Why the right status symbols are good for us
New York City. 1928.
In a dramatic public display of disobedience, a group of fashionable young women march down Fifth Avenue during the New York City Easter Parade, proudly and brazenly smoking cigarettes.
‘Good girls’ weren’t supposed, allowed even, to smoke cigarettes in public. It was seen as unfeminine by some, as far as promiscuous by others. It was an outrage. It defied the accepted social norms of the day.
The press were there, having been tipped off that women suffragettes would be lighting up their ‘Torches of Freedom’ as a symbol of defiance against the patriarchy. Those cigarettes were statements of intent, and a landgrab for female independence. The photographers snapped greedily, the journalists scribbled hastily.
The next day, the New York Times headlineread “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom”.
But this wasn’t an idea borne from the suffragettes movement. It sprung from the brain of a man called Edward Bernays, commonly referred to within the advertising and marketing industry as ‘the father of public relations’.
After WWI, Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company to encourage women to start smoking, in order to open up a new market for their product.
A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays was the first to theorise that people could be made to want things they don’t need by appealing to unconscious desires (to be free, to be successful etc.).
The Easter Parade stunt helped to reframe cigarettes as symbols of women's liberation and independence, effectively breaking the taboo and opening up a whole new market for his client.
Torches of Freedom.
Through these and other campaigns, Bernays demonstrated that people can be persuaded to desire material things not for their inherent value or usefulness, but for what they symbolize in terms of status, belonging, and identity. You don’t need me to tell you that this insight has had a profound and lasting impact on advertising, marketing, and consumer culture. And, as I check the time on my Garmin, and adjust my Levis jeans as I write, I recognise the power of its personal influence.
I don’t blame Edward for this impact. If he hadn’t discovered it, someone else would have.
As I recently wrote about in more detail, seeking status is what we do. It’s why we always want more, and it drives progress. The problem is not in the seeking of status. The challenges arise when we don’t pay attention to what we’re seeking, and why.
That Easter Parade march was a success in that it solidified the image of cigarettes as “torches of freedom” within the feminist movement. Symbols are important elements of any movements. Rainbow flags. Raised Fists. Peace Symbols. They matter, and create awareness.
For women in the 1920s and 30s, embracing a cigarette undeniably became a status symbol. It signified a woman as having a desire to be identified and seen as something greater. It connected to a core, fundamental value - independence.
I’m not advocating for smoking. I abhor it. But did this symbol play its role in a broader ideal? Yes. This status symbol influenced the lives of many women of that era who chose to fire one up publicly, and consequently the lives of many others to come. It provided status worth seeking because it linked directly to a value that can benefit a broad set of people.
It’s normal to want things. It’s natural to pursue things that give us status. These things will shift, and be shaped by the culture that surrounds them. Cigarettes are, of course, seen in a different light a century on.
But what Edward inadvertently unleashed was a difficult truth.
If we’re not paying attention to what we’re seeking, our attention can be easily hi-jacked.
What gives us contentment in life, is consistently doing the things that feel purposeful, or meaningful, to us. And it is only when we do things that align with our values, that we are likely to find a sense of purpose. Bernays didn’t succeed through trickery, but because he created a movement around something meaningful; a move towards independence for half the world’s population.
“When people ask, “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is: “How can I use my time in a way that feels meaningful?
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How can I do things consistently each and every day that makes me feel like the choices I’m making have meaning?
What we choose to regularly pay attention to and engage with are influential choices we make every day. Over time, these choices define us.
Figuring out what symbols we want to play a role in our lives is another set of decisions, and has to begin with examining and choosing our values. Because if we don’t, others around us will try to do so.
Viktor Frankl, Halocaust survivor
What do you value?
When we choose to feel content over a cup of coffee on a fresh autumn morning, we are choosing to value the simple moments in life.
Thinking that we’ll be happy when we own a yacht that we can show off to others on social media means that we value ostentacious displays of grandeur.
One of these values is not like the other. One is repeatable, within our control and viewed from the self. One is not.
However, having values such as a deep love for adventure and testing your limits, values that are embodied in your decades long love of sailing, might set your ambition to own a yacht. In that case, a yacht represents a way to experience authentic contentment. One that is aligned with an enduring value - adventure, and pushing boundaries.
We have to pay attention to the status we seek. We must be intentional about it.
To seek status is to seek satisfaction.
The trick to enduring satisfaction is to want what we already have.
What we always have is our values.
Therefore, the status we seek is rooted in the values we hold.
Our values become our lens for the status we seek. Acting them out consistently creates who we are.
Who are you?