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On iPhones as a status symbol--
Quick preamble: Not sure if there is a formal name for the phenomenon whereby someone supposedly intelligent and/or scientific declares certain human behavior to be illogical or irrational, often with an undercurrent of smugness or contempt, when said behavior can fairly obviously be explained away in logical/rational terms. For example, I've read in more than one pop psychology/economics book that consumers are irrational when they pay attention to celebrity endorsements, because a move star has no professional expertise in whether say a particular make or model of car is any good. Yet celebrities have personal brands to protect, and rationally one expects the most famous ones to have teams perform some level of due diligence on what they are endorsing. Furthermore, expensive endorsement deals signal a basic level of liquidity and financial strength in the brand, which in turn means it's less likely for what it sells to be crap, given that will in turn dilute the brand value, etc. You don't typically pump and dump by signing multi-year branding deals. Then there is the reality that fans of a particular celebrity tend to align with them in tribal identification and values/preferences in general, so there is reason to believe that say a machismo star will like the same type of cars as a machismo fan, etc.
So when I encounter a behavior that doesn't seem rational, I generally assume I'm missing something under the surface rather than conclude that people are simply stupid. Well, here's a behavior that doesn't seem rational, and I'd like to understand what I'm missing:
iPhones are seen as minor status symbols--they're not Rolexes or Porsches, but still have what I consider to be outsized gatekeeping power relative to their cost. In particular, at least here in the US, younger people make a big deal out of blue/green bubbles, as the latter signals someone who does not have an iPhone. Beyond cosmetics, iPhone intentionally makes communication with Androids more difficult by refusing to integrate with RCS, which does complicate communicating with non-iPhones, but this complication is more a problem for the Android user than the iPhone user (e.g., picture Android sends iPhone is fine, but the reverse is low-res), since the lack of integration is largely unidirectional.
But the problem is iPhones really aren't a very useful signal in terms of conspicuous consumption, because they have a huge price range. For anyone looking, Walmart is about to sell the SE for $99, and the 11 for $199. Of course, plenty of Androids can be bought for even cheaper, but plenty are also premium phones costing the same as any iPhone, in particular the Samsung Galaxies and Google Pixels. Phones also look more or less identical in recent years, especially when you wrap a cover around it, so it takes effort to tell whether you have the latest Pro Max or the standard from a couple of years back. And to be honest, among women I know (who literally ALL have iPhones), at least half own ones that are 2 or more years old, and like a quarter have cracked screens. This doesn't exactly scream affluence.
Signals are useful when they are harder to fake. It's hard to fake being tall, so height (in real life) is often used as a proxy for a man's worth. Many also often anchor on Ivy League degrees for the same reason. When signals are easier to fake, people tend to place less value on them--you automatically assume the inbound message featuring a beautiful woman to be a bot, that people will look worse than they do in their Instagram. A Rolex (might be counterfeit) is less trustworthy than a Porsche (might be leased), which in turn is less trustworthy than a penthouse apartment or a mansion in SF.
So why do people seem to rely upon iPhones and blue bubbles so much, when it's so cheap and trivial to "fake"? Obviously all the Reddit/Twitter posts about women rejecting men when they find out their numbers are green bubbles are not representative of all, but it's prevalent enough to be part of the culture, and at some point the masses consciously or subconsciously adhere to that default.
The only thing I can think of is that buying iPhone is less about whether you have money, and more about whether you conform to the norm. When you own one, you signal that you accept that is what you are supposed to get, and that can be helpful in filtering out weirdos who post thousands-word essays on the internet about how buying one is so irrational.
