Purchasing sign systems like designer clothes has become a labour market survival strategy.
Evidence
The image serves to establish an identity in the market place. This is also true in labour markets. The acquisition of an image (by the purchase of a sign system such as designer clothes and the right car) becomes a singularly important element in the presentation of self in labour markets and, by extension, becomes integral to the quest for individual identity, self-realization, and meaning. Amusing yet sad signals of this sort of quest abound. A California firm manufactures imitation car telephones, indistinguishable from the real ones, and they sell like hot cakes to a populace desperate to acquire such a symbol of importance. Personal image consultants have become big business in New York City, the International Herald Tribune has reported, as a million or so people a year in the city region sign up for courses with firms called Image Assemblers, Image Builders, Image Crafters, and Image Creators. ‘People make up their minds about you in around one tenth of a second these days,’ says one image consultant. ‘Fake it till you make it,’ is the slogan of another. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1823
Categorization
- XREF: The imitation-car-phone and image-consultant details connect to the social-capital literature (signaling trustworthiness) and to Bernays/PR histories. — connects to: Workers derive status from their power to disrupt and survive the economy
- SEED: An essay could trace ‘the presentation of self in labour markets’ from Goffman through the personal-branding industry, using the image-consultant boom and imitation status objects as evidence.