Status symbols work only when the object serves a natural everyday function.

Evidence

Twice the price of normal concrete grain silos, the navy-blue glass and steel Harvestore was the grain silo of choice for wealthy American farmers in the 1970s—the “Cadillac” of grain silos. “The one thing [Harvestores] were good for was a landmark,” recalled a farmer. “When someone would ask where we lived, we would just say look for the three blue silos.” Mere interest in purchasing a Harvestore drew farmers into a country-club-like social scene: salesmen wined and dined customers on seminar cruises and treated them to Las Vegas weekends. By the early 1980s these “Wisconsin skyscrapers” towered over the most prosperous farms in the American heartland. Harvestores weren’t the most cost-efficient silos, nor even the most practical ones (farmers claimed problems with mold, and there were instances of spontaneous combustion), but they functioned very well as status symbols—observable objects and behaviors that aid individuals in status claims. Farmers who owned a Harvestore or two could communicate a higher status position than those who owned standard-issue silos. … Since we should avoid bragging about social position, successful status symbols rely on sign-vehicles that play a natural role in our daily lives. A million-dollar hunk of iron could be evidence of wealth, but it wouldn’t work as a status symbol because normal people don’t own raw industrial materials. The Harvestore, on the other hand, functions as a grain silo, and so it makes an ideal status symbol. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 205

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A status symbol must plausibly serve an everyday function to be convincing. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 207; Status symbols require non-status rationales, and alibis mask status motives — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 208; The being of everyday objects is veiled by their instrumental function

Broader Connections

• A status symbol must plausibly serve an everyday function to be convincing. #corroborates (0.97) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 207
• Status symbols require non-status rationales, and alibis mask status motives #expands (0.78) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 208
• The being of everyday objects is veiled by their instrumental function #complicates (0.72)