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Comment by 14 | Hacker News Reader

I find it funny rich people buying a cheaply made Chinese product and thinking it is a status symbol and that their bag is superior.

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There's not enough actually rich people around to explain the revenue these brands make. It's not rich people for the most part, just people who want to appear rich.

These brands exist to separate the 100k-200k household income demographic from their disposable income, and maybe some other demographics from money they didn't really have in the first place.

Most people who have money and manage to hold on to it have more sense than buying an overpriced low-quality bag that telegraphs they're a sucker.

You obviously havnt heard of ex-Malaysian Prime Minister's wife bag collection. There are rich or super rich people with habits like a drug addicts buying up these branded goods. Is basically like YTers getting patreon patrons. They dont need millions of followers. They just need 1000 hardcore fans that pay them monthly.

I'd figure that the "status" it symbolizes is some combination of:

- Juvenile any-excuse-to-say-I'm-betterism

- Convenient stupidity

- Willful ignorance

- Gloating that they're in the 0.1%, and need not care what is done to the bottom 99% in the name of catering to their petty wishes

(But I'll admit that, if enough of their social circle has such "luxuries", then they're stuck in a "I am in Rome, so ..." situation.)

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