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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3171 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 25, 2024

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Any of you guys own things purely because they are conversation starters (with rich people)? I thought expensive watches, designer clothes and supercars were the only ones.

Surprisingly, my friend owns a few JDM cars (worth 10-20k USD, nothing crazy) and is getting stopped all over town and appearing in Youtube videos with 1M+ subscriber youtubers. That seems like exceptional value for money. I'm on the edge of buying one myself. The people met along the way are probably worth more than 10-20k USD. This might be unique to my home city of Dubai though. I don't think common classic JDM's are the minor status symbol of the day in the US, any Tom, Dick and Harry can own one, and the upper classes have more "refined" tastes.

The dynamic you're seeing is a guy with more money than taste hanging out with a guy with more taste than money, to balance the books. The guy with a Ferrari or an AMG likes cars, and wants his cool car to say cool things about him, but everyone (including the man himself) kinda knows that he just bought an expensive car than any cheugy rich guy could buy. The guy who rices out his old WRX is the opposite: he clearly genuinely loves cars, knows something about them, not everyone can get that with money. They bask in each other's reflected glow: the ricer seems cooler when it gets approval from the Ferrari, the Ferrari seems less cheugy when it's understood in the same way as the ricer.

You see similar dynamics in the way PE guys traveling to Aspen will love ski bums, rich gumbies at the climbing gym love the setters who live out of their old Chevy Suburban, subscribers with a box at the Symphony Hall love a starving young artist, watch guys with a drawer full of Rolexes love the guy who collects cheap vintage Tissots and Vostoks. Hell, my fantasy if I ever really achieve my goals in finance is to take one of our rental units and have an Artist in Residence grant. That kind of thing has been around for decades, from an Austrian Nobleman Commissioning a Symphony in C to the ornamental hermit. It's about using another person, who has cache and taste, to make the things you buy with your money seem like more than just representations of your money, they become representations of your taste.

I've definitely seen this dynamic with watches. Guys with $15k Rolexes love to talk about my vintage Seamaster I bought for $50, or my indie brand watches. Which can be worth something in the corporate world I suppose. In general, seek to "participate" in rich people hobbies at a cheaper price point.

vintage Seamaster I bought for $50

WTF, how? Amazing find.

This was over a decade ago at this point, when those watches were less popular, and I got it second hand locally. It's also not in A+ condition.

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