Ian Parker's profile of JK Rowling is striking not only because it lacks juicy gossip. He paints a picture of woman who seems uncomfortable with her success. She's insecure (pancake makeup and fake eyelashes), tightly wound, and rather boring.
I think if I wrote a blockbuster series of books and was worth nearly $1 billion, I would be like WHOO-HOO! TAKE THAT, ALL YOU DOUBTERS AND ASSHOLES! I'M GOING TO JET AROUND THE WORLD AND SPEND MY MONEY LIKE RODNEY DANGERFIELD IN BACK TO SCHOOL!
My life would only be conducted in capital letters, exclamation marks, and rude, immature gestures aimed at various assholes in my life beginning with the girl who made fun of my jeans in the sixth grade.
But she isn't doing that. Too bad. Maybe I can ask her to flip off my sixth grade nemesis for me.
I guess if you hit your peak by age 40 there's nowhere to go but down. Luckily, I have been an underachiever all my life, so I'm looking forward to success somewhere in my 80s.
Apt. 11d 
She doesn’t seem unhappy to me. If she is insecure and boring it is because she has always been that way and why should success change her overall temperament? One of the worst parts of celebrity culture is the assumption that everyone relishes the limelight, everyone wants to be a star. But not everyone does want to be a star not even people who are stars.
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I always wonder about this when I watch the Olympics. If you’re Michael Phelps, or Gabby Douglas, how do you move on? You’ve clearly totally peaked.
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It almost seems easier for a Gabby Douglas than a Michael Phelps. She’s young enough that she can go on to college and have a career separate from gymnastics, if she wants. What does someone, like Phelps, do when he has no major, marketable skills other than his athletic talent and he has missed the window where people typically get those skills? Go back to school, I guess, but it is hard to imagine him doing that. Hopefully he is good with his money.
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If you’re Michael Phelps, or Gabby Douglas, how do you move on?
You go into coaching, so that you can ruin the lives of lots of other people by telling them the reason they are not as good as you were is that they don’t want success as much as you did, they are lazy, of low character, etc. (In Douglas’s case I suspect the real answer is motivational speaking, daytime talk TV shows, and things like that.)
I can imagine Rowling being less happy because of being very, very busy, and that causing a lot of stress. Otherwise, I think people often stay the same as they were- so, if you’re still obsessed about what happened in high-school, you still will be. If you’ve left it behind, the idea of going back to it will seem nuts. And Scantee is surely right that not everyone wants to be a star (I think it would be awful), and that actually being a star when one doesn’t really want to be is probably itself pretty unpleasant.
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I’ll read the profile later, as I have to run off.
I think we Americans can’t correctly read British behavior. Two languages separated by a common ocean, and all that. I think (suspect, but haven’t researched) that the English aren’t as accepting of self-made men. If you’re a success, you shouldn’t be loud, because people might not talk to you. It shows you’re not well bred, if you don’t know how to behave as the landed upper classes behave.
I think our image of the best possible state is the Self-made man, whereas theirs might be the aristocratic scion.
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I think we also underestimate the stress of changing social classes. She came from a blue collar background originally. Who would her billionaire peers be now?
I’d take the wealth but then live with it like “stealth wealth” – under the radar a bit so I wouldn’t feel so out of step with my peers. The fame? That I could pass on and would run away from.
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“I think our image of the best possible state is the Self-made man, whereas theirs might be the aristocratic scion.”
I agree with this evaluation. It’s in Harry Potter, even, who is the “chosen one” who will save humanity in spite of not desiring to be a leader nor working for the position. There’s a strong strain of disrespect for striving and trying too hard, to reach any goal. We understand the sentiment a little bit when it’s about politics (we don’t like politicians who are trying too hard), but we like striving when it describes how you were born with nothing but built the most valuable company in the world by wanting it very badly and being driven to succeed (Jobs) or becoming the best basketball player in the world, not just ’cause you are naturally gifted but because you practiced more free throws, ran more sprints, spent more time in the gym (Jordan), . . . .
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Stealth wealth is the standard around here, but it’s amusing to see the ways in which the the stealth sneakily pushes its way to the top and stops being so stealthy (from private schools paid for without thought, computers, second houses that become more and more elaborate, third and forth houses, first class flights, trips to the olympics and apartments in other countries and vacations in private retreats and helicopter skiing, . . . .). Eventually, you find that everyone around you is also really really wealthy (because, after all, who else do you meet helicopter skiing?). And, those “stealthy” wealthy aren’t nearly as wealthy as Rowland.
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“Stealth wealth is the standard around here…”
Microsoftia?
