status symbols are some of the hardest to understand aspects of any cultural society
what makes any given thing a symbol of importance is a rare nft of a cartoon
monkey really indicative of anything what about a ferrari truth is stage symbols have
always been pretty mysterious and weird just look at some of these
number 10. pineapples our ancestors were harvesting pineapples in south america thousands
of years ago and why not it's delicious refreshing and it looks pretty cool as far as a fruit goes
columbus was so impressed with the fruit that after pillaging the new world he brought it
back to europe with him and it soon became the it thing for anybody who was anybody in the 16th
and 17th centuries europeans fell in love with the pineapple it was exotic and hard to come by
so getting hold of one indicated that you had money or influence charles ii commissioned a
painting of himself with a pineapple the cost of building a greenhouse to grow pineapples
in england was upwards of 28 000 pounds many of them failed and it took years to grow the fruit
all of which added to the cachet of having one so how much did a pineapple cost back then
about 60 pounds adjusting for inflation that's around 11 000 pounds today so in a lot of way a
pineapple is just like owning some other needless luxury ironically or maybe not depending on your
perspective people would not actually do much with these pricey pineapples if you're spending that
much you're not going to just make a fruit salad right often the fruit would just sit on a table
like a decoration to show off for anyone who came by 9. ornamental hermits if a pineapple seems like
an obscure sort of decoration a hermit has to be next level in the 18th century part of tending a
garden meant making it as lush and luxurious as possible if you wanted to shelf your station in
life after all only the most high society types would be able to afford majestic toeberries and
exotic flowers from abroad but at some point this evolved beyond normal garden fixtures to include
the ornamental hermit just as the name suggests an ornamental hermit was a man a literal person
who lived in a little shack or hovel on the ground of another person's home think of a garden gnome
only in real life these men would dress as druids grow long beards and essentially looked like your
own personal gandalf they also didn't bathe just to complete the illusion the hermit was
not to speak with anyone for a period of seven years they'd just live there not bathing and
looking the part the trend evolved from the idea of roman emperor hadrian having a single-person
retreat at his villa something that was later adapted by pope pius iv and by the 18th century
people just decided that having a lone hermit was in keeping with more of an emotional ideal
of the melancholy that is to say they exemplified introspection and somberness feelings which were
valued at the time and apparently best appreciated in living breathing form only the most wealthy of
people could afford to hire such person to live like this and thus one of the most bizarre status
symbols ever was born luckily for the would-be hermits the trend didn't last long number eight
men's high heels these days high-heeled shoes are almost exclusively sold to women
people would arguably look at a man strangely if they saw him wearing heels because of cultural
basses we still hold relating to what qualifies as menswear and women's wear what's odd about this is
that high heels were originally made for men and not women heels date back to somewhere between
the 10th and 15th century in persia and they weren't considered effeminate or odd in any way
just the opposite hills were worn by warriors as they allowed them greater control and security and
stirrups on horseback at the time the persian military was not accessible to just any man
if you plan to ride on a horse then you needed to be wealthy enough to buy your own thus those
who could wear heels were part of the elite class the heels were introduced to europe at the end of
the 1500s when the persians made a grand tour of europe looking for allies in war european nobility
couldn't resist the allure of something new and unique to them heels were manly and cool so they
all wanted a pair of their own when people of lower station began wearing heels the aristocrats
made higher heels they became impractically high and that cemented them as the shoes of the elite
because normal people couldn't actually perform real jobs in high heels so only the upper crust
could get away with wearing them 7. low number license plates cars as a status symbol is by
no means a new idea as long as cars have existed there have been the more expensive and luxurious
versions that people have sought as a way to show off their wealth the rolls-royce boat tail
will set you back 28 million dollars if you're looking to show off your fancy car chops today
but it's not the only car related state assemble out there by any means in rhode island and several
other states you don't need a multi-million dollar automobile to show off your street cred you just
need the right license plate low numbers have long been desired by license plate enthusiasts
when license plates were first issued they did them in the most logical way you could imagine
numerically so the first ever plate issued was simply number one and so it went as plates go out
of circulation those numbers can be reissued or if they still exist owners can and will transfer them
to relatives or even sell them and people pay a lot of money for them the governor got that
number one plate back in 1903. you can imagine the imagined cashier of having your car emblazoned
with a government-sanctioned one on it it created the idea that a low number was somehow good this
is a trend that you can see every day in almost anything with a numerical ordering system people
want to be number one oftentimes it makes no sense at all but we still like the sound of it that's
essentially how it works with these plates it's meaningless but people still want them so what's
a low plate worth delaware's nine sold for nearly two hundred thousand dollars in 1994. 14 went for
325 000 despite not meaning much objectively they have that subjective value which allows
someone to say that they're the top or at least the top 14 and that means a lot to some folks
6. dueling scars have you ever heard the saying chicks dig scars juvenile though it may be there's
something to the idea of scars being cool maybe not literally but you can't deny that there is
a cultural sort of appreciation for someone who has battle scars or evidence of trauma why who
knows but you can see it in books and movies all the time those scenes where the hero takes their
shirt off and dramatically reveals the cuts and holes and dares of a hard life that shows just how
tough and admirable they must truly be the idea that scars are desirable wasn't born in a vacuum
of fiction either in real life people have pursued scars as a way to show off their own badassery for
longer than you might think the 2008 study shows that women were more attracted to men who had
facial scars but the practice of scarring to be cool goes back further germans used to engage in
duels ostensibly to get cuts on their faces this was done by college men and fraternities to show
off their manliness the nazi party actually reintroduced the practice of dueling in 1936.
