Anyone can counterfeit status symbols because signification inherently permits lying.

Evidence

These communications problems are all minor, however, compared with an even bigger loophole in the entire status-signaling process: cheating. As the famed semiotician Umberto Eco explains, “Every time there is signification there is the possibility of using it in order to lie.” Consider the grifter Anna Sorokin—aka Anna Delvey—who convinced New York’s elites that she was an heiress to a German solar power fortune, as a result of her wearing expensive outfits from Celine, Alexander Wang, and Balenciaga, and showering hotel staff and taxi drivers in a daily confetti bomb of hundred-dollar bills. By using all the right signals of wealth, Sorokin could enjoy the status of an actual heiress. The journalist Jessica Pressler writes, “Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else.” Until law enforcement intervened, Sorokin’s cheating worked wonders. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 231

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and to signaling-theory work in economics; the Sorokin case exemplifies the honesty-cost problem in status-signal models. — connects to: Consumer credit and mass prosperity enable widespread symbolic status counterfeiting. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 232; People can promote a forgery while genuinely believing it, through self-persuasion. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1316; People can sincerely promote useful falsehoods without conscious base motives (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• People can promote a forgery while genuinely believing it, through self-persuasion. #expands (0.85) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1316
• People can sincerely promote useful falsehoods without conscious base motives #expands (0.85)
• High reputation stakes create strong incentives to counterfeit protection credentials. #exemplifies (0.82) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 116
• Status symbols fail when outsiders own them and display is not genuine behavioral residue. #qualifies (0.78) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 734
• A status symbol must plausibly serve an everyday function to be convincing. #qualifies (0.76) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 207
• Forged attribution is a more potent lie than straightforward falsehood #corroborates (0.75)
• One can defend a public image with no authentic self behind it #expands (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 403
• Individual authentic cases can be exploited to lend credibility to a generalized racist lie #exemplifies (0.74) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 572
• Sincere false believers and cynical deceivers produce the same public messages #qualifies (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 709
• The Protocols’ forgery status was converted into proof of authenticity #exemplifies (0.72)