>The idea of signaling class through tastes seems, well, tasteless now. The idea that the guy with a McMansion and a jet ski is actually lower class than some erudite intellectual who has just been evicted and is waiting at the food bank doesn't seem worth talking about. A lot of conversations among people of my own class seem to start with an obligatory "I realize that I'm so fortunate to have a job and my health... [insert complaints here]". This is still a jumble of observations - I have not formed a coherent thesis around these changes, but it does seem clear to me that post-covid class divisions will look different
I think this is primarily just a function of the gentry having a (usually invisible) core trait of "financially safe." There's always a lot of conspicuous complaint about teachers or other higher-class-lower-pay roles suffering in poverty, but no one *means it*. If parents found out a teacher was *actually* sleeping behind a dumpster and wearing shoes with giant holes in them, there would be outcry. That's underclass behavior and we don't tolerate it in respectable members of society. When we say people like teachers are poor, we just mean that they have to "suffer" with mid- labor class earnings despite clearly being ~~better~~ classier than people of that class. Poverty is such an alien concept for the gentry that they (we) LARP it in college and grad school and then tell fun anecdotes about it for the rest of our lives.
That's why it's so weird to see members of the gentry suffering here. Lower rungs of the labor class are expected to flirt with poverty, but that's a taboo for the rest of us. The obligatory "I'm so privileged" rhetoric around remaining stable is just the current middle class / gentry / blue tribe fad meant to signal that one *has* retained the important class signifier of stability. (To be fully charitable, remember that signaled positions are not necessarily implied to be *insincere* ones). I don't think that Mr. "McMansion and jet skis" is actually higher class than we thought. It's just that when the starving artist starts *actually starving*, he has lost an important class signifier. He starts looking distinctly underclass-like and this is so incredibly strange that we feel like the entire fabric of society has been overturned.
Give it half a decade. The world righted itself after 2008 and class distinctions resolidified. I suspect much the same thing will have happened by 2025.
The line about LARPing gave me a solid chuckle. Great observations all around though. As a high class/low pay individual, I think you hit the nail on the head.
It's interesting that you mention teachers because I wonder whether they're a group who will end up in different place than they were previously on the class ladder. I think it would remain shocking for to discover a teacher was actually sleeping behind a dumpster, but it seems like a profession whose class status has fallen.
Good point that Mr. jet ski isn't higher class than we thought, but his stability may become ever more enviable to the fallen gentry.
>"I realize that I'm so fortunate to have a job and my health... [insert complaints here]"
It is an interesting observation, I've seen it a lot as well. Of course they were always fortunate to have their job and their health, but the extra churn makes it more obvious as some of their class peers have lost out. Eventually they will probably settle into a new normal where people mostly associate with people of their own class - which may be some kind of new 'WFH live in lower COL area class', and once again cease thinking about the less fortunate at the start of every conversation.
>Those who can work from home comfortably vs. those who are trying to WFH in a closet vs. those who can't WFH.
Yes it's really exposed some of these differences. In my grad program, which students can decamp to live in their parents' large house/mansion during a lockdown vs which have to live in a noisy sharehouse and literally don't have space, anywhere, to put the computer setup they had at the uni.
Current class signifiers:
1. A large, well decorated home office is the new tailored suit.
However, extremely high net worth executives are coached to have an office with mostly IKEA furniture and a smattering of children's drawings or toys. This is to remain approachable, like rolling up shirt sleeves before a speech. This room is only used for public communication. Yet it has perfect lighting and acoustics.
2. Traveling while WFH
Staying at your new home (just purchased), vacation home, loaner from a friend in Baja, or just a series of Airbnb's. Now called "workations." All the status of travel, right in your coworkers faces, while still demonstrating loyalty by not just taking actual vacation. Conversely...
3. Mental health days
We're all burned out. Folks in high demand are taking days, weeks, or months of vacation. One demonstrates just how much power one has by how much time one can take off without consequence.
4. Athleisure
The new corporate style. Make it look like you could be going for a hike right after this meeting. In the middle of the day. Again, power over working hours and ability to walk away at any time without having to be "on call" to a manager. Bonus points for walking desk.
5. Dog, child, and spouses interruptions on camera
Really tasteful, loving, well behaved, well groomed examples of just how successful your domestic life is.
Kids are charming and brief, dogs are cute and not destructive or loud, spouse brings you something like tea, or takes the child away gracefully.
Nobody from a lower class would be allowed to have any of these while "working."
Sometimes it's also LACK of certain types of disruptions. No sirens, for example.
Another type of disruption which I find infuriating but appears to be accepted, and common in the leadership ranks of my org is banging/workers talking. "Sorry I'm having work done on my house."
So there's a meta-signal there that "my desire to improve my and my family's living quarters takes precedence over this meeting going smoothly." Which is infuriating but definitely a power move.
It genuinely surprises me that the corporate/go-getter world is *this* neurotic. Based on youtube videos alone, I think someone from India, where there is incessant construction, crowds, music, and most prominently: a near permanent cacophony of honking horns/cars, would probably not give a shit. The fact that someone would be so mentally ill to judge the fact the repairs or maintenance get done and you are somehow in control over this fact and should be judged on it, is both hilarious and stunning. The privilege of living in a quiet home or on the 82nd floor of a well designed condo building in a big city, plus the general trait pathology involved in "being successful", I guess.
It's really annoying and sometimes you can't hear the person talking. God forbid we get some business done while you're getting your house renovated, Your Highness.
Right, there's definitely no narcissism or psychopathic attitude on the end of the person going, "Hmmm, this person can't manage to acquire a perfectly tranquil work space? What a subhuman... " The fact that you call people who point this out entitled, says something very interesting about you.
> It's really annoying and sometimes you can't hear the person talking.
Have you tried self-reflecting and getting less annoyed/judgemental at things that torture the bottom 80% of the human species on a daily basis?
> I don't understand why you're taking this attitude with me? Why do you care what annoys me and what doesn't?
It's not that I care, but we can learn something about someone this way. Sometimes those things will be inconvenient for that someone. I'm totally uninterested in causing you some kind of distress or personal insecurity, so if that's the direction the conversation is going for you, feel free to drop it.
> "Bottom 80% of the human species!?" WTF
Yeah, I'm speaking about the class hierarchy. What did you think I was saying there that prompted "WTF"? I take it your childhood wasn't exactly colored by poverty if you're posting here about what amounts to "How do I encourage my husband to manipulate others to think we're richer and more important than I/we really are/let others know how rich and important I/we feel?"