I realize this is more tangential to your point, but I'm curious how much of what you describe is confounded with intelligence? I don't think I've really consciously tested this, but I believe I instinctively categorize people into competent/incompetent buckets very quickly upon meeting them. I'm not always right in this effort, but it generally helps me minimize interactions with incompetent people--they are both less interesting to talk to and more likely to cause problems as your relationships deepen. I expect wealthier families tend to have more intelligent children, but the variance must still be quite large, especially when you're talking about 7% of the population. Am I unusual in this regard? I would think that if you had to pick one thing, it's far more rewarding to evaluate based on perceived competence than perceived class. As you say later on, America is comparatively more meritocratic, so while networking still matters, it'll be relatively more important to surround yourself with competent people who come from little than incompetent people who come from much. Well, now that I type that last sentence out I'm less confident, but I think I'll stand by it by drawing a bit of a nuance: if you're looking for a sinecure, having access to dumb people with aristocratic families is great, but if you're looking to truly excel in America, better to stick to actual merit, or ideally find competent aristocrats.
Seems like an eminently useful problem to solve with good ol' American entrepreneurship. How can Silicon Valley / Austin create a service whereby people can signal class expensively but also productively? Spending a hundred G on gold-leafed burgers and Petruses at Salt Bae's restaurant is expensive but idiotic. Donating to charity is more productive, but still not the best use of capital if we're solving for growth. Suppose the answer is some kind of more public venture capitalism? Let's ramp up Shark Tank to 11 and modify accredited investor regulations so the up-and-coming can proudly and publicly buy up equity stakes in the latest startup?
I find this interesting but a bit unpersuasive. Would you argue the same is true for being fat and frail? Just because a high class Briton can never lose their class status even if they never exercise doesn't make a lack of physical fitness high status in and of itself. It's not like teeth alignment requires invasive surgery or carries some trashy stigma like breast augmentation. I know I'm speaking out of my arse here being an American and all, but give me two high-class Brits, ceteris paribus, I'd figure the one with aligned and whitened teeth to be ever slightly more competent for being able to take care of themselves. Note that what I'm saying is not the same as claiming a perfect-teeth working class Joe is superior to a crooked-teeth aristocrat. We're all talking about ceteris paribus here, after all.
Let me throw China into the story very briefly. Its governing party is supposedly pro peasant and anti landlords. But reality is those in power tend to be predominantly princelings, or children of Communist revolutionaries. You could argue therefore that China has a class that cannot lose status either. But if we look at what's been happening to it, I think most would agree that its rapid rise in GDP and living standards was not due to its princeling class system, but to the economic opening up and fierce meritocratic competition led by Deng Xiaoping. Now that Xi is back to suppressing the landlords in favor of "common prosperity" with the metaphorical peasants, including abruptly shutting down tutoring nationwide (which is highly anti-meritocracy given it upends the national entrance exam system that more-or-less singlehanded determines college admission, a far more important ticket to moving up a class than even the West), it's no surprise that growth and innovation are both slowing (more than otherwise as an economy becomes larger).
So from my vantage point, America's meritocratic rat race is a great system, because it encourages growth and innovation. What motivation is there to do anything if you are born privileged and can never lose it? Perhaps it's no big deal 500 years ago when a genius has no other way to entertain themselves than to throw themselves into solving hard problems, but nowadays with all the optimized dopamine-hijacking goods and services, you really need motivation to excel.
A comment on the status of teeth in Britain (at least where I am): I'd say that having teeth, not having any fillings, is better than having unhealthy teeth. But when it comes to teeth whitening, it's a cosmetic procedure that doesn't make your teeth any better at anything you want your teeth to do, so having it done implies you're vain and a bit frivolous, like getting a fake tan. Very white teeth look uncanny valley level to me. I understand they're the norm in America, but they're really not the norm around where I live.
This doesn't apply to being fat, because being fat implies you're too lazy to exercise or control your diet and affects your health negatively. Having aligned teeth might make them slightly better for biting, but having them whiter doesn't help at all.
For two people, one with missing teeth (or other obvious flaws) and one with all their teeth, I'm more positively inclined towards the one not missing teeth. But two people, one with "natural" teeth and one with the perfect American smile, I'm more favourable towards the former.
In my experience, whitened teeth are most definitely not the norm in America. In American media, sure, but not Americans in general. Most people aren't going to spend the money on something frivolous like that.
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