the duels were never meant to be malicious or to settle real disputes they were just sort of like
a fight club style battle to prove one's toughness as you might expect not everyone was inclined to
let an opponent slash them with a rapier word is that some men used raises on their own faces or
even paid doctors to do it for them 5. wigs if you've seen any period movies that cover
the 18th century in england then you know wigs were a prominent part of british high society
all the aristocrats in all movies were those giant puffy white wigs the concept of the powder wig
actually comes from france and king louis xiii so war undercover is baldness the wigs were powdered
because made from horse or goat hair as they were and never actually cleaned they smelled awful and
were full of lies powder cut back on the nastiness as we saw with high heels the elite and society
love nothing more than to do whatever everyone else is doing and so the wig trend spread rapidly
they became more ornate and complex as the trend grew and just like a pair of sneakers in modern
times if you wanted to stand out among a certain crowd of people you had to have the best looking
wig that you could get some high-end wigs when adjusted for inflation could cost over 10 thousand
dollars wigs became so popular that black market arose and wig theft became a serious problem
to appreciate just how serious you should know that some people apparently trained
monkeys to snatch wigs right off people's heads and run away with them 4. lawns some people take
their lawn care very seriously might even say too seriously many neighborhoods have
one lawn that's just pristine and green all year round because someone is devoting a ton of time
to making it look majestic a lot of other people don't care but once upon a time a lawn was a thing
of true status a patch of grass seems like an odd status symbol but not once you realize what it
represents in a way it's actually very crass the lord once upon a time showed your wealth because
it was wasteful a peasant couldn't afford a lawn their lawn was their livelihood a farmer couldn't
have a lawn they needed that land to grow food to make a living but a rich person they could
waste that land so a large lawn indicated that you didn't care about how much space you wasted over
time homeowners got to have their own property and their own lawns which in their way showed a
kind of independence it showed success we still think of homeownership in these terms but not
necessarily the needless patch of grass in front of one number three paper fans most people today
take paper for granted you go to staples and buy a slab of it for your printer and it costs a few
bucks no big deal but if you get into the world of paper you'll learn that paper is never just
paper there's that cheap print of paper you could buy that's made from processed wood pulp and costs
under 10 for 500 sheets or you can buy 50 sheets of paper made from processed elephant poo for 32
in korea hanji was handmade paper produced from mulberry trees it was used for writing but also
numerous decorative and artistic purposes as well one of those purposes was for folded hand fans
these fans were only allowed to be used for men in public and were shown off as a status symbol
the more ornate the fan the more important the person wielding it arguably was different colors
shapes and decorations showed off that status for instance the more bamboo ribs the pan had
the higher the status royalty would wield fans with 50 ribs lesser aristocracy might have 40.
2. salt of all the seasonings in the world none is more important to chefs than salt when a chef says
something needs seasoning they don't mean saffron they mean salt and historically salt has been a
big deal salt used to be one of the most valuable commodities in the world in ancient greece slaves
would be sold for salt clearly it had some serious value and this extended through much of history
because of its value those who could show off salt were also showing off their social status
the true bigwigs of society could afford salt cellars an ornate container that held salt and at
gatherings and parties the host would show it off like it was a porsche in the driveway that dinner
those of greater status would be seated above the salt and lesser folks sat further away 1.
pillows pillows hold an odd position in the world at large you have one on your bed for sleeping but
some people also have a good half dozen on the bed that are just there for decoration the same thing
happens on sofas as well the world is full of pillows many of which are just there to look nice
but not actually be used for anything pillows date back some nine thousand years the first
mesopotamian pillow was made of stone and served the purpose of keeping your head off the ground so
fewer bugs would crawl in your mouth at night the stone pillow became widely popular and only the
wealthy could afford them because carved stone isn't cheap today and it wasn't cheap back then
thus a stone pillow was something that showed off your status as a bigwig decorative pillows spread
to other cultures ornately painted ceramic pillows became a status symbol in china in
the middle ages soft pillows were used by the rich and eschewed by the men as being weak to this day
we've kept up the idea of the decorative pillow as something opulent even though it has no real
use as a pillow the next time anyone complains that you have pillows you can't actually use
just tell them you're participating in a 9 000 year old tradition of decadence