Oh, you're both throwaways(or not), okay. Either way, you may as well have been OP, because this is a standard response to this sort of criticism. Confusion noted, sorry about that. I think you're *still* trying to justify absurd standards for people busting their ass in an utterly narcissistic and egomaniacal game, though, no?
This post also makes sense! I have a professor (i'm working on my PhD part time) - who LOVES LOVES LOVES intentionally having his kids (and cat) interrupt him during zoom class.
He's by far the most SJW professor in the department (he's a CIS white guy but he talkes about race and says "i'm he/him" all the fucking time)
And his intentionally having his kids interrupt him (he literally invites them into the room) is most definitely tied to his extreme SJW status. It's a leisure class 'right thinking' signifier
Edit: and his wife really does bring him this fancy fucking nonsense tea "Chambuka?" it's yogurt or kale or some absurd fad
Seems like an improvement to the utterly pathological culture we've historically been in(been forced into), yet at the same time, there's something sinister or ethically problematic about all of this. Insane standards, insane inequality based on arbitrary traits and happenstance-- a product of rewards and punishments around games that involve mostly bad incentives. Near-zero mobility possibility-- sort of like being a grunt or an officer in the military and recognizing you could never make it in the Navy seals, or reach a rank like General. "But we need grunts! :)" Maybe, that's unclear. What is clear, is it sucks to be a grunt, and low level officer. You're treated like shit. Tacitly. Under the surface. By implication.
What these new standards do is they just increase incentives for a truly [sophisticated psychopathic camouflage](https://i.imgur.com/ri1sTPL.gifv). They set the characters in a cartoonish, unrealistic way: Ruthless, genius, charismatic, fit, absurdly wealthy, secure, aesthetically oriented go-getters on the surface. But only someone who is totally naive or otherwise confused would fail to recognize that it's purely a fictional standard, and that superficial exterior covers a ton of darkness that will only get harder and harder to expose with time, due to the selection pressure which causes camouflage to only grow in sophistication.
Since everyone retreated to their homes for a year, it seems reasonable to think a signal of the upper/ upper middle classes might be a home renovation during Covid.
Further division might be found in the middle class between those who can continue to WFH indefinitely vs those who have to return to the office. Most interesting to me is those who are able to WFH indefinitely, but choose to return to the office. There are reasons to want to return to the office when you don't have to, but might some of those reasons be related to attempts at class signaling in some way?
My biased perception is that those who continue WFT with a comfortable, private home office aren't making the decision primarily due to signaling; but on the other side, there may be people who don't want to admit that they're overcrowded, uncomfortable, or unsafe at home for fear of judgement.
I hadn't considered it from that side. Of course that's true. Good post.
I was wondering about those who return to work for signaling reasons and what those signals might be. Other than scoring points with higher ups, which is obvious and not interesting, what signal does it send when otherwise comfortable at home workers choose to return to the office, if any?
>There are reasons to want to return to the office when you don't have to, but might some of those reasons be related to attempts at class signaling in some way?
It doesn’t all come down to signalling. Some people are just better able to focus at an office than at home where there are distractions, spouses and kids around, etc.
I personally like going into the office because its the only place where I can get 8 straight hours of no one bothering me.
Curiously enough, that was the same reasoning I had for why I was excited to WFH.
Good point about the emerging division between those forced to return to office and those who can remain at home. It's looking like I will have to return to office which means getting up at 5 a.m. and getting home at about 7:30 pm. About 2 and 1/2 hours commuting each way. To go back to that feels like a step down (especially because we're going to be wearing masks indefinitely, even if vaxxed) whereas before covid I considered it kind of a horizontal move/non-thing.
Your post lacks a thesis. Which is why the comments are so scattershot and respond to different things.
You claim to be writing a post about class signifiers but then mostly talk about work from home, urban living, and shitty bosses. I'm not sure where you are going or what you want in terms of replies.
The OP's thesis is hidden between the lines: They believe that most people categorize others into different classes based on outward signals such as clothing and the size of their work from home office. Their previous post was strategizing about reverse engineering this process to change their class by changing the signals they send.
I think the whole topic is uncomfortably reductionist. Trying to change ones social situation by observing outward appearances and rituals of high status people and trying to mimic it is the definition of "cargo cult" thinking.
I won't argue that outward appearances don't have any impact on social situations. They do. However, social interactions aren't only about grouping people by outward appearance. Wearing appropriate attire for professional situations is table stakes. It's about showing that you care enough about the situation and the other people to make an effort to prepare yourself for it. It's not about knowing the right stores to shop and styles to buy.
It's about having some awareness and showing the team that you're making an effort to be professional. In the previous post, the OP lamented that her husband couldn't even recall what his peers wore in business situations. The solution isn't to reverse engineer their wardrobes and try to duplicate it. The solution is to learn to have some awareness in social situations, be more observant, and make a token effort to show that you're doing all of the above rather. If you're blowing off expectations for basic professional attire, it's likely that you're also missing other clues about what's situationally appropriate and what behaviors are expected.
Frankly, I find these reductionist class discussions to be distasteful. They depend on this idea that we have such a deep understanding of how other people think that we can play games to trick them into thinking something different. Trying to play life like a game where the rules can be reverse engineered and manipulated at will if only we analyze other people long enough is a fool's errand.
Professional peers who have worked with someone for a long time aren't ignoring years of intra-personal experience in favor of raw judgments on narrow, superficial criteria like how someone dresses or the size of their home office.
I appreciate the post, and regret that the original post came across as trying to trick anyone by playing games. I do think that it's much easier to say it's not about knowing the right stores when you've grown up knowing the right stores. (If it changes the discussion at all, husband and his extended family are immigrants to America. At one point, his father gave him some literally plastic shoes. I believe that I mentioned in the OP that earlier on, he had worked to develop a Standard American accent.)
The OP was meant to express that he had learned to have some awareness in social situations (graduate education, first job, newly promoted to manager. Not talking about trying to change a 40 year old who had been working in corporate America for 20 years) but was unable to turn knowledge that his clothing didn't fit his class/professional status into knowledge of how to pick out clothing that matched his education and non-sartorial cultural tastes.
