These analytic tools are particularly helpful for addressing a pressing concern of the moment: Why does internet culture often feel less valuable than what we experienced in the analog world? Why does everything seem less cool than before? The reasons are much clearer when viewed through the lens of how the internet has changed status signaling. 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. Elites could once protect their status symbols
...more
