status signalling in 2026

What Actually Signals Status

Without an algorithm shoving recommendations down your throat, can you still know the right places to eat, the right authors to read, the right music to listen to? It means you have genuine proximity to power. You live at the source, not the feed.

This requires:

1. Broad networks, engaged differently. Not parasocial

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There’s a darker reality beneath camouflage culture that Klein and Carlioz identify: its invisibility surrenders any chance of mass influence. While the privileged can afford to go dark - retreating to private Substacks and exclusive dinners - marginalised communities still have to suffer the consequences of disappearing. Visibility, for all its... See more

The status signal is circular: you can afford to be selectively online because you have capital, and being selectively online signals you have capital. The rest of us are still grinding for algorithmic visibility because we don’t have another choice.