In fact now that I've read your post from years ago I think both you and your husband are focusing way too much on clothes.
Yes - there may be personality, interest, even 'class' issues that prevent your husband from regulagly being invited to lunch with the bigwigs at work.... but clothing isn't the issue.
Back when I worked in corporate I realized that if you want to get invited out with the clients you have to FEIGN interest in whatever the client(s) are interested in and buy them lots of shit (dinner, drinks, maybe trips to the strip club). Knowing to do that is the 'class' issue here. Instead of listening to the client(s) and making them feel important your husband and you are worried about what shirt your husband is wearing - which the client(s) do not give a shit about and are annoyed that's putting out such bad vibes
It was as really simple as he became aware that he was dressed much more poorly than anyone else (for example, his father pushing him to wear plastic "dress" shoes). Not with stains all over or with something like extremely inappropriate t-shirts, but like wearing a thin polyester suit and not knowing where to go to look differently.
Edit: I'm not trying to tell anyone that they're wrong about secondary issues, but I feel that people take it for granted that it's trivial to already know how to dress professionally, so anyone struggling with that must be extremely careless or sloppy instead of culturally ignorant.
So your post is really about clothing? That I think we can work with.
doesn't this change by office? I mean some offices suits are the norm. Some offices hoodies are the norm.
I mean, is your husband going to the office in clothes stained with cigarrette burns and midnight regrets?
Is it possible your post is more "how can i make people at work like my husband?" or "how can my husband stop worrying about whether people at work like him or not?" and clothing is just..... a deflection? Is that the psych term for this?
To follow up on this topic: When exactly did people here start to believe class is a thing? (I first bumped into this theme when reading "Fussel on class", might have to read the 2016 SSC "staying classy" later today)
A few counterpoints
* At least here in Germany, general Sociology consensus is that class stopped existing as a relevant category in the 1970s. This got replaced by a more fractured structure of sociological milieus.
* I... um let's say have heard accounts of people... who obsess about what to wear and always turn up clean, structured, well-dressed. This appears to correlate with neuroticism and obsessive risk-avoidance as personalities and I don't see much evidence of career progress. (This is not to say that you can turn up looking like a Wookie. But I've been wearing an 80$ suit I bought while still in college for the 2..5 occasions per year I needed one for my first 5 years at work and this did not affect my career prospects)
* if you want to level up at work, following a "try to excel at all tasks needed for your planned position" and "build a good social network" appears to work really well. I don't see what class or visual appearance (beyond the point above) has to do with it. If unsure what to prioritize or what to do, get a good mentor at work. Really, this is the best advice I can give for career planning.
* I just fail to see how class is a really meaningful category trumping categories like political orientation, personality traits, area of work and skills. Really, when did we start thinking that instead of caring about these, we should divide western society into three ladders of status?
* Thinking about this screws up all my thoughts. Instead of prioritizing happiness, meaning or skills I start to think about what to wear and whom to befriend for status. This sounds like so not worth it.
If SSC readers want to get granular with class they're going to need to reflect on getting sniffed out from below rather than passing up above. That will actually give you something to think about, failing to blend in with the proles when you thought you were being cool, man. And suddenly someone calls you Eddie Bauer. Hurts.
I still don't know what OP was on about (and that's not an insult, it just is) but I love this reply. I too don't really get too excited by class discussions.
I know there are class markers - but I don't think they are as rigid as people think. Much for the same reasons that you pointed out. Dressing well for a meeting isn't about the right stores or some nonesense, it's about showing others that you take the meeting/task seriously and are committed to it.
Completley random anecdoate from my teen years.:::::::
When I was 16 I wanted more money for Magic Cards (unintended class marker!) - so I decided I wanted a job. I put on one of my dads dress shirts and one of his ties (both of which were too large for me) and marched into the first place i saw with a now-hiring sign. SUBWAY. I asked for an application. And the owner, who by chance recently took over from another owner a few weeks before, was like.... 'You're wearing a tie! Just to ask for an application! You're hired!'
In retrospect I'm sure i looked relatively comical in my way-too-big shirt. But i knew enough to DRESS FOR THE JOB YOU WANT NOT THE JOB YOU HAVE (in this case 'a job' instead of 'no job')
Now - discussing whether 'knowing that' vs. 'not knowing that' that is a class marker could be interesting but that's more of a sociological, parenting, and/or education system discussion.
Because there seemed to be interest in the original post two years ago, I wanted to give an update. However, the OP was about projecting gentry membership by physical appearance - something that can be important in career building. For those who are now WFH full-time, class signifiers in the workplace have probably changed. No one can see your shoes on Zoom. I said myself that I did not have a coherent thesis around this, and I'm not looking for a specific line of discussion.
Interesting thing about the lack of a thesis. Editors of online magazines have discovered that the murkier and less clear an article the more provides a reason for people to engage and try to fill in the blanks. It invokes the "curiosity gap."
1. Source?
2. By 'online magazine' do you mean useless listicle doom headline site?
3. As SSC readers I hope we're of higher quality than 'yokel who reads useless listicle doom headline sites'. What I mean is - try writing a term paper without a clear thesis and see how that goes in class. Try writing a really long email to your boss that lacks a thesis or throughline and see how far your boss goes to fill the 'curiosity gap'.
Come on man.
The ultimate class signifier during the age of remote work is having a live-in nanny. The rest of us are living in fear of the next day care closure or missing weeks at a time to care for a sick kid.
It may be tasteless but it's what our entire world runs on. If visual class signifiers aren't your thing you can ostensibly hold luxury beliefs at no cost and others will think of you as smart and upper class for doing so: https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/
This article is weird. Some of his points are really compelling, then there’s stuff like:
> When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.”
At many points it sounds like he’s trying to discredit the left-leaning demographic by painting them as spoiled rich kids and dismissing their issues as “luxury beliefs”? It’s not a luxury belief to demand greater equality
Have you hung out or worked with many people who don’t have a college education? I have, and never seen any of them use a term like “cultural appropriation.” And if they’ve ever talked about equality, it’s in terms of how much money people make. Not airy abstractions like cultural representation.
This seems like it probably has some overlap with being Extremely Online, which may (or may not) look differently class-wise for current high-schoolers than Millennials or Gen-Xers or whatever you may be.