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Seattle IS the king of stealth wealth. Back in the day I hung out with a group of Microsoft pals. You would NEVER guess that they were wealthy. Until, you know, they retired EARLY to join a bowling league, build a wooden kayak, start a bar/restaurant, etc. The most unassuming but fun/smart group that you’d ever meet.
I think it would be really bizarre to be Rowland rich. What do you do when you can afford anything?
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What is helicopter skiing?
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“What is helicopter skiing?”
I’ve never done it, but I think the idea is that if you want fresh, wild, untouched powder snow, you get dropped off by helicopter on a mountainside. If you like downhill skiing, have the money, and can avoid winding up at the bottom of a crevasse or cliff, it would be totally worth it.
If you look on youtube, there are lots of videos.
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Here’s a very scenic heli skiing video:
Just the helicopter ride alone through mountain scenery would be really cool. (I think I’ve only been in helicopter once over the Olympic Peninsula, and it was amazing.)
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Helicopter skiing is not shockingly expensive (less than €1000 per day for a week, €650 for a one-day jaunt) in post-Soviet Georgia. Of course you have to get to Georgia first, which is mostly just annoying and time-consuming if you’re flying commercial (the only way I’ve done it).*
Looking around very briefly, I see that in some places in Switzerland, it’s about €250 per run. Prohibited in France and Germany, available at one place in Austria (prices not immediately found), two places in Italy (ditto on the prices), one in Slovenia (again with the prices). So yeah, a big splurge but not necessarily something you’d have to be a zillionaire to do.
*It is of course less annoying but much more time-consuming to get there by land or sea, at least from most of the places that people likely to ski from helicopters are probably coming from.
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Doug,
I’m imagining the Georgian helicopter, its provenance, age and likely maintenance schedule and freaking out a little. (Not that helicopters are all that safe, under the best of circumstances.)
It’s funny how opaque other people’s pleasures are. I totally get the appeal of helicopter skiing, but I don’t understand the boat thing. All I see is the traditional description of a boat: “a hole in the water that you pour money into.” I know some people who’ve spent what must have been substantial amounts of money paying to be the crew on big sailboats off the coast of Baja California and in the Greek islands and I don’t understand. I understand the appeal of the Greek islands, but not why you’d want to pay to be almost literally a galley slave on a boat.
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I keep thinking of getting a kayak or going to Lake Erie to a sailing school. But I don’t see wanting to own a biggish boat. Maybe things have changed, but I share your fears of post-Soviet helicopters.
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“I keep thinking of getting a kayak or going to Lake Erie to a sailing school.”
Go ahead and do it when you can!
Our college has a small marina and my husband likes to take a kid out in a kayak or go by himself. He and our 10-year-old have taken a sailing class together at the college marina and just need to pass a test in order to be able to take a small sail boat (a Sunfish?) out. I definitely prefer not being the actual owners of a boat of any size.
People who like that sort of thing really like that sort of thing.
Another possibility is to do a guided white water trip, either by inflatable raft or kayak. My sister runs both types of trips in WA. (At least in that part of the world, a number of the rivers have huge log jams where an unwary or just unlucky kayaker can get sucked under and drowned, so it’s not a sissy thing at all to have a guide.)
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Do it, MH. We have a kayak and the hours I get out on the water in the summer are the calmest of the year. On my must-do vacation list, once my kids are a bit older, is sea kayaking in the Gaspe.
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We also love kayaking and sailing around here (though sailing is the kiddos). Kayaking is lovely. It’s calm and quiet and feels like being a water animal (you’re so low down in the water that you feel like you’re *in* the water). I like kayaking in flat calm water (bays, lakes, . . . .). It’s very low threshold to try — no special skills necessary, and if you go in flat water, immediate rewards (even for a fairly unfit, unmuscular person). Being big does make kayaking more awkward, though (both fitting in the boat & stability). It’s not something I needed instruction to do (without waves, or whitewater, or tides — which make kayaking more complicated).
Sailing is more energetic in small boats with active sailing and you have to avoid the boom a lot :-). Also, sailing does require instruction.
River kayaking in white water is another venture, and not my thing.
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I’m actually trying to be more serious with the “stealth wealth” concept because I think there are a lot of people in my neck of the woods who think they will be able to use their wealth only to fund their indulgences without fundamentally altering their lifestyle. Some of them make concrete choices to try to stay “middle class” while having 5, 10, 20, 30, 100 M in the bank. But the real benefit of the money is all the ways it smooths your choices, from the less important ones like your recreational indulgences to choices of where you live, how you fund education and health care, and how you deal with any life situation you don’t like.
Those subterranean changes mean that your lifestyle does change, even if you don’t buy the social markers of ostentatious wealth.
