Social Fluency: A New Kind Of Luxury
🎧 listen here 🎧 while the population feeds
Money used to get you into rooms. Now it’s what you do once your in them. Social capital, the nouvelle rich, what does it mean to be seasoned in people speak. If you’re otherworldly it just means learning how to translate yourself. In cases of extreme extrodinaire what do you bring to the table? In an age where everyone has access, the only things left to signal is how well you can exist amongst others. At the table, bottles of wine, half empty drinks and bloody meats draped over with sauce. In a room full of people where do you sit and what does it say about you and who you are?
On a recent high of Business, fun, and social experiments rendering my phone a useless block too heavy to bother holding; I’ve found a surprising new kind of capital. Your ability to socialize. How easy are you to talk to? Can you hold your weight in a conversation, or are you just sitting there watching it happen? The undeniable fact is that as wealth becomes mainstreamed people naturally search for other inconspicuous ways to separate themselves from the proletariat. In an age of access having the newest bestest thing doesn’t appeal to many. It’s like we’ve been desensitized by this horrible display of godliness. Rightfully so. That’s when the conversation shifts from how much something cost to how much time you spend building sustaining relationships. A new kind of luxury isn’t what you own, it’s who youre surrounded by. Educated or not, what does your circle say about you? A wide range of subjects from costs of IVF, Michelin stars, buddhism, and design all speaking to something bigger. Where you stand on the cultural hierarchy. In the age of access, how able are you to learn, to visit, be present and mingle? This isn’t 1980 and owning a Macintosh or Hewlett Packard just isn’t cutting it anymore.
Opulence now counted in the calories you can afford to eat and later then burn off. Because now spending your time on a phone in a social setting reads a certain way. The phone concealing your inability to meet the bar of who you portray or pretend to be online. Interesting. Not to say that I don’t enjoy a moment of doom scrolling or researching, again, I am no better and falter to the system occasionally but I can recognize where and when it’s acceptable. Its poor taste to do so in the company of others, why exchange human connection with superficial dopamine and moving images on a screen. We think the newest bags, the coolest cars, going above and beyond is what gets you a seat at a table. In reality, it surrounds you with the wrong energy. More than anything it reveals uncertainty. desperately trying to prove to others what they don’t even believe themselves. I think everyone has the ability to acclimate; some just had a head start with training in their upbringing, being forced to contribute to the conversation or order your own food at the restaurant. Being a kid at the same table with adults building your understanding of what it means to host.
Traditional signals of wealth have inflated so much that they no longer differentiate status. Signaling frontiers move. I think we’re in a really interesting position but I’m not here to tell you where you stand in all that, ill let you figure that one out by yourself.
;)
-z