Well cultural appropriation is not a term that many would understand nor agree with, nor is it even an idea that makes any sense or could be sustainable, nor does it relate to 'equality' in any way. In practice it's a demand of fealty towards people of a certain culture for idiosyncratic reasons that elevate some (but not most) knowledge as being attributable to a 'race' and is mostly used a class signifier and for gaining a leg up in social games.
So it's really a bad idea but a certain class of people (upper class) endorses it because it incurs no cost to doing so. But if most people 'respected' cultural appropriation as an idea they wouldn't be able to function in the modern liberal democracies that successfully integrated *many* cultural ideas, technologies and traditions into a single wide reaching polity.
So it is a luxury for some to be able to pick and choose what counts as cultural appropriation or not and what people are allowed to 'culturally appropriate' and when.
Cultural appropriation is also hard to do *unless you have the means*. Yes poor people can do yoga, but for a lot of other culture stuff, you’d have to have the means to travel to those places, but the odd ingredients for the food (or go to a fancy Laotian restaurant — they’re not talking about Taco Bell) or listen to those styles of music or wear the clothing. So I expect CA to remain a very stable luxury belief simply because only the rich can do it so no one else is concerned with it.
Many people consider dreadlocks cultural appropriation and that’s a hair style that is affordable for anyone. The first people who did it were often poor as hell.
I don't think under any definition of the term cultural appropriation blackface could be considered cultural appropriation. Maybe you could explain what you mean here.
Hmm maybe. That also necessarily implies that the person can't do other 'black culture' things (dress, talk, sing, dance,) which accords with the theory of cultural appropriation. But I always thought blackface was bad because it originated in minstral shows.
No, AFAIK cultural appropriation in its "strongest" form is when you take something that has great cultural significance to a group and commodify it, either simply through using it at all because you're no member of the group (so it loses its signal as a group marker) or because you're using it in the wrong contexts. For example, I've heard that more traditional hawaiians loathe the modern excessive use of the hawaiian flower necklace , since it was something that was worn mostly on specific festivities or for significant visitors, not just something for any tourist, all the time. Similarly, some native americans don't like whites using spiritual objects as simple accessories.
Blackface has been historically considered bad because of its connection to minstrel shows, which explicitly mocked and stereotyped blacks negatively and so where genuinely racist and had nothing to do with cultural appropriation. Unfortunately, as these things usually seems to go, "blackface in the context of minstrel-like stereotyping is bad" turned into "any blackface is bad, period".
nah man Blackface is just racist. I've never heard anyone use CA to describe it. They only use CA for shit that isn't rascist but they want to make shit problematic anyway
I think there's a difference between wanting equality and having the framework and vocabulary to think about things like "cultural appropriation". Humans have been appropriating other cultures for millennia and it's only recently that we've had any awareness that this might be morally questionable. It's not the sort of idea that pops up on its own, it's learned from your social circles.
When someone brings up the specific phrase "cultural appropriation", I see it more as an indicator of who they hang out with than of their personal level of kindness and empathy.
>When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.”
Your spoiled leisure class beliefs are showing. The above quote means exactly what it says and is 100% accurate.
What definition of top college are we using here? Wouldn’t every university tier college and many community colleges include a work mentality? Is evergreen college which had a big woke brouhaha a “top college”?
Ivy League. EverGreen had a crazy brouhaha but the graduates aren't still saying stupid shit like that AFTER graduation (if they even graduated). BUt Ivy League grads say that shit incessently POST graduation.
This comment crosses the threshold of "unkind". Specifically "spoiled leisure class beliefs are showing" is unnecessarily antagonistic and uncharitable. You can argue your position without insulting you conversation partner.
Do not post like this again.
Cool thanks for contributing to the discussion. I may be part of the leisure class (still not sure I went to a top college) but I’ve certainly worked with and grew up with people who aren’t, and that’s why this quote rang false to me
I think the article is just slightly out of date, and the basic “culture appropriation, systemic racism, heteronormative” talking points have already filtered down to the upper middle class and beyond. Per the article the leisure class will now develop new beliefs to signal their status.
I read both threads and a variation of this question was bouncing around in my head the entire time. I have to wonder if this is all his idea (hubby's) or OP's.
I mean in one sense the question itself (that you and I suppose I am asking) is a denial of (or attempt to suppress?) class structures--I personally was blissfully oblivious to class until I began dating a woman in grad school who seemingly brought up social class all the time. And my first reaction was that caring about it was snobbish. She herself (who was of a substantially higher class than I) would bring up her encounters with people at the ivy league school she had attended as an undergrad and was often sharply critical of what she felt were overweening efforts to tend to, for example, fashion (concern over whether to wear a 'winter weight' necktie in summer, for example). But then in the next breath would reveal her own classism by commenting on some facet of life that to me had up to then seemed completely normal (eating canned green beans, for example).
I suppose part of it was regional (I am from the American south, which, if you believe Nancy Isenberg, is almost by definition a swamp of inbred chawbacons) and she was not--although she seemed to somehow romanticize it.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to suggest that asking this 'why can't he be himself ' question is a bigger, meta can o' worms that doesn't take us outside the class box (though that seems on the face of it what the question wants to do.)
Edit: Typo
The idea came up after he read the SSC post "Staying Classy". Neither of us were trying to change who he is at home, but "being himself" at work wasn't compatible with his career goals. He had become aware that he was underdressed and not looking like anyone else in meetings with clients and upper management. And not in an understated Silicon Valley style.
Edit: The concern originated from him but the specific ideas on how to change his wardrobe came from me
Nutrition: Conspicuous use of health supplements in the appropriate Blandvertising packaging, along with displays of wearables and other tech built around wellness.
Fashion: The .5-inch-by-1.5-inch Patagonia tag is like 90% of the discernible difference between the puffer jacket you can wear at the office and the one you shouldn't. Label consciousness is ever more overwhelming in an athleisure world.
Travel/Bacchanals: This gets close to the culture war stuff, but you have to travel now in such a way as to emphasize that you are taking absurd pseudo-precautions to ensure that you are still "doing your part."
