Clicks & Clout: How We Seek Status In the Digital Age

What the internet and social media have done essentially is increase the surface area of status seeking to the digital realm and virtual realm, and vastly expanded that surface area.

Life, put simply, is all about status. I recently read W. David Marx’s book Status and Culture —thanks Bryce Ferguson for the rec—and that fact was my clear takeaway. The book subtly changed how I look at the world; when you start to pay attention, status dictates nearly everything in our lives.

In the book, Marx argues that:

1. There is no human soci

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Status roles involve whether this action will move someone up or down in the estimation of their peers or competitors.