I imagine that these issues are writ large for someone like Rowland, who is unimaginably wealthy.
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. I definitely prefer not being the actual owners of a boat of any size.
One of my former professors in law school (Whom I believe was one of the most wealthy, because of a very successful consulting business on the side, and having been a partner at a NY firm before teaching) once said that the second happiest day of his life was when he bought his boat, and the happiest was the day he sold it.
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Matt,
I suspect that when a lot of successful people buy nice boats, they think they’re also somehow buying the leisure to enjoy them. A guy with a “very successful consulting business on the side” in addition to what would normally be a full time job probably doesn’t have the time.
Also, the silly things spend a heck of a lot of time at the shop being worked on.
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We have some family friends who I swear ended up in marriage counseling over his boat purchase. As fun as it is to go boating with them once in a while, I’d never wish for that my own family.
FWIW, that same guy also bought a motorcycle – another veritable font of marital strife. It’s amazing they’re still married.
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I’m just talking about a two-seat kayak for flat water. I live near a giant river.
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If I want to get into marriage counseling, I’ll get there the dignified way, drinking too much and behaving inappropriately.
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“I’m just talking about a two-seat kayak for flat water. I live near a giant river.”
Definitely, do it. I’m really really bad at anything involving propelling myself (running, biking, skateboarding, even walking sometimes :-), but the kayak felt comfortable. Again, the only issue I’ve seen is for overweight people who carry a lot of weight in their upper bodies (like linebackers or body builders who have gone to seed).
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We have friends with boats who get a lot of out them. The key seems to be that you have to like to maintain the boat as well as sail it. You like working with their hands, which — isn’t this surprising — tends not to be the skill of most lawyers or investment bankers — techies are a mixed bunch. And, you have to sail when the wind blows (like skiing when the snow falls or surfing when the waves act up).
I admire the kind of person who can get a lot of boats, but they tend not to be the same kind of people who makes lots of money at law firms (at least in this day and age). I think some of them fantasize about a kinder time when being a high power CEO, partner, surgeon was more compatible with more leisure when they buy those boats.
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If she didn’t wear the foundation and false lashes, profile would be noting how her skin tones were really blotchy and her eyes were pale and watery. As long as she avoids Tammy-Fae levels of make-up, I’m willing to say this isn’t a problem for Rowling. But it’s obviously a problem for the celebrity profile author!
And if I had zillions, I’d buy a horse. Boats are not nearly as interesting as horses and, at least hereabouts, boating is not a four-season sport whereas you can ride a horse all year round if you have an indoor arena available. (I’d use my zillions to buy or ensure I had access to one of those, too.)
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you can ride a horse all year round if you have an indoor arena available.
That’s true, but not a necessary condition, either. Some of my fondest riding experiences were in the winter, through the snow in the forest in Russia. As a Russian would say, there’s no bad weather, only bad clothes. (Also, you have to not clip your horse then.)
As for the area, I don’t think it’s that expensive if you have the land. The buildings are pretty cheap, or can be. A really good surface is probably the most expensive part.
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I’m still stuck on this concept of stealth wealth. So, what are the closeted rich people NOT buying, if they still go on awesome vacations and send their kids to private school? Does that mean that they drive crappy cars to the airport for helicopter skiing? Forgive me for being clueless, because I live in the land of Jersey, where the rich people are rich dammit. The Pita Bread King of Paterson NJ bought a $700,000 house down the block, knocked it down, and built a $5M house.
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So, what are the closeted rich people NOT buying,
I have known some very wealthy people, even some rich ones, who drank awful beer (and wine, if they drank that), and who ate bad food, and who bought poorly made clothes, but usually this was because they had bad taste that had persisted from before their days of being wealthy, not because they were trying to hide their money. (These same people might buy, for example, the most expensive domestic pick-up truck you can buy. Those are pretty expensive- not like a Maserati or something, but much more expensive than an average car. They do this because they enjoy, or think they would enjoy, driving a really nice pick up truck more than a Maserati. And who knows- maybe they are right. But even a very fancy pick-up truck, one that costs significantly more than the average car, doesn’t say “rich guy” like a BMW, let alone a Maserati.)
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Laura,
Being a native Washingtonian, I kind of get what bj is talking about. Think fun, but not flashy, function, not display. Think REI catalog and Millionaire Next Door. (A major thesis of the MND books is that real rich people have relatively simple tastes and aren’t hyper-consumers.)
You’re probably right that it’s very un-NJ.
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“These same people might buy, for example, the most expensive domestic pick-up truck you can buy. Those are pretty expensive- not like a Maserati or something, but much more expensive than an average car.”