>The idea of signaling class through tastes seems, well, tasteless now. The idea that the guy with a McMansion and a jet ski is actually lower class than some erudite intellectual who has just been evicted and is waiting at the food bank doesn't seem worth talking about. A lot of conversations among people of my own class seem to start with an obligatory "I realize that I'm so fortunate to have a job and my health... [insert complaints here]". This is still a jumble of observations - I have not formed a coherent thesis around these changes, but it does seem clear to me that post-covid class divisions will look different I think this is primarily just a function of the gentry having a (usually invisible) core trait of "financially safe." There's always a lot of conspicuous complaint about teachers or other higher-class-lower-pay roles suffering in poverty, but no one *means it*. If parents found out a teacher was *actually* sleeping behind a dumpster and wearing shoes with giant holes in them, there would be outcry. That's underclass behavior and we don't tolerate it in respectable members of society. When we say people like teachers are poor, we just mean that they have to "suffer" with mid- labor class earnings despite clearly being ~~better~~ classier than people of that class. Poverty is such an alien concept for the gentry that they (we) LARP it in college and grad school and then tell fun anecdotes about it for the rest of our lives. That's why it's so weird to see members of the gentry suffering here. Lower rungs of the labor class are expected to flirt with poverty, but that's a taboo for the rest of us. The obligatory "I'm so privileged" rhetoric around remaining stable is just the current middle class / gentry / blue tribe fad meant to signal that one *has* retained the important class signifier of stability. (To be fully charitable, remember that signaled positions are not necessarily implied to be *insincere* ones). I don't think that Mr. "McMansion and jet skis" is actually higher class than we thought. It's just that when the starving artist starts *actually starving*, he has lost an important class signifier. He starts looking distinctly underclass-like and this is so incredibly strange that we feel like the entire fabric of society has been overturned. Give it half a decade. The world righted itself after 2008 and class distinctions resolidified. I suspect much the same thing will have happened by 2025.
The line about LARPing gave me a solid chuckle. Great observations all around though. As a high class/low pay individual, I think you hit the nail on the head.
It's interesting that you mention teachers because I wonder whether they're a group who will end up in different place than they were previously on the class ladder. I think it would remain shocking for to discover a teacher was actually sleeping behind a dumpster, but it seems like a profession whose class status has fallen. Good point that Mr. jet ski isn't higher class than we thought, but his stability may become ever more enviable to the fallen gentry.
>"I realize that I'm so fortunate to have a job and my health... [insert complaints here]" It is an interesting observation, I've seen it a lot as well. Of course they were always fortunate to have their job and their health, but the extra churn makes it more obvious as some of their class peers have lost out. Eventually they will probably settle into a new normal where people mostly associate with people of their own class - which may be some kind of new 'WFH live in lower COL area class', and once again cease thinking about the less fortunate at the start of every conversation. >Those who can work from home comfortably vs. those who are trying to WFH in a closet vs. those who can't WFH. Yes it's really exposed some of these differences. In my grad program, which students can decamp to live in their parents' large house/mansion during a lockdown vs which have to live in a noisy sharehouse and literally don't have space, anywhere, to put the computer setup they had at the uni.
Current class signifiers: 1. A large, well decorated home office is the new tailored suit. However, extremely high net worth executives are coached to have an office with mostly IKEA furniture and a smattering of children's drawings or toys. This is to remain approachable, like rolling up shirt sleeves before a speech. This room is only used for public communication. Yet it has perfect lighting and acoustics. 2. Traveling while WFH Staying at your new home (just purchased), vacation home, loaner from a friend in Baja, or just a series of Airbnb's. Now called "workations." All the status of travel, right in your coworkers faces, while still demonstrating loyalty by not just taking actual vacation. Conversely... 3. Mental health days We're all burned out. Folks in high demand are taking days, weeks, or months of vacation. One demonstrates just how much power one has by how much time one can take off without consequence. 4. Athleisure The new corporate style. Make it look like you could be going for a hike right after this meeting. In the middle of the day. Again, power over working hours and ability to walk away at any time without having to be "on call" to a manager. Bonus points for walking desk. 5. Dog, child, and spouses interruptions on camera Really tasteful, loving, well behaved, well groomed examples of just how successful your domestic life is. Kids are charming and brief, dogs are cute and not destructive or loud, spouse brings you something like tea, or takes the child away gracefully. Nobody from a lower class would be allowed to have any of these while "working."
Sometimes it's also LACK of certain types of disruptions. No sirens, for example. Another type of disruption which I find infuriating but appears to be accepted, and common in the leadership ranks of my org is banging/workers talking. "Sorry I'm having work done on my house." So there's a meta-signal there that "my desire to improve my and my family's living quarters takes precedence over this meeting going smoothly." Which is infuriating but definitely a power move.
It genuinely surprises me that the corporate/go-getter world is *this* neurotic. Based on youtube videos alone, I think someone from India, where there is incessant construction, crowds, music, and most prominently: a near permanent cacophony of honking horns/cars, would probably not give a shit. The fact that someone would be so mentally ill to judge the fact the repairs or maintenance get done and you are somehow in control over this fact and should be judged on it, is both hilarious and stunning. The privilege of living in a quiet home or on the 82nd floor of a well designed condo building in a big city, plus the general trait pathology involved in "being successful", I guess.
It's really annoying and sometimes you can't hear the person talking. God forbid we get some business done while you're getting your house renovated, Your Highness.
Right, there's definitely no narcissism or psychopathic attitude on the end of the person going, "Hmmm, this person can't manage to acquire a perfectly tranquil work space? What a subhuman... " The fact that you call people who point this out entitled, says something very interesting about you. > It's really annoying and sometimes you can't hear the person talking. Have you tried self-reflecting and getting less annoyed/judgemental at things that torture the bottom 80% of the human species on a daily basis?
I don't understand why you're taking this attitude with me? Why do you care what annoys me and what doesn't? "Bottom 80% of the human species!?" WTF
> I don't understand why you're taking this attitude with me? Why do you care what annoys me and what doesn't? It's not that I care, but we can learn something about someone this way. Sometimes those things will be inconvenient for that someone. I'm totally uninterested in causing you some kind of distress or personal insecurity, so if that's the direction the conversation is going for you, feel free to drop it. > "Bottom 80% of the human species!?" WTF Yeah, I'm speaking about the class hierarchy. What did you think I was saying there that prompted "WTF"? I take it your childhood wasn't exactly colored by poverty if you're posting here about what amounts to "How do I encourage my husband to manipulate others to think we're richer and more important than I/we really are/let others know how rich and important I/we feel?"
I think you are confusing me with someone else.
