😃
Mar 7, 2025
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No, I think people are just overwhelmed by the amount information and number of choices an available to them.
Mar 7, 2025
sociology degree here ☝️🤓 i think they meant to say “status symbol”, bc “status signal” is not a thing lol. in the simplest of terms, when you look cool or rich or whatever people think you are cool or rich or whatever. hence people following trends and posting them on socials. seconding the other comment, it’s from a broader soc theory called social interactionism
i also think the poster is slightly misusing social capital (refers to relations) to mean cultural capital (combination of things like clothes, knowledge, behavior etc) 🤷🏻♀️
FWIW you can’t avoid the role of either of these bc of how humans function but due to lack of algo + not being based on constant pics of ourselves/our lives i think it’s a little harder for status symbols to have the same value or function the same way on here than on apps like instagram or tiktok. which is a good thing!
Mar 7, 2025
It's an old sociological concept of how individuals indicate to others their class status or position in various relations of power (e.g. "conspicuous consumption" of luxury goods) discussed by Veblen in the 19th century, and extending through the 20th century via Erving Goffman and Bourdieu ("cultural capital") but which, in the case of "thought leaders" on twitter, probably descends more directly from these ideas' 1970s uptake in economics as a special case of "asymmetric information"
Mar 7, 2025