Oh, yes. I expect that most people driving the really expensive trucks can’t really afford them, which makes it difficult to pick out the genuinely rich people (namely the people who can afford them).
(I forgot to mention another of my gripes with a lot of boats–you have to own a vehicle large enough to tow the boat, plus a trailer to haul it on. It just doesn’t end.)
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But even a very fancy pick-up truck, one that costs significantly more than the average car, doesn’t say “rich guy” like a BMW, let alone a Maserati.
All the rich people I knew drove fancy pick-ups.
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“I have known some very wealthy people, even some rich ones, who drank awful beer (and wine, if they drank that), and who ate bad food, and who bought poorly made clothes, but usually this was because they had bad taste that had persisted from before their days of being wealthy, not because they were trying to hide their money.”
The Millionaire Next Door would put the same phenomenon in more flattering terms. I guess that by the time most people get rich (50ish or 60ish), their tastes have already gelled and they aren’t interested in impressing anybody. You would, for instance, have a very hard time talking MH out of changing his blue-shirt/brown pants uniform if he were to suddenly become wealthy, and he’s not even that old.
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Sorry!
“You would, for instance, have a very hard time talking MH INTO changing his…”
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I’m very old in terms of how abused my poor leg tendons feel, but I’m thinking of switching from cotton khakis to wool pants. I’d do it now but I don’t have a bunch of money to buy new clothes. Apparently, nobody wears pleated pants much and cotton flat-front pants are very constraining.
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Apparently, nobody wears pleated pants much and cotton flat-front pants are very constraining.
But if you were rich, you could have a fancy tailor make you custom-made pants that felt great. And they would probably look good, too. But if, say, you were a pretty rich guy in Idaho (and I don’t mean “rich by Idaho standards, but an honest-to-god rich guy in Idaho) there’s a pretty good chance you’d think you were being pretty fancy if you bought stuff off-the-rack at Nordstoms.
their tastes have already gelled and they aren’t interested in impressing anybody.
I agree with this, but still want to insist that it’s consistent with their tastes being bad.
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Laura – Here are some stealth wealth examples from my Microsoft pal days. These were all millionaires, which I realised later. Much later. And these weren’t the extreme ones who were, in hindsight, probably on the spectrum (didn’t socialise, stuffed the paycheque in the drawer and only cashed one when the bank account was overdrawn, etc.). These are examples from the regular folk.
– 5 roommates sharing a rental house near the university
– driving a used Toyota landcruiser
– renting one room in a friend’s house and sleeping on a thermarest in a sleeping bag
– clothes from REI
– biking to and from work
– going out for beers and burgers at a pub
– living in a mid-price range townhouse
Just regular living despite their wealth. You’d never guess.
Other examples that I know of more recently here in Vancouver and in Toronto:
– owning a 10 year old car and using transit
– living in a house half the size than you can afford in order to be in a middle class neighbourhood
– not eating out in fancy restaurants
– little or no jewelry or designer clothes
Pretty much no conspicuous consumption beyond private school and traveling – but not traveling to fancy resorts, rather more adventure/experience trips.
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“I agree with this, but still want to insist that it’s consistent with their tastes being bad.”
Potato, pot-ah-to.
“Pretty much no conspicuous consumption beyond private school and traveling – but not traveling to fancy resorts, rather more adventure/experience trips.”
If health and age allow, the sort of NW millionaire Sandra is thinking about is very likely to wind up summiting in the Himalayas.
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“But if you were rich, you could have a fancy tailor make you custom-made pants that felt great.”
I can only imagine how much my husband would hate having to go to so much trouble to get pants. He would PAY to escape the fancy tailor.
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He would PAY to escape the fancy tailor.
Sure- and maybe that’s the right thing for him, all things considered. (I’ve never been to a tailor- the closest thing I’ve ever had is having my mother make things for me, and though she was very good at it, I doubt it was quite the same.) But the truth remains that someone who goes to a really good tailor will almost always look better and have more comfortable clothes. Even having one’s clothes adjusted (which many modestly fancy shops will do) will make them look and feel much better than “off the rack” stuff. If people don’t care about that, well, that’s up to them. (I don’t do any of this stuff myself.) But it would be crazy to pretend that the quality of the fit or the comfort is just the same. That’s true with all sorts of things.
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I was thinking about the Rowling interview and here’s the thing: Anyone who writes for a living and whose living depends on the public reading what they write ends up in a position of great personal vulnerability. Heck, I write obscure academic books that no one ever reads and yet every semester I get:
1. A bunch of ‘reviews’ of my work by students who have taken my courses, some of whom think it is fun to criticize my hair, the way I stand, my shoes, my weight, the way I clear my throat, etc. etc. etc.