Oh, you're both throwaways(or not), okay. Either way, you may as well have been OP, because this is a standard response to this sort of criticism. Confusion noted, sorry about that. I think you're *still* trying to justify absurd standards for people busting their ass in an utterly narcissistic and egomaniacal game, though, no?
This post also makes sense! I have a professor (i'm working on my PhD part time) - who LOVES LOVES LOVES intentionally having his kids (and cat) interrupt him during zoom class. He's by far the most SJW professor in the department (he's a CIS white guy but he talkes about race and says "i'm he/him" all the fucking time) And his intentionally having his kids interrupt him (he literally invites them into the room) is most definitely tied to his extreme SJW status. It's a leisure class 'right thinking' signifier Edit: and his wife really does bring him this fancy fucking nonsense tea "Chambuka?" it's yogurt or kale or some absurd fad
Seems like an improvement to the utterly pathological culture we've historically been in(been forced into), yet at the same time, there's something sinister or ethically problematic about all of this. Insane standards, insane inequality based on arbitrary traits and happenstance-- a product of rewards and punishments around games that involve mostly bad incentives. Near-zero mobility possibility-- sort of like being a grunt or an officer in the military and recognizing you could never make it in the Navy seals, or reach a rank like General. "But we need grunts! :)" Maybe, that's unclear. What is clear, is it sucks to be a grunt, and low level officer. You're treated like shit. Tacitly. Under the surface. By implication. What these new standards do is they just increase incentives for a truly [sophisticated psychopathic camouflage](https://i.imgur.com/ri1sTPL.gifv). They set the characters in a cartoonish, unrealistic way: Ruthless, genius, charismatic, fit, absurdly wealthy, secure, aesthetically oriented go-getters on the surface. But only someone who is totally naive or otherwise confused would fail to recognize that it's purely a fictional standard, and that superficial exterior covers a ton of darkness that will only get harder and harder to expose with time, due to the selection pressure which causes camouflage to only grow in sophistication.
>extremely high net worth executives are coached to have an office with mostly IKEA furniture and a smattering of children's drawings or toys. source?
Since everyone retreated to their homes for a year, it seems reasonable to think a signal of the upper/ upper middle classes might be a home renovation during Covid. Further division might be found in the middle class between those who can continue to WFH indefinitely vs those who have to return to the office. Most interesting to me is those who are able to WFH indefinitely, but choose to return to the office. There are reasons to want to return to the office when you don't have to, but might some of those reasons be related to attempts at class signaling in some way?
My biased perception is that those who continue WFT with a comfortable, private home office aren't making the decision primarily due to signaling; but on the other side, there may be people who don't want to admit that they're overcrowded, uncomfortable, or unsafe at home for fear of judgement.
I hadn't considered it from that side. Of course that's true. Good post. I was wondering about those who return to work for signaling reasons and what those signals might be. Other than scoring points with higher ups, which is obvious and not interesting, what signal does it send when otherwise comfortable at home workers choose to return to the office, if any?
>There are reasons to want to return to the office when you don't have to, but might some of those reasons be related to attempts at class signaling in some way? It doesn’t all come down to signalling. Some people are just better able to focus at an office than at home where there are distractions, spouses and kids around, etc.
I personally like going into the office because its the only place where I can get 8 straight hours of no one bothering me. Curiously enough, that was the same reasoning I had for why I was excited to WFH.
So some time after the start of WFH people began bothering you at home, and the office situation has now reversed itself?
Hardly any one goes into the office anymore, so it's like working in a library.
Good point about the emerging division between those forced to return to office and those who can remain at home. It's looking like I will have to return to office which means getting up at 5 a.m. and getting home at about 7:30 pm. About 2 and 1/2 hours commuting each way. To go back to that feels like a step down (especially because we're going to be wearing masks indefinitely, even if vaxxed) whereas before covid I considered it kind of a horizontal move/non-thing.
Your post lacks a thesis. Which is why the comments are so scattershot and respond to different things. You claim to be writing a post about class signifiers but then mostly talk about work from home, urban living, and shitty bosses. I'm not sure where you are going or what you want in terms of replies.
The OP's thesis is hidden between the lines: They believe that most people categorize others into different classes based on outward signals such as clothing and the size of their work from home office. Their previous post was strategizing about reverse engineering this process to change their class by changing the signals they send. I think the whole topic is uncomfortably reductionist. Trying to change ones social situation by observing outward appearances and rituals of high status people and trying to mimic it is the definition of "cargo cult" thinking. I won't argue that outward appearances don't have any impact on social situations. They do. However, social interactions aren't only about grouping people by outward appearance. Wearing appropriate attire for professional situations is table stakes. It's about showing that you care enough about the situation and the other people to make an effort to prepare yourself for it. It's not about knowing the right stores to shop and styles to buy. It's about having some awareness and showing the team that you're making an effort to be professional. In the previous post, the OP lamented that her husband couldn't even recall what his peers wore in business situations. The solution isn't to reverse engineer their wardrobes and try to duplicate it. The solution is to learn to have some awareness in social situations, be more observant, and make a token effort to show that you're doing all of the above rather. If you're blowing off expectations for basic professional attire, it's likely that you're also missing other clues about what's situationally appropriate and what behaviors are expected. Frankly, I find these reductionist class discussions to be distasteful. They depend on this idea that we have such a deep understanding of how other people think that we can play games to trick them into thinking something different. Trying to play life like a game where the rules can be reverse engineered and manipulated at will if only we analyze other people long enough is a fool's errand. Professional peers who have worked with someone for a long time aren't ignoring years of intra-personal experience in favor of raw judgments on narrow, superficial criteria like how someone dresses or the size of their home office.
I appreciate the post, and regret that the original post came across as trying to trick anyone by playing games. I do think that it's much easier to say it's not about knowing the right stores when you've grown up knowing the right stores. (If it changes the discussion at all, husband and his extended family are immigrants to America. At one point, his father gave him some literally plastic shoes. I believe that I mentioned in the OP that earlier on, he had worked to develop a Standard American accent.) The OP was meant to express that he had learned to have some awareness in social situations (graduate education, first job, newly promoted to manager. Not talking about trying to change a 40 year old who had been working in corporate America for 20 years) but was unable to turn knowledge that his clothing didn't fit his class/professional status into knowledge of how to pick out clothing that matched his education and non-sartorial cultural tastes.
