The new rich is about being productive about your free time.

[Rman]

The first is Elizabeth Currid-Hackett’s The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class (Amazon / Indiebound), which argues that as economic class continues to disarticulate from education level (aka, people with PhDs can be barely making ends meet, and people with a high school education working in the trades, or owning their own businesses, can be solidly upper middle class) people increasingly signal their class status, or their aspirational class status, through “productive” leisure.

Before, you could announce your spot in the upper-middle class through the purchase of recognizable luxury brand items. Now, buying an item for its luxury status is conceived of as crass, or uncultured — a mark of new money. The real way to show that you’re cultured is to evidence (through conversation or Instagram) consumption of cultured things (podcasts, articles, award-winning books, quality television) and participation in cultured activities (pottery class, skiing, bread baking, endless numbers of self-optimizing physical activities).

This style of bourgeois signaling makes me think of the Portlandia skit in which the conversation over dinner circles around asking one another “did you read” [this longform article from this esteemed publication] without ever actually discussing the contents of the articles. What ultimately matters is being the sort of person who reads longform articles and talks about them at dinner, not actually reading them.

The second book, Melissa Gregg’s Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy (Amazon / Indiebound) has totally refigured my understanding of productivity. Gregg, who currently works as a researcher at Intel, started collecting time management manuals, guides, and how-tos from the discount racks at bookstores years ago. And like any good researcher, she started to discern patterns, and spikes in popularity — and went backwards to try and figure out why, for instance, these manuals first started appearing in the ‘70s, and then again in the early ‘90s (see especially: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) and have found their contemporary iteration in late 2000s and 2010s in productivity apps.

The timing, of course, is not coincidental: each spike in the fetish for productivity aligns with a moment of mass anxiety over layoffs, downsizing, and general precarity in the workplace. Within office and knowledge jobs in particular, that precarity translates into a need to demonstrate one’s value — and the most straightforward way to do so is through productivity. (In today’s climate of freelancing, independent contracting, and general side-hustling, cultivating productivity is also a way to make ends meet, or beat others’s out for a contract).

https://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-wages-of-productivity

[Kara]

The real way to show that you’re cultured is to evidence (through conversation or Instagram) consumption of cultured things (podcasts, articles, award-winning books, quality television)

 

[BlueTsunami]

Cute. The bourgeoisie with aspirations of percieved normalcy. You gotta fill up that life of leisure somehow. But is it worth it if no one is watching? You know, how normal self improvement and toiling day in and day out usually goes.

[toku]

Late-Stage Capitalism Thread Pt. 2

[BlueTsunami]

Henry Cavill ahead of the curve. That beautiful dork.

[BlueTsunami]

Maybe they think they're creating interest by posting about their consumption 

[ToxicAdam]

Side Note: I’m continuing/mindfully accelerating my decade’s long move towards vegetarianism

Woah woah woah. Don't rush things.

[BisMarckie]

Consuming isn't "productive", though

You should read my fanfiction.

[BisMarckie]

Where?

My thebore dot com fanfiction is still a work in progress.   

[Cerveza mas fina]

Another way the rich are trying to rig the game is by saying that being rich doesn't matter you are one of us if you consume the same media.

[BisMarckie]

Btw. My shosta character is an anthropomorphic fox constantly looking for his ideological home in the world.
There are libertarian sex-escapades with benji-cat and communist ones with kara-bear.

[Kara]

I already sat for him, look out.

[Joe Molotov]

True galaxy brain wealth is being able to waste my time however I want.

[jakefromstatefarm]

Pseudo‑activity is generally the attempt to rescue enclaves of immediacy in the midst of a thoroughly mediated and rigidified society. . . . The disastrous model of pseudo‑activity is the “do‑it‑yourself” . . . activities that do what has long been done better by the means of industrial production only in order to inspire in the unfree individuals, paralyzed in their spontaneity, the assurance that everything depends on them. . . . However, spontaneity should not be absolutized, just as little as it should be split off from the objective situation or idolized the way the administered world itself is.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Fuck off.

[who is ted danson?]

only a member of the upper class would be able to laze around and play videogames all day 

[Nintex]

The real way to mark your position is to evidence a cultural omnivorousness, an eclectic mix of high and low: attend the ballet, but also be familiar with the latest dances on TikTok; go to the opera and be a master at karaoke.

Je' Excuse M'lady.

Unless thou has excellent knowledge in memetic asynchronous warfare thou might as well be a squire seeking a handout

[VomKriege]

New rich sounds a lot like the old rich.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

When has "culture" and "classical education" not the perimeter, if not the monopoly, of the upper classes ?

[close]

[Nintex]

"Have you not seen the Sky Walker saga?"

"My man, Unless you want to make it in life you better TOSS A COIN TO YOUR WITCHER"

[recursivelyenumerable]

True modern sophistication is measured in how many ongoing twitter beefs you can follow simultaneously and how many associated cliques' discords you've managed to sneak into

[team filler]

true wealth is measured by how much you can be seen "giving" away without compromising your own personal comfort in the slightest.

[jakefromstatefarm]

“there is no wealth like a moblin like; no poverty like a glen hatepost.”

-forums poster filler

[jakefromstatefarm]

dp

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/RogueCharisma/status/1217933009086644224

[OnlyRegret]

heh, I play games with 90+ metacritic scores you philistine