2. Reviews from anonymous individuals who have read my journal submissions, most of whom stick to the point and tell me a. that I need to read this book or b. that they’re having trouble with my prose in the second paragraph, but who c. occasionally get off topic and tell me that I have no business being an academic, that I am not contributing to the field, that I have some personal shortcoming (sloppiness, arrogance, etc.) that keeps my work from being publishable — you get the idea
3. Reviews from editors I have approached about writing a book who can sometimes tell you things like: no one cares about the subject that you’re proposing to spend 3 years writing about; your ideas are old-fashioned, etc.
4. Reviews from people who have actually read my books who tell me that they don’t like it.
The point is, introverted people become writers and academics because they don’t want to have to interact — often. And then, your work gets publicly reviewed in a way that can seem awfully personal. And that’s hard and painful — maybe less so if you have a billion dollars, but if you’re the sort of person whose going to feel bad if someone makes fun of your clothes or your hair, you probably will feel bad if someone does so in print, particularly if it’s some wealthy person and you yourself are middle class and somewhat self-conscious about it.
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I’d very much like a bespoke suit and tailored clothing in general. If I had all sort of money, I’d wear $500 pants that looked like my current pants except to the six people in town who could tell the difference.
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Yes, in the PNW stealth wealth is more common than the other type. It’s not purposely hiding your wealth, or having bad taste, but more just deciding that a certain level is necessary. Part of it might be less of a concern of signaling status, or more an interest comfort over style. People in Portland go to benefit dinners or opera boxes in Dansko clogs (and REI jackets!). I would say it’s more being wealthy but living a UMC lifestyle because it’s comfortable and easy. My brother had a good friend in high school (public school) who was from stealth wealth (and indeed worked at Microsoft for later on awhile). His parents lived in a very nice house in a nice neighborhood, but nothing over the top. They owned an island in Canada and a vineyard on the Columbia River. They drove well-made older cars, and dressed in jeans and t-shirts.
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They don’t buy items for status and prioritize “beauty and usefulness” (ala William Morris). They think this choice makes them stealthy, but the folks trying to sell stuff know that trips to the Himalayas cost more then trips to Capri or staying in expensive hotels in London.
I don’t think there’s anything they actually don’t buy — for example a Porsche collection or real art. The key is that they don’t buy them for status.
(Bill Gates drives a Porsche, at leastt sometimes.)
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I think bj is more right than B.I. Not to mention that dressing down is, depending on where you do it and how, a fairly obvious status play.
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But not really.
If you’re wearing clogs to the opera and everyone knows that you’re too rich to care, then you’re being just as conspicuous as someone who wears Manolos to the opera. Are clogs suppose to negate wealth? I’m with the common man because I’m wearing clogs. Don’t mind that teeny island over there. What silliness!
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they absolutely buy stuff, even seemingly common stuff, for status. Their status is “too cool to care.” They purposely buy certain items to signal their stealthy wealth. Nobody is actually buying their stuff at KMart. They are buying peer approved items of frugality. They aren’t being all that stealthy either, if you all know about the islands and shit. I find this consumption just as disgusting as the McMansion owning Pita Bread King down the block. At least he’s honest.
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I prefer a little bit of dishonesty if it avoids enough tacky.
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“I find this consumption just as disgusting as the McMansion owning Pita Bread King down the block. At least he’s honest.”
Why? It’s really none of your business.
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“I think bj is more right than B.I. Not to mention that dressing down is, depending on where you do it and how, a fairly obvious status play.”
But if it just means you look like everybody else?
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Not true that people don’t buy at Kmart (though target and Costco are more likely, partly for geography).
Also, dansko clogs are expensive, but they’re buying them for comfort (mostly).
And since other people buy/wear those things (rei, dansko, the person who has dreamt of mountain climbing all their life) the effect at the opera or when shopping for houses is that no one can tell whether you have 200K in the bak or 200 million (and, yes, the conflation is the top 20% and the top .01% not with the poor, usually).
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Of course it is. But, really, if we took “judging random strangers” off the table of discussion then this blog would have closed down years ago. Please.
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People who make 200K do not have 200K in the bank.
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You only need to look at the past 100 years of men’s wear to see how the evolution of rustic/outdoorsy/comfort clothing has been happening. The software developers in Seattle are treading down a well-traveled path. What most people call a “business suit” is technically a “lounge suit” and was originally worn by Englishmen trying to show how they were different from the stiffs in the formal morning suits. The names of other articles of clothing (e.g. sports coat, sweater) show the same pattern. It’s a trend at least as old as Waspiness.