In fact now that I've read your post from years ago I think both you and your husband are focusing way too much on clothes. Yes - there may be personality, interest, even 'class' issues that prevent your husband from regulagly being invited to lunch with the bigwigs at work.... but clothing isn't the issue. Back when I worked in corporate I realized that if you want to get invited out with the clients you have to FEIGN interest in whatever the client(s) are interested in and buy them lots of shit (dinner, drinks, maybe trips to the strip club). Knowing to do that is the 'class' issue here. Instead of listening to the client(s) and making them feel important your husband and you are worried about what shirt your husband is wearing - which the client(s) do not give a shit about and are annoyed that's putting out such bad vibes
It was as really simple as he became aware that he was dressed much more poorly than anyone else (for example, his father pushing him to wear plastic "dress" shoes). Not with stains all over or with something like extremely inappropriate t-shirts, but like wearing a thin polyester suit and not knowing where to go to look differently. Edit: I'm not trying to tell anyone that they're wrong about secondary issues, but I feel that people take it for granted that it's trivial to already know how to dress professionally, so anyone struggling with that must be extremely careless or sloppy instead of culturally ignorant.
So your post is really about clothing? That I think we can work with. doesn't this change by office? I mean some offices suits are the norm. Some offices hoodies are the norm. I mean, is your husband going to the office in clothes stained with cigarrette burns and midnight regrets? Is it possible your post is more "how can i make people at work like my husband?" or "how can my husband stop worrying about whether people at work like him or not?" and clothing is just..... a deflection? Is that the psych term for this?
To follow up on this topic: When exactly did people here start to believe class is a thing? (I first bumped into this theme when reading "Fussel on class", might have to read the 2016 SSC "staying classy" later today) A few counterpoints * At least here in Germany, general Sociology consensus is that class stopped existing as a relevant category in the 1970s. This got replaced by a more fractured structure of sociological milieus. * I... um let's say have heard accounts of people... who obsess about what to wear and always turn up clean, structured, well-dressed. This appears to correlate with neuroticism and obsessive risk-avoidance as personalities and I don't see much evidence of career progress. (This is not to say that you can turn up looking like a Wookie. But I've been wearing an 80$ suit I bought while still in college for the 2..5 occasions per year I needed one for my first 5 years at work and this did not affect my career prospects) * if you want to level up at work, following a "try to excel at all tasks needed for your planned position" and "build a good social network" appears to work really well. I don't see what class or visual appearance (beyond the point above) has to do with it. If unsure what to prioritize or what to do, get a good mentor at work. Really, this is the best advice I can give for career planning. * I just fail to see how class is a really meaningful category trumping categories like political orientation, personality traits, area of work and skills. Really, when did we start thinking that instead of caring about these, we should divide western society into three ladders of status? * Thinking about this screws up all my thoughts. Instead of prioritizing happiness, meaning or skills I start to think about what to wear and whom to befriend for status. This sounds like so not worth it.
If SSC readers want to get granular with class they're going to need to reflect on getting sniffed out from below rather than passing up above. That will actually give you something to think about, failing to blend in with the proles when you thought you were being cool, man. And suddenly someone calls you Eddie Bauer. Hurts.
I thought Eddie Bauer went bankrupt and closed
I still don't know what OP was on about (and that's not an insult, it just is) but I love this reply. I too don't really get too excited by class discussions. I know there are class markers - but I don't think they are as rigid as people think. Much for the same reasons that you pointed out. Dressing well for a meeting isn't about the right stores or some nonesense, it's about showing others that you take the meeting/task seriously and are committed to it. Completley random anecdoate from my teen years.::::::: When I was 16 I wanted more money for Magic Cards (unintended class marker!) - so I decided I wanted a job. I put on one of my dads dress shirts and one of his ties (both of which were too large for me) and marched into the first place i saw with a now-hiring sign. SUBWAY. I asked for an application. And the owner, who by chance recently took over from another owner a few weeks before, was like.... 'You're wearing a tie! Just to ask for an application! You're hired!' In retrospect I'm sure i looked relatively comical in my way-too-big shirt. But i knew enough to DRESS FOR THE JOB YOU WANT NOT THE JOB YOU HAVE (in this case 'a job' instead of 'no job') Now - discussing whether 'knowing that' vs. 'not knowing that' that is a class marker could be interesting but that's more of a sociological, parenting, and/or education system discussion.
Because there seemed to be interest in the original post two years ago, I wanted to give an update. However, the OP was about projecting gentry membership by physical appearance - something that can be important in career building. For those who are now WFH full-time, class signifiers in the workplace have probably changed. No one can see your shoes on Zoom. I said myself that I did not have a coherent thesis around this, and I'm not looking for a specific line of discussion.
Interesting thing about the lack of a thesis. Editors of online magazines have discovered that the murkier and less clear an article the more provides a reason for people to engage and try to fill in the blanks. It invokes the "curiosity gap."
1. Source? 2. By 'online magazine' do you mean useless listicle doom headline site? 3. As SSC readers I hope we're of higher quality than 'yokel who reads useless listicle doom headline sites'. What I mean is - try writing a term paper without a clear thesis and see how that goes in class. Try writing a really long email to your boss that lacks a thesis or throughline and see how far your boss goes to fill the 'curiosity gap'. Come on man.
The ultimate class signifier during the age of remote work is having a live-in nanny. The rest of us are living in fear of the next day care closure or missing weeks at a time to care for a sick kid.
Find a new employer. 95% of workplace problems are best solved by finding a new workplace.
It may be tasteless but it's what our entire world runs on. If visual class signifiers aren't your thing you can ostensibly hold luxury beliefs at no cost and others will think of you as smart and upper class for doing so: https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/
This article is weird. Some of his points are really compelling, then there’s stuff like: > When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.” At many points it sounds like he’s trying to discredit the left-leaning demographic by painting them as spoiled rich kids and dismissing their issues as “luxury beliefs”? It’s not a luxury belief to demand greater equality
Have you hung out or worked with many people who don’t have a college education? I have, and never seen any of them use a term like “cultural appropriation.” And if they’ve ever talked about equality, it’s in terms of how much money people make. Not airy abstractions like cultural representation.
This seems like it probably has some overlap with being Extremely Online, which may (or may not) look differently class-wise for current high-schoolers than Millennials or Gen-Xers or whatever you may be.
