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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 [...]

Barnet Newman paintings Image Licensed under Creative Commons with attribution rights by flickr user Joethelion There are those that wonder how a simple line painted on canvas came to be considered one of the modern world’s greatest artistic achievements. There is something pleasing about the shear simplicity of it. Nevertheless, this gentle quality is overshadowed [...]

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 [...]

When I think about “upper-class” in terms of western culture I think of certain sports. Indeed, forget money because class is a matter of activity, right? I do not believe there is anything innate about these sports that make them upper-class other than association and history. An important aspect of these sports is that many [...]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI58wj4b4g0 Dos Equis Beer’s advertising campaign portrays “the most interesting man in the world.” Is this man the quintessential gentleman? He is sporting, adventurous, casually well dressed, slight European accent… “People hang on his every word, even the propositions.” “He could disarm you with his looks or his hands, either way.” “He can speak French [...]

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 [...]

Aesthetics deserve greater considerations in examining status phenomena. Status objects are often pleasing to the eye, but other status behaviors (if not all) exhibit an ideal form—an ideal etiquette, an ideal ethic, an ideal crowd, ideal taste, etc… Even the non-conformist conceives an ideal society.

Beautifulpeople.com is a social networking/dating site for beautiful people where members vote in applicants according to perceived beauty. The site is known for occasionally terminating membership when members fail to live up to standards. Does social status have an aesthetic or derive from aesthetics? Here we have in-group dynamics and crowd aesthetics.

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