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 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDJhwibFKcI&feature=related Last year I saw a video interview of a modern day hobo that left an impression on me. Unfortunately, I cannot locate the video. Anyhow, what made it interesting is that a well to do executive took a month off every year to be a hobo. A hobo is a vagrant worker who travels [...]

Evidently, there is a trend in Chinese business for hiring white foreigners to pose as important dignitaries. The presence of a visiting CEO from Europe or America increases the prestige of the hosting company. This prestige has led to companies staging events and hiring expats to pose as foreign VIPs. According to Zhang Haihua, author [...]

Second Life is a virtual community where participants interact with their environment and others through avatars. I developed an awareness of Second Life from an ethnographic article in the most recent addition of Symbolic Interaction. That article focused on sexual language and behavior in Second Life. Interestingly, you can meet somebody in Second Life and [...]

Yahoo ran this interesting article yesterday about a young man who got into Harvard with false credentials, and then, when discovered, managed to get accepted into Princeton. The antagonist had claimed, falsely, that he attended the prestigious Phillips Academy at Andover and attended MIT. There is no doubt that Adam Wheeler was status fixated, but [...]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5FRl0qhOM Fire walking has been practiced as a religious ritual since ancient times and amongst diverse cultures. Today, there is a new trend, a new type of warrior that is willing to walk the coals–fortune five hundred companies are purchasing fire walking retreats for their managers… To quote a retreat leader from the video: “Fire [...]

I’m getting ready to travel two hundred and fifty miles north for cold pike and trout waters. I am hoping to catch a big fish and I am going out of my way to put myself in front of choice species in their ideal environment, under ideal conditions.  A good catch is always an exhilarating [...]

Marina Orlova came to the United States six years ago to prepare for a doctorate in philology. Fascinated by YouTube, Marina started her own YouTube show, Hot for Words, which became an internet sensation. Marina has garnered attention from Wired, Cosmopolitan, The O’Rielly Factor, The New York Times, and now hosts a show on Maxim [...]

In 1962, Piero Manzoni canned his own feces—90 cans, each with 30 grams of contents. At that time, Manzoni priced his work per the price of gold according to weight (about $33 per can). In 2007, one of those cans set new auction records, fetching over $150,000 Does status derive from the absurdity, branding, scarcity, [...]

The fictional Dr. House may be the world’s foremost medical diagnostic but he refuses to conform to any authority or convention. Dr. House is famous for wearing blue jeans and frat boy t-shirts while his colleagues wear ties and slacks and he openly rebels against authority. Despite breaking all the rules, House goes about his [...]

This image is from Flickr user Cliff1066 and listed as Creative Commons This is described as a cannibal “war trophy”. Status is an achievement made ornamental.

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