Every social group has a pecking order, and those higher on the ladder reap the benefits of respect, money, and freedom. Alain de Botton, in his book Status Anxiety, defines status as “one’s value and importance in the eyes of the world.” Status is what your peers think of you, whether they hold you in esteem or contempt, and the privileges that accord from this position. Status is a powerful tool that reveals the values and assumptions shared by a group; it shows power dynamics and the limits of egalitarian ideals. Yet what’s considered high status differs from context to context: an individual can have high status in one context and low status in another. The TechCrunch employee believed that his job granted him high status, but this meant nothing to the bouncer, a hired hand who was not a member of the tech community and thus did not share this opinion. I was virtually unknown in the scene, but my roommate was popular and well connected. In this case, the social capital accrued by being “in the know” garnered more weight than self-important blustering.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 171