Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

> the people who started dressing like Steve Jobs. Elizabeth Holmes and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind as people who did this in an obvious way.

Zuckerberg was never known for copying the look of Steve Jobs. I doubt you can find multiple photos from different dates that demonstrates the claim.

Zuck wore zip hoodies and flip flops; the version of Jobs that Zuckerberg would have been exposed to did not dress that way (Jobs might have worn flip flops to work in the 1970s, given the era). Zuck wore plain, grey-blue, short sleeve shirts; Jobs did not. There isn't much to Zuck's sense of style beyond that it's simplistic and very casual - which is from the era he grew up in and how his young peers around him dressed.

Holmes by contrast did attempt to directly mimic the look of Jobs.

I think there's a bit of an idea now that you should be expressing yourself with your money, not expressing society's ideas. Around cars and watches, this creates a little bit of a "dead zone" for prestigious professionals.

For example, if you aren't showing up in a $200k Maserati, your car had better be under $50k (maybe $70k with inflation). Only posers who aren't really into cars but want to show off their wealth spend $120k on a car.

For watches, the same thing happens: if you're wearing a watch less than $50k, it had better be under $500. Otherwise you probably don't care much about watches.

Clothing seems to be the same at many companies: you had better wear tailored suits and shirts or be less dressy than "business casual."

I'm kinda like this as well.

I'm not a misanthrope, and still enjoy the company of people. But. I used to status-jockey and be unconsciously and consciously obsessed with all of that, no matter the arena/ context/ subculture, etc. But doing a lot of inner work and unearthing what my core drives/ motives/ needs were, a lot of that status-jockeying and wanting to be in the in-group to feel this existential sense of acceptance and security started to come into focus, and a lot of old friendships became revealed as insecurity/ fear based (on both parties). And trying to introduce new paradigms to old friends became sort of the last-ditch effort to try to salvage relationships that were built on shaky foundation.

It also made me look back on when people tried to speak truth into my beliefs when I was still caught-up in wanting to be relevant and seen as high-status & outwardly respectable, and how I couldn't hear what people were saying.

I still wanna give people a chance, though, but accept them for where they communicate they are at and leave em alone if they're deep in that status-chasing game, and have no desire to explore getting out of that mess. There are still people out there who want to enjoy life and find meaning on other terms than getting validation from an anonymous audience/ jury that they believe has the power to approve or reject them.

Or it's just a miscommunication: The boss was throwing the party with the intention of everyone having a chance to relax and have fun, but everyone else saw it as a career opportunity and "dressed for success".

Perhaps dressing poorly (very common) and not being in shape (bimodal distribution, there are many in very good shape and many in very bad shape, few in between) started out as a counter-signal, but today it is just sloppiness, or convenience, like it is more convenient to order fast food instead of grilling chicken.

I work in the tech industry, and although I don't usually wear a suit, I often show up in a spezzato, a pair of pants and a jacket of a different fabric/color. Nothing too flashy, but well put together. And I think that's the counter signal nowadays: show up looking good, feeling good, being what we want to be.