someplace has been labelled as "hipster", it is immediately not-hipster any more? "this restaurant/bar is so hipster!" = immediate & total lack of cool now that everyone knows, and it is time for newer, cooler things to be found away from the maddening crowds? No offence intended to parent post, just general observations - just compare it to MySpace, Soundcloud, Facebook, WhatsApp etc - all really cool & hip initially but once everyone (including your parents!) were using them it got uncool really fast and the next cool & hip stuff was being found elsewhere.
Personally I find hipster more of an adjective really, and not a "group" like well-known subcultures - e.g. goth or emo are commonly known subcultre groups that people identify with, but I would say hipster does not fall into a subculture in the same way that Trekkie or Grunger would in my experience.
These sentences just contradict each other. I doubt you're a hipster, because a real hipster would deny being a hipster, and yet you're identifying as one.
Explained, the tech industry created a lot of wealth that was had by people not used to having large amounts of money and they did what people usually do in that case; see lottery winners. Celebrity wealth is like the Hollywood stars type, flashy cars, clothes, and gadgets, that are all appearance oriented.
The long term wealthy or those having grown up in it always favored enriching activities, from sports to trips to the arts. You can see it in the philanthropic actions which are of completely different sort than those who demonstrate their wealth celebrity styles whose philanthropic tend to be similar; demonstrative and self congratulatory.
I liked this guide by the Financial Samurai [1] who advocates his readers avoid living a conspicuously rich lifestyle. It's been a few years since I read it, but a quick skim makes me think it's held up pretty well despite its paranoid tone.
[1] http://www.financialsamurai.com/the-rise-of-stealth-wealth-g...
It's the difference between how the nouveaux rich and the bluebloods signal wealth.
For instance, if you're newly lower upper class, you like splurging on nice kitchens and laundry facilities - stainless steel/granite countertops and new appliances with all the bells and whistles. If you are truly wealthy and have been for generations, you tend to not give a shit about your kitchen or your laundry facilities - that sort of thing is just for menials, as you're not spending any time in the kitchen, and you wouldn't be entertaining your guests there - that's what the dining room and parlour are for.
One consequence of the Cultural Revolution in China is that none of the newly minted rich are truly bluebloods - wealth is only a few generations old. Hence the splurging on nice purses and nice cars. A truly wealthy person wouldn't be caught dead in the front seat of a Lamborghini - he owns the Bentley and pays for a driver to live with him so he doesn't have to bother with driving.
Like I said, it's a truly insightful and as a consequence a nasty book. If I can find the title I'll update this post.
I buy free-range/organic whatever because in some cases it's genuinely healthier/tastier (ex: grass-fed beef, uncured bacon, hormone-free chicken, legit Extra Virgin Olive Oil, etc), and the benefit to the animals/farmers is a bonus. I see shows because I enjoy them, I take nice vacations every once in a while because I enjoy them. I buy nice coffee because I use a french press and can taste the difference over Folgers. I go to a nice gym because I enjoy the jacob's ladder machine, the general cleanliness and high availability of equipment.
None of that is to show off to anyone. Sure I might bring it up in conversation if I think it's interesting and relevant, but it's hardly the "look at me and how awesome I think I am!" vibe that driving a Hummer, living in a Mansion or wearing $50 designer T-shirts is.
(TLP, you're dearly dearly missed)
Aside from that the things that are good: fast cars (and place to drive them), private library, private environment that incorporates gym, pool and a computing infrastructure that allows latency-less research and investment + computing.
You can get that for about 400K a year household.