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those very Beatles—four Gene Vincent clones in pompadours held aloft with copious dollops of Brylcreem—were berating Stu for switching to a chic “Caesar cut” where the bangs fell straight down on his forehead.
While on vacation in Paris, they realized Stu’s look would be necessary for picking up “Bohemian beauties on the Left Bank.”
John and Paul had lost confidence in their British take on American swagger and now believed Stu’s look would set them apart from the other English rock ’n’ roll bands. Despite their initial mockery, the Beatles returned to Liverpool without Stu but wearing his distinctive “moptop.”
While young women loved the Beatles’ hair, British adults found it “unsightly, unsafe, unruly, and unclean.” Factories suspended young apprentices who dared to show up in a moptop.
At first young American men also scoffed at the “effeminate” moptop. But upon noticing the hairstyle’s aphrodisiac effect on young American women, they decided it was time to grow out their crew cuts.
By 1968, parents calmed down, perhaps because such anguish over bushy fringes had become moot. A moptop looked eminently respectable compared with the Beatles’ full-length hippie locks.
As with the moptop and thousands of the other micro social movements we call trends, humans hop en masse from one set of arbitrary practices to another, for elusive reasons.
These peculiarities of human behavior can be summarized in a broader enigma I like to call the Grand Mystery of Culture: Why do humans collectively prefer certain practices, and then, years later, move on to alternatives for no practical reason?
By contrast technological change is very logical, as innovations provide greater efficiency and conveniences at lower costs.
In almost all instances, new behaviors begin as an exclusive practice of smaller social groups—whether elites or outsiders—and then eventually spread to the wider population.
The fact that preferences in these disparate fields follow a similar rhythm of change suggests there must be universal principles of human behavior at work—the presence of a “cultural gravity” nudging humans into the same collective behaviors at the same time.
I realized that there was one key concept that links everything together—and that is status. The problem is: status itself has also long been a mystery.
Sociological research demonstrates that our social position affects long-term well-being, motivates our behavior, and becomes a goal in its own right—and thus can be considered a fundamental human desire.
Despite the importance of status, there has been a conspicuous lack of discussion about its influence on human behavior. This stems, in part, from the fact that most people view stratification as a social ill.
This also explains why we dislike social climbers: they remind us there is a ladder to climb. In fact, the modern word “villain” derives from the status-related sin of lowly villein feudal tenants daring to seek a higher social position.
Just as microeconomics posits that markets form as self-interested individuals maximize utility for their money, a similar “invisible-hand” mechanism exists between status and culture: in seeking to maximize and stabilize status, individuals end up clustering into patterns of behavior (customs, traditions, fashion, fads, taste) that we understand as culture.
Status shapes our aspirations and desires, sets standards for beauty and goodness, frames our identities, creates collective behaviors and morals, encourages the invention of new aesthetic sensibilities, and acts as an automated motor for permanent cultural change. Culture is embodied in the products, behaviors, styles, meanings, values, and sensibilities that make up the human experience—and it is status that guides their creation, production, and diffusion.
These principles aren’t just important because culture plays a major role in our lives, but because the parts of life we believe transcend culture—technology, personal beliefs, and judgments of beauty—also get swept up in the vagaries of fashion.
Why does internet culture often feel less valuable than what we experienced in the analog world? Why does everything seem less cool than before?
Where we once pleaded for status in person (or through media reporting of real-life appearances at social events), there is now a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week pageant of flexing on social media apps.
Meanwhile, the fragmentation of culture into the “long tail” has diluted the power of taste to serve as an effective means of social exclusion. And the inherent hyperspeed of the internet means fashion cycles pump out ephemeral fads rather than era-defining trends.
Many feel we’ve entered into a period of cultural stasis. On the internet, time moves so fast that it doesn’t move at all. The transformation of idealistic hippies from the class of ’68 into yuppie materialists fifteen years later provided the dramatic tension of the film The Big Chill; in 2022, culture from 2007 feels disappointingly familiar.
Meanwhile, Gen Z appears to have abandoned previous generations’ determination toward radical artistic innovation for laid-back amateurism.
if we seek to promote equality over hierarchy and encourage cultural creativity and experimentation, we must learn the full implications of how culture and status work together.
First, status denotes a position within a social hierarchy based on respect and perceived importance.
As individuals, our status position is strongly tied to our membership in these categories, but within a tier, our ranking can go up or down based on further accomplishments and attributes.
every status position comes with specific rights and duties, with the most desirable benefits accruing to those at the top. The vast majority of any population has normal status, for which they receive common courtesies and basic privileges—but no special treatment.
In ancient times, a high status position often came with increased responsibilities, but in the more liberal twenty-first century, the famous and wealthy can reap fabulous benefits without many social commitments in return.
Organizations motivate members by distributing the spoils in accordance with the hierarchy, which means for every benefit, there will be a cut-off point: those above the line receive it, and those below don’t.
The third lesson from Lassie is that status is bestowed by others. Status is a purely social phenomenon; it manifests in the interactions between individuals.
Our status position is always contextual, based on how we are treated in a particular time and place.
In living among others, we always have a status position, and this position determines the quality of our daily life.
There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is ‘flat,’ and in which all members are equal. Unstratified society, with a real equality of its members, is a myth which has never been realized in the history of mankind.”
As an incentive for star performers to repeat their feats, groups provide a disproportionate share of the benefits as reward. This natural mechanism means a status hierarchy will form any time individuals work together toward a task.
With status as a universal phenomenon, everyone on earth has a specific status position—both within their local community and as part of the “global village.” Awareness of that position is integral to our lives.
Status seeking is obvious among insufferable snobs, petty civil servants, and Porsche-driving hedge fund managers, but neither capitalism nor complex bureaucracies are necessary to stoke such ambitions.
A growing body of empirical research concludes that status is a fundamental human desire. Normal status is nice, but long-term happiness requires a sense of higher status.
A study found that 70 percent of research subjects would give up a silent raise in salary for a more impressive job title.
Around the world “individuals experience elevated social well-being when they enjoy a higher income than others in their local geographic area.”
A higher status position results in the production of more serotonin, while being in the presence of a status superior raises our blood pressure.
The benefits of higher status are so obvious that a hypothetical person born without an innate drive for status would still seek a higher position out of pure rational calculation.
Esteem is the backbone of status hierarchies, and this form of social approval acts as a benefit in its own right. We like feeling liked.
“The familiar yearning to ‘be someone’ in life,” writes Cecilia Ridgeway, “is not so much about money and power as about being publicly seen and acknowledged as worthy and valuable by the community.”
To discern that we are esteemed, we need concrete evidence in the form of kind words, pleasant facial expressions, careful body movements, and the granting of spontaneous favors.
So, even if we are seeking esteem rather than superior treatment, we need some form of superior treatment to perceive the esteem. The demand for tangible status benefits thus can’t be separated from a desire for respect.
People with above-average status experience favorable interactions—“salutations, invitations, compliments, and minor services.”
High status also means more attention and rewards for doing the same work as lower-status individuals.
Another favorable interaction is deference—the right to do as one pleases, at one’s own pace, with few interventions or interruptions.
An additional status benefit is access to scarce resources. As we saw before, a disproportionate distribution of rewards goes to the top as an incentive for further contribution.
The final status benefit is dominance—the ability to make others do things against their wishes. In theory status provides influence primarily through esteem rather than through fear. But where necessary, status can be wielded as power.