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laura, MH
What Amy P said. People not from the NW have a hard time getting it. Clogs only signal “too wealthy to care” if they’re only worn by wealthy people. It’s not like the middle class people dress up and the wealthy dress down. It’s that everyone is wearing clogs and gortex to everything, thus there’s no status distinction there. The point isn’t to subtly signal status difference in ways the proles/nouveau riche don’t get, as it appears to be with old money WASPs in the NE, but simply that people don’t really care about status in the same way. Public school teachers and internet start up billionaires both wear Birkenstocks because they’re comfortable. If the start up guy wants a fancy motorcycle, he’ll buy it. There’s no attempt to actually hide your wealth, but rather there’s no attempt to actively signal wealth.
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I’m thinking about a number of PNW people I know. I don’t them closely or know their financial situation (beyond–doesn’t worry about money at all), but I know the general vibe.
1. The first one was an early Microsoft guy and left while still pretty young (possibly even late 20s). It took him a while to figure out what to do with himself because he didn’t have to worry about supporting himself. He’s in graduate school now.
2. The second guy is older and was also an early Microsoft guy who left. When I met him in DC, he had 8 or 9 kids. I suspect that helps to nullify the “too much money” issue–when you have that many children to think about, even 8 figures is not going to sound like wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. (I don’t know how wealthy he is, just that money just didn’t figure into his calculations.)
3. The third guy is a former president of REI. He does the sort of fun, adventurous stuff that other guys would like to do, just a lot more of it. We visited his lake house when I was a kid. It was nice, but not anything to blow my mind when I was a tween.
There’s not anything ostentatious about any of these people, either in dressing down or dressing up. The main feature is that you realize that they don’t need to think about money at all.
By the way, I was listening to Bare Naked Ladies’ If I had a million dollars on the radio this morning and thinking how relevant it is to this thread:
“If I had a million dollars
We wouldn’t have to eat Kraft dinner
But we would eat Kraft dinner
“Of course we would, we’d just eat more
And buy really expensive ketchups with it
That’s right, all the fanciest Dijon ketchups”
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bj
Yeah, think David Brooks’s Bobos in Paradise. People want and live that lifestyle once they’re past UMC, rather than California/East Coast luxury. To the extent the wealthy can and do buy/consume more, it’s more of the same or slightly more expensive versions of what MC people are buying (like, 10 pairs of Danskos instead of 1). However, no matter how expensive camping gear or beach houses on the Oregon coast can get, it’s not in the same category as yachts, or summer homes on the French Riviera. Also in the NW, you have enough young not well off people who specialize and invest in an activity that the person with the high end tent might be a millionaire or maybe a grad student who loves camping and spends his life savings on camping gear, so again, even expensive high performance stuff doesn’t always signal wealth.
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I think consumption is consumption and if its your money, and you’re not expecting a subsidy or lower taxes, I don’t judge whether you want to spend your money on Blahniks or 2 pairs of Uggs.
Some forms of consumption are more “expensive” than others independent of the money they cost (i.e. bigger houses, bigger cars, building in environmentally sensitive zones, climbing Everest) and I’d care about that, but I’d rather care by imposing the external costs (i.e. property taxes, gas taxes, . . .) rather than judging.
The one difference I can see between status consumption and “quality” consumption is that status consumption (sometimes) imposes the consumption on others, too. For example, if you are in a community where you’re not properly dressed unless you’re wearing the right brand of shoes or suit. The PNW does have less of that, right now.
My presumption, though, is that the environment will change as the money grows older. The current group of “Stealth wealth” didn’t grow up wealthy. The billionaires grew up middle class and upper middle class. They’ve ramped up their purchases and the group they hang out with have changed their purchases. As the money grows older I expect that the status effects will creep in, because they’ll be known.
Note that the San Francisco zillinaires have been more quickly integrated into the old wealth of SF. SF might really be different. But, it might just be older.
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Oh, and I’ve lived in a number of cities, east coast, west coast, midwest, and I really do think the status game is different in the PNW. I think it’s the complete obliteration of the old wealth by the new. Midwest cities, have old wealth, of sorts. The PNW did, too. But in some of those cities the new wealth has vastly outpaced the old wealth, changing the power structures by replacing hereditary wealth with new wealth.
Unless Bill Gates and the rest are outpaced in the future, I’d expect the power structures to become more established going forward and come to resemble other cities.
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So you can’t be wealthy and lowkey? It’s always about some sort of show of status? Can’t the guy with the bespoke suit just enjoy wearing something well made without it being a way to show off to everyone else?
I think it’s possible.
People are either more about ideas or things – and if you are into “stuff”, you can be just as status-y about it whether you are wealthy or not.