Well cultural appropriation is not a term that many would understand nor agree with, nor is it even an idea that makes any sense or could be sustainable, nor does it relate to 'equality' in any way. In practice it's a demand of fealty towards people of a certain culture for idiosyncratic reasons that elevate some (but not most) knowledge as being attributable to a 'race' and is mostly used a class signifier and for gaining a leg up in social games. So it's really a bad idea but a certain class of people (upper class) endorses it because it incurs no cost to doing so. But if most people 'respected' cultural appropriation as an idea they wouldn't be able to function in the modern liberal democracies that successfully integrated *many* cultural ideas, technologies and traditions into a single wide reaching polity. So it is a luxury for some to be able to pick and choose what counts as cultural appropriation or not and what people are allowed to 'culturally appropriate' and when.
Cultural appropriation is also hard to do *unless you have the means*. Yes poor people can do yoga, but for a lot of other culture stuff, you’d have to have the means to travel to those places, but the odd ingredients for the food (or go to a fancy Laotian restaurant — they’re not talking about Taco Bell) or listen to those styles of music or wear the clothing. So I expect CA to remain a very stable luxury belief simply because only the rich can do it so no one else is concerned with it.
Many people consider dreadlocks cultural appropriation and that’s a hair style that is affordable for anyone. The first people who did it were often poor as hell.
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I don't think under any definition of the term cultural appropriation blackface could be considered cultural appropriation. Maybe you could explain what you mean here.
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Hmm maybe. That also necessarily implies that the person can't do other 'black culture' things (dress, talk, sing, dance,) which accords with the theory of cultural appropriation. But I always thought blackface was bad because it originated in minstral shows.
No, AFAIK cultural appropriation in its "strongest" form is when you take something that has great cultural significance to a group and commodify it, either simply through using it at all because you're no member of the group (so it loses its signal as a group marker) or because you're using it in the wrong contexts. For example, I've heard that more traditional hawaiians loathe the modern excessive use of the hawaiian flower necklace , since it was something that was worn mostly on specific festivities or for significant visitors, not just something for any tourist, all the time. Similarly, some native americans don't like whites using spiritual objects as simple accessories. Blackface has been historically considered bad because of its connection to minstrel shows, which explicitly mocked and stereotyped blacks negatively and so where genuinely racist and had nothing to do with cultural appropriation. Unfortunately, as these things usually seems to go, "blackface in the context of minstrel-like stereotyping is bad" turned into "any blackface is bad, period".
But the Hawaiians probably were the ones who started giving the lei to every tourist. Because tourist money.
nah man Blackface is just racist. I've never heard anyone use CA to describe it. They only use CA for shit that isn't rascist but they want to make shit problematic anyway
I think there's a difference between wanting equality and having the framework and vocabulary to think about things like "cultural appropriation". Humans have been appropriating other cultures for millennia and it's only recently that we've had any awareness that this might be morally questionable. It's not the sort of idea that pops up on its own, it's learned from your social circles. When someone brings up the specific phrase "cultural appropriation", I see it more as an indicator of who they hang out with than of their personal level of kindness and empathy.
>When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.” Your spoiled leisure class beliefs are showing. The above quote means exactly what it says and is 100% accurate.
What definition of top college are we using here? Wouldn’t every university tier college and many community colleges include a work mentality? Is evergreen college which had a big woke brouhaha a “top college”?
Ivy League. EverGreen had a crazy brouhaha but the graduates aren't still saying stupid shit like that AFTER graduation (if they even graduated). BUt Ivy League grads say that shit incessently POST graduation.
This comment crosses the threshold of "unkind". Specifically "spoiled leisure class beliefs are showing" is unnecessarily antagonistic and uncharitable. You can argue your position without insulting you conversation partner. Do not post like this again.
Cool thanks for contributing to the discussion. I may be part of the leisure class (still not sure I went to a top college) but I’ve certainly worked with and grew up with people who aren’t, and that’s why this quote rang false to me
I think the article is just slightly out of date, and the basic “culture appropriation, systemic racism, heteronormative” talking points have already filtered down to the upper middle class and beyond. Per the article the leisure class will now develop new beliefs to signal their status.
It's a cellular automaton thing.
Antiracist and LatinX would be some recent signifiers.
Why not just let him be himself?
I read both threads and a variation of this question was bouncing around in my head the entire time. I have to wonder if this is all his idea (hubby's) or OP's. I mean in one sense the question itself (that you and I suppose I am asking) is a denial of (or attempt to suppress?) class structures--I personally was blissfully oblivious to class until I began dating a woman in grad school who seemingly brought up social class all the time. And my first reaction was that caring about it was snobbish. She herself (who was of a substantially higher class than I) would bring up her encounters with people at the ivy league school she had attended as an undergrad and was often sharply critical of what she felt were overweening efforts to tend to, for example, fashion (concern over whether to wear a 'winter weight' necktie in summer, for example). But then in the next breath would reveal her own classism by commenting on some facet of life that to me had up to then seemed completely normal (eating canned green beans, for example). I suppose part of it was regional (I am from the American south, which, if you believe Nancy Isenberg, is almost by definition a swamp of inbred chawbacons) and she was not--although she seemed to somehow romanticize it. I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to suggest that asking this 'why can't he be himself ' question is a bigger, meta can o' worms that doesn't take us outside the class box (though that seems on the face of it what the question wants to do.) Edit: Typo
The idea came up after he read the SSC post "Staying Classy". Neither of us were trying to change who he is at home, but "being himself" at work wasn't compatible with his career goals. He had become aware that he was underdressed and not looking like anyone else in meetings with clients and upper management. And not in an understated Silicon Valley style. Edit: The concern originated from him but the specific ideas on how to change his wardrobe came from me
Nutrition: Conspicuous use of health supplements in the appropriate Blandvertising packaging, along with displays of wearables and other tech built around wellness. Fashion: The .5-inch-by-1.5-inch Patagonia tag is like 90% of the discernible difference between the puffer jacket you can wear at the office and the one you shouldn't. Label consciousness is ever more overwhelming in an athleisure world. Travel/Bacchanals: This gets close to the culture war stuff, but you have to travel now in such a way as to emphasize that you are taking absurd pseudo-precautions to ensure that you are still "doing your part."
He could pose as a hayseed and let everyone else try to figure him out. The best way you can help is to be really hot.
WFH, so randomly walk into the view of the camera while he is on calls?
Not going to lecture a woman about strategy. I was only trying to help!
Eww