I’ve been around wealthy people who were not into status and I’ve been around wealthy people who were ALL about the show of it. The former didn’t think it made them any better than anyone else and the latter were all about showing how they deserved kudos for just being wealthy.
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For example, if you are in a community where you’re not properly dressed unless you’re wearing the right brand of shoes or suit. The PNW does have less of that, right now.
They sort of do if people are supposed to wear REI-style stuff for professional activities. It’s comfortable to them maybe, but I tend to think that grown adult men should wear actual shirts to work and feel very strange without one on.* It isn’t as if the cotton Oxford is less practical or more expensive than some Gore-Tex thing.
*(And actual pants that go all the way down the leg, which is why I always felt over-dressed in North Carolina summers.)
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“People who make 200K do not have 200K in the bank.”
It depends how long they’ve been making it, what kind of student loans they had to have to make that kind of money, the local cost of living, and how high-maintenance their particular lifestyle is. You could be making $200k and have pretty much nothing in the bank (especially if we consider debt) or you could have millions. It’s often quite invisible which it is.
“It’s that everyone is wearing clogs and gortex to everything, thus there’s no status distinction there.”
Right. And it does probably factor in that the climate is so gosh darn miserable that it makes way more sense to adopt a more easy-care look and wear the Goretex (oddly, in the rainier parts of the NW, umbrella-carrying is rather uncommon). You could pretty yourself up, get rained on a little, and then wind up looking like an extra from the Poseidon Adventure for the rest of the day. There’s really no point.
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By the way, I’m not up on the latest in high-performance fabrics, but I LOVED Goretex when I lived in the NW. It’s so amazing to be able to go outside in the wet but stay dry and comfy, rather than being cold and rain-soaked or cold and clammy from wearing a traditional waterproof coat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore-Tex
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“Can’t the guy with the bespoke suit just enjoy wearing something well made without it being a way to show off to everyone else?
Probably not, and not because the guy can’t feel that way about it, but ’cause he’s taking advantage of his wealth to enjoy something that most people can’t enjoy. that means that other people will interpret his bespoke suit as a sign of status seeking, which, in turn, will mean he can’t just wear it for fun without an overlay of the other. There might be somebody out there who has saved and scrimped to buy the bespoke suit or the 2 oz tent, and, so, understands perfectly well how wonderful it is, for its own value. But, even then, the status impact remains.
And, that’s ignoring the wealth effect where your dressing down is someone else’s indulgence/expensive treat (i.e the woman who normally wears Blahniks wearing Uggs). Or, to illustrate a personal example, my commenting on the Hanna Andersson everyone was wearing and having a Target wearer react with the assumption that the group must be well off. Or, in an incident that was even more surprising to me, having Target classed as a “step up” store (I kind of understood the Hanna, but was perplexed about what was more downscale than Target, which, incidentally, illustrated my SES biases to the person I was talking to).
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There’s also the value/money trade off. If you have a billion dollars (or a 10 million or 1 million, it’s just the item that changes), any subtle increase in true value of an item to you (the suit, the shoes, the car, the boat, the school, the lipstick, the iPhone) is a miniscule percent of your income, and leaves you plenty of money to do whatever else you want to do. So, you can pay for that increased comfort without thought. So the question of whether that true value is “really” worth it is never really answered.
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bj
My parents loved Hanna Andersson (and Nordstroms for special occasions), but thought The Gap was too expensive. (Most of our clothes were from Value Village.) In the PNW people do buy expensive stuff, but I really think there’s less emphasis on brands and less awareness.
I grew up in inner SE Portland and maybe was particularly oblivious, but until college, the only car logo I could recognize was Volkswagon. I thought Lexus and Saturn were the same car line, as were Mercedes and Mercury. (I still remember my college boyfriend’s horror when I mentioned his mom drove a Mercury, when she actually drove a high end Mercedes, but as M names they just seemed the same). Even now, if someone asks what sort of car something is, I answer with a color. The same applies to clothes. I didn’t know J Crew was more expensive or preppier than Old Navy. I owned a pair of DKNY pants I bought at a thrift store, and when someone asked me what brand it was, my answer was, “I don’t know, it’s just a bunch of letters.” I’d heard of most national brands, but I’d never shopped at most of them and since there was minimal price differential between them at the thrift store, I had no status hierarchy to place anything in so it was just lumped together. I had a bigger culture shock going to college on the East coast than I have living in some foreign countries.
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Didn’t David Brooks literally write the book on this (“Bobos in Paradise”)?
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“My parents loved Hanna Andersson (and Nordstroms for special occasions), but thought The Gap was too expensive.”
For your family, there might be a Nordic or PNW patriotism thing going on. I know that for me, going to IKEA is pretty much my only indulgence in ethnic pride. A little sad, I suppose, to be so deracinated, but it’s been rather a long time since my great-great grandparents got off the boat. (I guess I also particularly enjoy the Scandinavian design blogs for the same reason.) I definitely give Hanna Andersson more slack price-wise for Scandinavian pride reasons, although I have never actually ordered from them (I’d like to, but I can’t get over the sticker shock–I do give the catalog a good hard look before tossing it in the recycling).
(I’m currently watching Lilyhammer and thinking about sweater shopping in Norway.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilyhammer
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This thread reminds me of a family from school. The dad’s a doctor, the mom’s a SAHM and there are four kids. They don’t talk about money either way, but I have the distinct impression that their lifestyle is rather less nice than my family’s. It does raise the question, are we maybe living a little too high on the hog?
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To take this thread in another weird tangent… In NYC, opera goers aren’t necessarily rich. You can get very cheap tickets the day of performances because not enough people go. And people don’t wear super fancy clothes. Someone in firs or sequins is usually an out of towner. People wear the black NYC uniform. Black turtleneck, skirt, boots. The only people wearing jeans are the Juilliard students. If you dress too casually, it is considered disrespectful to the performers and the musicians.
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That’s not really a tangent. Being dragged to operas is one way in which success makes people unhappy.
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In NYC, opera goers aren’t necessarily rich. You can get very cheap tickets the day of performances because not enough people go.
Not just those. I went to the opera a fair amount when I lived in NYC, and I wasn’t close to rich. You can get “bad” seats for not much more, or sometimes less, than a typical movie ticket in NYC- our 3rd from last row seats to “War and Peace”, on a weekend night, were $12, less than a movie. We got nicer seats to a evening show of Don Giovonni for $20 each, which is still less than most people pay for a movie and snacks in NYC.
And people don’t wear super fancy clothes. Someone in firs or sequins is usually an out of towner.
Or Russian, which doesn’t mean “out of towner” in NYC.
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I sounded more obnoxious than I meant to be, but it feels like there process of watching people who are rich creates the status-seeking behaviors that are then condemned by … those watching. Isn’t there a way for people to opt out of the whole status-seeking thing without being judged for opting out as well?
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The helicopters for heliskiing in Georgia (just one operator, as far as I know) are only post-Soviet if by that you mean Aérospatiale. Austrians have been running (or at least advising) Gudauri, Georgia’s main high-altitude ski area, since the mid-90s. Lifts and all are perfectly cromulent by European standards.
The Soviet infrastructure a couple hundred meters in the other direction is doing what a great deal of Soviet infrastructure is doing in Georgia: rusting in place or being carried off and sold for scrap.
The short flights to Svaneti, a much wilder high-altitude area, are run by Canadians and are very safety-conscious. The only downside of that is that safety-consciousness plus High Caucasus weather equals lots of cancelled flights, so people on less flexible schedules may find themselves driving back from Svaneti, which is another story entirely.
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“Austrians have been running (or at least advising) Gudauri, Georgia’s main high-altitude ski area, since the mid-90s.”
Austrians seem to be the missionaries of the ski world. They were really important for developing Sun Valley, Idaho, too (an Austrian count IDed it as being very promising, and the ski school was dominated by Austrians for a long time).
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I had written a more charming comment (really!) but it disappeared in the ether a few days ago.
Net net, so it isn’t possible for someone to be wealthy and also NOT be about status and showing off that wealth?
I know wealthy people who live as though they believe that it gives them a step up over the average person. And I also know wealthy people who are not into the status of things at all. They live their lives as similarly to someone who had an amazing talent. They are aware of it but they don’t believe that it makes them better than someone else nor do they show off.
For them it’s not about pretending to not have money but rather that ostentation doesn’t do anything for them.
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I’m getting back to this late, but I just remembered another set of wealthy people I know very well. They’re so stealthily wealthy that they slipped my mind.
I have an aunt and uncle who are both pharmacists. They built up a small town pharmacy/variety store while first renting a tiny cottage and then buying a comfortable but modest home that some 25-30 years later, they have finally managed to remodel. Their cars look like what everybody else in town has. They have taken some very nice trips, they are religious about yearly skiing, my auntie is a sharp dresser, they’ve supported their two kids through an awful lot of college (undergrad and grad, plus two years of unemployment for one) and I know they give a lot to their church and no doubt to other good causes. For an uninformed stranger, their spending doesn’t look out of line for an upper middle class family. However, given that their income has substantially outpaced their consumption for decades (and they’ve bought up chunks of town along the way), that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
My uncle never, never loses at Monopoly.
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